[Dark Saint Alaick]

Curiously enough, many of our best players are extremely mechanical in
their play. They play beautiful and accurate shots, but they have no
idea how or why they produce them; and the strange thing about it is
that although golf is perhaps as mechanical a game as there is, those
who play it mechanically only get the husk of it. They miss the soul
of the game.

Golf is really one of the simplest of outdoor games, if not indeed the
simplest, and it does not require much intelligence; yet it is quite
one of the most difficult to play well, for it demands the greatest
amount of mechanical accuracy. This, on consideration, is apparent.
The ball is the smallest ball we use, the striking face of the club is
the smallest thing used in field sports for hitting a ball, and, most
important, perhaps, of all, it is farther away from the eye than any
other ball-striking implement, except, perhaps, the polo stick, in
which game we, of course, have a much larger ball and striking
surface.

In all games of skill, and in all sports where the object is
propelling anything to a given point, one always tries, almost
instinctively, to get the eye as much in a line with the ball or
missile and the objective point as possible. This is seen in throwing
a stone, aiming a catapult, a gun, or an arrow, in cueing at a
billiard ball, and in many other ways, but in golf it is
impracticable. The player must make his stroke with his eye anywhere
from four to six feet away from his little club face. One may say that
this is so in hockey, cricket, and lawn-tennis. So, in a modified
degree, it is, but the great difference is that in all these games
there is an infinitely larger margin of error than there is in golf.
At these games a player may be yards off his intended line and yet
play a fine stroke, to the applause of the onlookers; while he alone
knew that it was accident and not design.