[Dark Saint Alaick]

The importance of removing this stupid idea will be more fully
appreciated when one remembers that quite half the game of golf is
played on the green, leaving the other half to be distributed among
all the other clubs. It is well to emphasise this. A good score for
almost any eighteen-hole course is 72. The man who can count on
getting down in an average of 2 is a very good putter. Many
professionals would throw away their putters if they were allowed to
consider it down in 2 every time. This gives us 36 for puts. With this
before us we cannot exaggerate the pernicious effect of the false
doctrine which says that putting cannot be taught, that a man must
just let his own individuality have full play, and similar nonsense;
whereas the truth is that one might safely guarantee to convert into
admirable putters many men who, from their conformation and other
characteristics, would be almost hopeless as golfers. I must emphasise
the fact that there is no department of the game which is so important
as putting; there is no department of the game more capable of being
clearly and easily demonstrated by an intelligent teacher; and there
is no department of the game wherein the player may be so nearly
reduced to that machine-like accuracy which is the constant demand,
and no small portion of the charm, of golf.

Another very widely worshipped fetich, which has been much damaged
recently, is the sweep in driving a ball. Trying "to sweep" his ball
away for two hundred yards has reduced many a promising player to
almost a suicidal frame of mind. Fortunately the fallacy soon
exasperates a beginner, and he "says things" and "lets it have it."
Then the much-worshipped "sweep" becomes a hit, sometimes a very
vicious one, and the ball goes away from the club as it was meant to.
It is becoming more widely recognised every day that the golf-drive is
a hit, and a very fine one--when well played.