n putting
that I vary it in the least, and then the change is so slight as to be
scarcely noticeable. The photographs (Plates II., III., IV., and V.)
illustrating the grip of the left hand singly, and of the two together
from different points of view, should now be closely examined.

It will be seen at once that I do not grasp the club across the palm of
either hand. The club being taken in the left hand first, the shaft
passes from the knuckle joint of the first finger across the ball of the
second. The left thumb lies straight down the shaft--that is to say, it
is just to the left of the centre of the shaft. But the following are
the significant features of the grip. The right hand is brought up so
high that the palm of it covers over the left thumb, leaving very little
of the latter to be seen. The first and second fingers of the right hand
just reach round to the thumb of the left, and the third finger
completes the overlapping process, so that the club is held in the grip
as if it were in a vice. The little finger of the right hand rides on
the first finger of the left. The great advantage of this grip is that
both hands feel and act like one, and if, even while sitting in his
chair, a player who has never tried it before will take a stick in his
hands in the manner I have described, he must at once be convinced that
there is a great deal in what I say for it, although, of course, if he
has been accustomed to the two V's, the success of my grip cannot be
guaranteed at the first trial. It needs some time to become thoroughly
happy with it.

We must now consider the degree of tightness of the grip by either hand,
for this is an important matter. Some teachers of golf and various books
of instruction inform us that we should grasp the club firmly with the
left hand and only lightly with the right, leaving the former to do the
bulk of the work and the other merely to guide the operations. It is
astonishing with what persistency this error has been repeated, for
error I truly believe it is. Ask any really first-class player with what
comparative tightness he holds the club in his right and left hands, and
I am confident that in nearly every case he will declare that he holds
it nearly if not quite as tightly with the right hand as with the left.
Personally I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as with the other
one. When the other way is adopted, the left hand being tight and the
right hand simply watching it, as