match-play competitions, do not get into the way of
thinking that your chance is hopeless just because your opponent becomes
two or three up on you, or even more than that, early in the game; and,
above all, do not alter your style of play in consequence. Nothing pays
like your own best and steadiest game and a stolid indifference to all
the brilliant things that your opponent is doing. It is unlikely that he
will keep on doing them all through the game, and when the reaction
comes you will speedily make up the leeway. There are many ups and downs
in a game of golf; and when the players are at all evenly matched, and
neither has lost his head, early differences have a way of regulating
themselves before the game is very far advanced. No doubt it is
disconcerting to be three down after only three have been played; but
are there not fifteen still to come? But it often appears that an even
greater danger awaits the inexperienced golfer than that of funk when
things are going against him, in that he is too frequently apt to become
careless when he has obtained a trifling advantage. Never slacken your
efforts when you are two or three holes up, but continue to play with
all your might and with an extreme of cautiousness until at last you are
one more up than there are holes still to play, for not until then are
you sure of victory. When a man has once held a good lead, but by
playing carelessly has allowed his opponent to get on level terms with
him again, the moral effect upon him is usually extremely bad. When this
has happened he is inclined to regard himself not as still on equal
terms with his opponent, but as having suffered a great loss and being
in grave danger of defeat. And this feeling is the prelude to actual
defeat and the bitter self-accusations that must inevitably follow. I
may have seemed to labour these simple points, but every old golfer will
bear me out in saying that a proper regard for the essence of this
advice is the first necessity for the man who covets honours in the
golfing world.

I say that all golf is the same, and no matter whether it is match or
medal play, the simple object is to hole out each time in the fewest
number of strokes; but the fact that a single bad hole counts far more
heavily against you in a medal round, where all the strokes are added
together at the finish, than in match play, where the bad hole is simply
one of eighteen, and in which there is only one man to be beaten, of