earning to play the great game of golf,
each of which enjoys its share of patronage. Here as elsewhere, there
are, of course, the two broad divisions into which the methods of doing
all things are in the first instance classed--the right way and the
wrong way--and, generally speaking, the wrong way has proved the more
popular and is accountable for much of the very bad golf that one sees
almost every day upon the links. There are two mistakes to which the
beginner is much addicted, and to them is due the unhappy circumstance
that in so many cases he never gets his club handicap down to single
figures. Before he has ever played golf in his life, but at that
interesting period when he has made up his mind to do so, and has bought
his first set of clubs, he is still inclined to make the same error that
is made by so many people who know nothing of the game, and loftily
remark that they do not want to know anything--that it is too absurdly
simple to demand serious thought or attention, and can surely need no
special pains in learning to play. Is not the ball quite still on the
tee before you, and all that is necessary being to hit it, surely the
rest is but a question of strength and accuracy of aim? Well, we need
not waste time in discussing the opinions of the scoffers outside, or in
submitting that there never was a game less easy to learn than golf. But
the man who has been converted to golf most frequently has a vestige of
this superstition of his heathen days lingering with him, and thus at
the outset he is not inclined to waste any time, as he would say, in
tuition, particularly as it happens that these new converts when quite
fresh are invariably most delightfully enthusiastic. They have promised
themselves a new sensation, and they are eager to get on to the links
and see how much further than the two hundred yards that they have heard
about they can drive at the first attempt or two. Then comes the
inevitable disappointment, the despair, the inclination to give it up,
and finally the utter abject despondency which represents the most
miserable state on earth of the golfer, in which he must be closely
watched lest he should commit murder upon the beautiful set of clubs of
which at the beginning he was so proud, and which he spent his evenings
in brightening to the degree that they resembled the family plate. Then
after this passage through purgatory come the first gleams of hope, when
two holes in succession have bee