be to all beginners to
disregard the advice that I am about to offer them; but before
proceeding any further I will invite them to take the opinion of any old
golfer who, chiefly through a careless beginning (he knows that this is
the cause), has missed his way in the golfer's life, and is still
plodding away as near the limit handicap as he was at the beginning.
The beginner may perhaps be disposed to rely more upon the statement of
this man of experience and disappointment than on that of the
professional, who is too often suspected of having his own ends in view
whenever he gives advice. Let the simple question be put to him whether,
if he could be given the chance of doing it all over again from the
beginning, he would not sacrifice the first three or six months of play
to diligent study of the principles of the game, and the obtaining of
some sort of mastery over each individual shot under the careful
guidance of a skilled tutor, not attempting during this time a single
complete round with all his clubs in action, and refusing all
temptations to play a single match--whether he would not undergo this
slow and perhaps somewhat tedious period of learning if he could be
almost certain of being able at the end of it to play a really good game
of golf, and now at this later period of his career to have a handicap
much nearer the scratch mark than his existing one is to the border-line
between the senior and the junior? I am confident that in the great
majority of cases, looking back on his misspent golfing youth, he would
answer that he would cheerfully do all this learning if he could begin
again at the beginning. Now, of course, it is too late, for what is once
learned can only with extreme difficulty be unlearned, and it is almost
impossible to reform the bad style and the bad habits which have taken
root and been cultivated in the course of many years; and if it were
possible it would be far more difficult than it would have been to learn
the game properly at the beginning.

My earnest advice to the beginner is to undergo this slow process of
tuition for nothing less than three months, and preferably more. It is a
very long time, I know, and it may seem painfully tedious work, simply
knocking a ball backwards and forwards for all those months; but if he
does not accept my suggestion he will have harder things to try his
patience during many years afterwards, while, if he takes my advice, he
may be down very near to s