to play badly.

So I advise every golfer to get hold of the game stroke by stroke, and
never be too ambitious at the commencement. I have heard it stated on
very good authority that when Mr. Balfour first began to play he
submitted himself to very much the same process of tuition as that which
I am about to advise, and that under the guidance of Tom Dunn he
actually spent a miserable fortnight in bunkers only, learning how to
get out of them from every possible position. The right honourable
gentleman must have saved hundreds of strokes since then as the result
of that splendid experience, trying as it must have been. He is in these
days a very good and steady player, and he might be still better if
parliamentary cares did not weigh so heavily upon him. I may humbly
suggest that the way in which he began to play golf was characteristic
of his wisdom.

Therefore, when the golfer has become possessed of his first set of
clubs, let him proceed to the shop of a good professional
player--presumably it will be the shop where he bought his clubs--and
let him place himself unreservedly in the hands of this expert in the
game. Most professionals are good players and good teachers, and the
golfer cannot go far wrong in this matter if he allows himself to be
guided by his own instincts. I say that he should place himself
unreservedly in this man's hands; but in case it should be necessary I
would make one exception to this stipulation. If he thinks well of my
advice and desires to do the thing with the utmost thoroughness from the
beginning, he may request that for the first lesson or two no ball may
be put upon the ground at which to practise swings. The professional is
sure to agree that this is the best way, though he encounters so few
beginners who are prepared to make all the sacrifices that I have
suggested, that he might have hesitated in recommending this course of
procedure himself.

A golfer's swing is often made for good or ill in the first week of his
experience. His first two days of practice may be of the greatest
importance in fashioning his style. If, when he takes his first lesson
or two and makes his first few swings, he has a ball on the ground
before him which he is trying to hit, all his thoughts will be
concentrated on what appears to him to be the necessity of hitting
it--hitting it at any cost. No matter what he has been told about the
way to swing, he will forget it all in this moment of anxiety, and sw