KEY TO GOLF SUCCESS

Evening Star, Issue 19274, 12 June 1926, Page 18

KEY TO GOLF SUCCESS

WHY AMERICANS PUTT WELL [Written by Harry Vardon, for the 1 Evening Star.’] Why is it that Americans putt so well P We are constantly being told, and, I fear, with a great deal of truth, that they beat us at the gentle art of holing out from short range—anything from three yards to three feet, or less. The situation is the same in the humbler walks of the game, which are frequented by the hundreds of thousands of handicap players as in" those circles that have witnessed the defeats of Britain bv the United States in the team match -Between amateurs representing the two countries, and the overthrow of the British professionals by the American professionals in the open championship. Why is it that in a game which calls for power and accuracy in driving and the high-water mark of skill in the playing of iron shots—departments in which there is nothing to choose between the best golfers of the old and new worlds—America should establish supremacy by reason of her superiority at what I heard one famous player describe as “this fiddling about round the holes ” P One of my friends—a keen golfer and a good one too—has returned from a visit to the United States with the explanation. He says that the secret of it is the popularity of the game in that country. It is a well-thought-out theory._ Ho scouts the idea that the Americans have a better temperament than ours for putting, or that they derive an abiding confidence in their own ability to hole out from the circumstance that they can always strike the ball boldly on greens which are allowed to possess a richer nap of grass than ours, and present a perfectly level surface for two yards round the hole, whatever may ho the undulations for long putts. He declares that the Americans would be just as deadly if they had keen, closely-shaven greens and tricky little slopes near the hole, such as are often found in Britain. They would conquer the conditions by sheer force of circumstances. That is the substance of his observations. THE ONLY WAY.

He points out .that the game has such an enormous following in tho United Stattes that on tho popular playing days it is no uncommon thing to have to wait two or three hours for a starting-tome, What happens is that the players betake themselves to the putting course during tho long waits before starting, and there engage in putting matches by the hour. Thera is nothing more exciting to do. To be sure, they might sit in the club-house, but an American clubhouse is not tho abode of conviviality that it used to be. How could it he when it has to do its host to carry out the laws of a land that has voted for being dry? So tho disadvantage of having to wait a long while to start, with nothing amusing to do during the delay, has becomo an asset to American golfers. They go _ and practise putting on courses designed for the purpose. Almost every club in this country has a putting course, hut to Bee anybody on it is an event. Somebody once described driving as a knack, approaching as an art, and putting as an inspiration, and ninety-nine out of every hundred golfers here have since trusted to the inspiration, I believe that Sir Ernest Holderness practises putting diligently on his bedroom carpet, Willie Park—tho man who, more than any other golfer I have seen, looked certain to lay a long putt at tho hole-side, or get down from a distance of several feet —has related how he used to cultivate the art every night with the aid of candle-light in a tumble-down shanty. Moreover, he always played at_a hole of less than thb regulation size, so that tho real one should seem generously big when ho had to get tho ball into it. A MARTYR. Hie fact remains, however, that scarcely one golfer in every hundred in Britain seriously practises putting. Even the professionals, „to whom success at the game is the road to fortune, are usually disinclined to engage in this form of preparation. They would rather take their chance, and some—as, for example, Sidney Wingate, who has boon very nearly tho best professional player in tho north of England during the past few years—say frankly that they do nob believe in it, and will not engage in it. In recent times the most notable example of practice making perfect on tho greens has been provided by George Gadd. Just before he won his first big tournament, ho said that his putting had improved 60 per cent, as a result of an hour’s practice a day (or six weeks. I believe that ho had to be goaded into it. Lieutenant-colonel C. D. Miller, the once-famons polo player, who is managing director at Roohampton, where Gadd is golf professional, excited this enterprise. When, a long while afterwards, I talked to Gadd about it, ho could not bo induced to say that he liked it. Certainly, however, he went through with it like a martyr, and it appears to have conferred a lasting benefit on his game. Devout students of putting being rare in Britain, one has to mako tho most of the experiences of those who have worked at this department of tho game; and I beiiovo it is tho finding of both Sir Ernest Holderness and Gadd that tho best practice is to be obtained on a green perfectly fiat instead of ono with undulations. The reason is that, on a level surface, the player can decide definitely and immediately whether he is slicing or pulling his putt; whereas, on a surface of slopes, he is left wondering. Gadd purged his system of putting sins by carrying out his six weeks’ practice on what was once a croquet fawn. Duncan is another who has proved the value of putting practice. He stuck at it for hours at a stretch on the putting course at Timperlcy, and oven made a success of a method that was seemingly bad.