IMPROVING AT GOLF

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 5 January 1927, Page 6

IMPROVING AT GOLF

VALUE OF COMPETITIONS (By Harry Vardon, Six Times Oiien Champion.) The mental attitude towards golf is unquestionably an important factor in tho player's progress, or lack of progress, at the Kartie. People there may be who cannot bring their temperaments under control. I once had a pupil who, after having been counselled many times not to swing back so furiously fast, said with an exasperation as impetuous as his up-lake of the club:—"l've been quick at everything all my life, and you can go to the Blue Alsatian mountains (or to that effect) if you want to make hie slow how."

But most people can be induced to master hot-headed instincts in tho links. There are times when every one' of us, champion or long-handicap player, has to face a moiy than' ordinarily important situation at golf. These occasions occur frequently in competitions', which constitute as fine a course of steps towards improvement as any in which the golfer can engage. The first thing that matters in such circumstances is" the frame of mind in which the player approaches the shots. Decisive independence of thought is a vital necessity. As ho walks up to his ball, he observes the kind of stroke that is needed. If, at this stage, he begins to think about alternative methods or to pay too inueh attention to the well-meant advice, of a caddie, the chances are that he will become confused. And then his nerve will g °' . . CRITICAL PUTTS

Let me tell a little story illustrating the. value of what we may call an undivided mind. In the first championship I ever won (and the first is by far the hardest to win I I had to play off with J. H. Taylor at Muirfield for the title. We had tied in the competition proper. Nearing tho end, it was still a question as to who would triumph and cti the seventeenth green I was faced by a long putt which had to be played over undulating ground. Immediately I decided just which slopes I should take in order to reach the hole.

My brother Tom, who was carrying for me, pointed out a line which was entirely different from that which I fancied. It was a critical putt, for if it went the wrong way, the. ball might start off a slope and finish a considerable distance from the hole. I had the profoundest respect for my brother's gifts as a putter (there have been few better than Tom on the green), but I did not want to be shaken at this stage. "No" I said, "I'm going my own way." The putt was holed, and it practically settled the championship. Just cussedness, perhaps, but it is a useful trait in the golfer. I have seen men almost trembling with excitement at the critical point in a contest, and yet possessed of such command over themselves as to observe at once the bast thing to do and to play the shot perfectly,. For the great majority of persons, it is in connection with short putts that nerves attain their most painful activity. There is nothing else, in spcrt quite like the short putt at golf. You know that there can be no reasonable excuse for failing to knock a ball into a hole four feet distant, and yet that there is a considerable chance of failing. Here, perhaps, I may be permitted to remark, that the higher the reputation of tho player, and the more, therefore, that is expected of him, the greater are the trials of the short putt.. For all the skill that it requires, he has no advanage over the 24-handicap man, and he realises that, if he misses it, there will be no chance of recovery. It will be a hole lost or a stroke gone.

FORGETTING THE RIVAL The best frame of mind for a competition is one in which the player sets out with the quiet resolve to accomplish the shots just as he would do in a friendly round on an odd afternoon—-to concentrate on his own game rather than to watch his rival.

I must confess that, every now and again, it is difficult. When J. H. Taylor and I fought out the finish of the open championship at Prestwick in 1914, a "nerve-jump" in my right arm that had disappeared for months suddenly reasserted itself. We were coupled on the last day. He was as well aware as I that if the distress became serious I could miss putts down to six inches; it was strange' to be walking along obsessed with the thought that not the smallest inkling of this development must be allowed to reach Taylor's ears lest it should stimulate him tyr believe, as almost certainly it would have done, that he had me as good as beaten. Perhaps it was just this diversion from the knowledge of the possibilities of the "jump" itself that enabled me practically to overcome it and to struggle home first. Asa test of nerve that last day's play at Prestwick was far and away the most trying that I remember. I know I played one shot without seeing the ball at all. It was buried in fine, loose sand in a bunker to the left of the eleventh green, and close to the face of a hazard. The sand was scraped away from the top of the ball, but it was so loose that it closed over the object again. I could not wait; I swung, guessing and hoping, .and-was fortunate enough to hit the shot all right. , That was an exceptional occasion. In the ordinary way, I bear constantly in mind the conviction that the best way to win an important event is to play just as one would play a private round at home, and not endeavour to accom : plish the performance of a life-time. There is such a thing as trying too hard. It begets anxiety, which is usually fatal. I was guilty of it in the United States open championship at Brooklyn, Massachusetts, in 1913, and paid the penalty. That was a lesson I shall never forget.