DON’T LOOK UP

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLV, Issue 21088, 14 July 1938, Page 5

DON’T LOOK UP

Average Player’s Hardest Task What P. B. Lucas Thinks It is always worth listening to a successful man or woman. The other night at dinner I was sitting next to a fellow whose ability has enabled him to become a consulting surgeon in Harley Street. He said: “One of the golden rales of good health is to get up from a meal feeling you could have eaten a bit more." When you and I go out to practise with a dozen balls (if ever) our golden rale must be to come in feeling that we could have put in another half-hour writes P. B. Lucas in “Tire Sunday Express." In our determination to cure a fault we are apt to go on hitting ball after ball until we become so tired that we are almost incapable of swinging the club at all. Cotton’s Theory That kind of practice does you not one atom of good and a lot of harm. Some one may tell you in heroic tones

that he has just practised for two and a half hours. The answer to him is that he is a something fool. Henry Cotton never gives a lesson of more than half an hour, because he says that no one can “take it" for a longer period. I am a staunch supporter of practice for without it you cannot begin to improve. There was a time when I thought nothing of three hours’ “hard” on the practice ground, but it was arrant foolishness. However, if it were not for our mistakes and crossword puzzles there would be no sale for those pencils with rubbers on the end. But one serious word. If you can afford it, practise with a caddie. You can then try hitting your shots without looking up to see where the ball has gone. And that is just about the hardest thing in golf. John Henry Taylor often used to tread down his divot mark before he looked up to see whether his iron shot had finished on the green.

And do remember that forty-five minutes of intelligent practice is worth hours of casual and aimless slogging.