ADVICE TO GOLFERS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17033, 5 May 1923, Page 2 (Supplement)

ADVICE TO GOLFERS.

PRACTICE MADE EASY. (Written for the “Star.”) A good deal of attention has been drawn to the question of golf practice as distinct from the playing of golf matches. It is said that in America, practising the golf shots is infinitely more common than it is in England. The general conclusion is that that is the reason why the Americans are now sitting on the golf boxaeat at the present moment. There cannot be the slightest doubt as to the value of practice. If the player would devote only a few hours a month to it, or half an hour a- week, the improvement in her form would astonish her. Take out, say, two clubs, if you can only spare a little time for practice. Let them be the brassie and mid-iron. Go to a quiet corner of the links where you will not be flurried, or disturbed, and where, if you cut a divot, it can be replaced without anybody else having to suffer for the excavation. Have half a- dozen old and clean balls, so that if vow lose one you will not gviev*

about it. Start your practice driving with the brassie, using as low a tee as you feel you can face with confidence. In playing half a dozen practice allots from a tee.'you can fix upon the fault that vou commit most frequently, and recollecting the lessons you have had, try to remedy it. Perhaps it is “topping” that proves to be the fault. iou may be straightening the body as you hit, or lifting the arms up towards tlie chest, a frequent mistake, born of a fear that there is hardly room for the club to go through and that it will strike- the ground be hind the ball. Be sure to keep your head down, unci remember that if the club has had r.Pom to go back, there will be room for it to come forward You may be “ slicing.” Perhaps you are beginning to turn the body at ch*.hips lor the down swing before you start to bring the club down. This will always cause the club to be thrown forward too sharply, with the consequence that it descends in a track which, at its farthest point, is outside the line of the shot that you wisn to make. You thus draw the club in towards you as you hit. which means that the club face is drawn across the bail, anti imparts slice-spin to it. If you are putting, perhaps you are gripping too tightly with one hand or the other, or turning the right hand over at the moment of impact. The former is a common fault, for the left hand, if it clutches the club too vigorously, will drag the right hand over. while a grip with the right hand that is too strong will tend in itself to turn in the toe ot the club at the instant of striking. All these points can be studied during half an hour of solo practice, and if you spend equal time with the brassie and mid-iron, you will most certainly discover more about the wav to obtain the best results than in the course of a dozen rounds. Tlie above-mentioned clubs are the best for practice purpose, because in their fundamental principles they stand for all the clubs in the two branches of the famih , wood and iron. If at some other time you can spare a quarter of an hour for the ivashie. and a similar period for the putter, it will be greatly to your advantage. Mashie practice can be made interest ing by aiming to pitch over a bush from graduated distances, from 40 yards to 100. Most people who have started it expecting to be bored, have found a lure in ascertaining how many balls out'' of a dozen they can lay a loot of the hole from points all round the green. And it is good to pjay even those foots putts, carefully and methodically, in preparation for the day when you mav have to hole such important trifles in a medal competition.