himself from the desire to be fully equipped with a "complete outfit" at
the very beginning of his career. Let him buy as few clubs as possible,
knowing that it is quite likely that not one of those which he purchases
at this stage will hold a place in his bag a year or two later. As he
can have no ideas at all upon the subject, he should leave the entire
selection of his first bag to some competent adviser, and he will not
generally find such an adviser behind the counter at a general athletic
outfitting establishment in the town or city, which too often is the
direction in which he takes his steps when he has decided to play the
game. In these stores the old and practised golfer may often pick up a
good club at a trifling cost; but the beginner would be more likely to
furnish himself with a set which would be poor in themselves and quite
unsuited for his purpose.

The proper place for him to go to is the professional's shop which is
attached to the club of which he has become a member. Nearly all clubs
have their own professionals, who are makers and sellers of clubs, and I
know no professional who is not thoroughly conscientious in this part of
his business. It pays him to give the completest satisfaction to his
clients, and particularly to the members of his own club. This
professional is also a first-class golfer, who knows all, or nearly all,
that there is to be known about the game, and who in his time has had
imposed upon him the difficult task of teaching hundreds of beginners
their first steps in golf. Thus he knows better than any man the erratic
tendencies of the golfing initiate and the best means of counteracting
them. Experience has given him the faculty for sizing up the golfing
points of the tyro almost at the first glance, and therefore he can
supply him at the beginning with those clubs with which certainly he
will have most chance of success. He will suit his height and his build
and his reach, and he will take care that the clubs in the set which he
makes up are in harmony with each other and will have that lie which
will best suit the player who is to use them. And even though, when the
beginner gathers knowledge of the game and finds out his own
style--which neither he nor the professional can determine in
advance--some of them may gradually become unsuitable to him, they are
nevertheless likely to be in themselves good clubs.

A beginner may at the outset limit himself to the purchase of six new