rned to make this the last word about the cut
because it is the essence of the stroke, and it calls for what a young
player may well regard as an almost hopeless nicety of perfection.

There is another little approach shot which is usually called the chip
on to the green, but which is really nothing but the pitch and run on a
very small scale. It is used when the ball has only just failed to
reach the green, or has gone beyond it, and is lying in the rougher
grass only a very few yards from the edge of it. It often happens in
cases of this sort that the putter may be ventured upon, but when that
is too risky a little pitch is given to the ball and it is allowed to
run the last three or four yards to the hole. An ordinary iron will
often be found the most useful club for the purpose.

Latterly a new kind of club has become fashionable in some quarters for
approaching. They call it the jigger, and, having a longer blade than
the ordinary mashie, its users argue that it is easier to play with.
That may be true to a certain extent when the ball is lying nicely, but
we are not always favoured with this good fortune, and I have no
hesitation in saying that for inferior or cuppy lies the jigger is a
very ineffectual instrument. The long head cannot get into the cups, and
the accuracy that is always called for in approaching is made
impossible. If a jigger must be carried in the bag, it should be merely
as an auxiliary to the ordinary mashie.

Such are the shots with the mashie, and glad is the man who has mastered
all of them, for he is then a golfer of great pretensions, who is to be
feared by any opponent at any time or place.

CHAPTER XII

ON BEING BUNKERED

The philosopher in a bunker--On making certain of getting out--The
folly of trying for length--When to play back--The qualities of the
niblick--Stance and swing--How much sand to take--The time to
press--No follow-through in a bunker--Desperate cases--The brassy
in a bunker--Difficulties through prohibited grounding--Play
straight when length is imperative--Cutting with the niblick.

This is a hateful subject, but one which demands the most careful and
unprejudiced consideration, for are not even the best of us bunkered
almost daily? There is nothing like the bunkers on a golf links for
separating the philosophic from the unphilosophic among a golfing crowd,
and when a representative of each section is in a bunker at the same