ood recovery, is at least on level terms with another who is in
trouble not quite so frequently but who suffers terribly when he is. The
golden rule--I say it once again--is to make certain of getting out; but
now that I have sufficiently emphasised this point, I am ready to
consider those few occasions when it appears a little weak and
unsatisfactory. Certainly there are times, as we all know, when the
enemy, having had matters his own way at a hole, it will not be of the
slightest use merely to scramble out of a bunker in one stroke. The case
is so desperate that a stroke that will carry the ball for perhaps 100
or 120 yards is called for. Such a necessity does not affect my rule as
to making certain of getting out, for in practical golf one cannot take
any serious account of emergencies of this kind. But there are times
when every player must either attempt the shot that most frequently
baffles his superiors, or forthwith give up the hole, and it is not in
human nature to cave in while the faintest spark of hope remains. In
thus attempting the impossible, or the only dimly possible, we are
sometimes led even to take the brassy in a bunker. In a case of this
sort, of course, everything depends on the lie of the ball and its
distance from the face of the bunker. When it is a shallow pot bunker,
the shot is often practicable, and sometimes when one is bunkered on a
seaside course the hazard is so wide that there is time for the ball to
rise sufficiently to clear the obstruction. But the average bunker on an
inland course, say four feet high with only six feet of sand before it,
presents few such loopholes for escape. The difficulty of playing a shot
from a bunker when any club other than the niblick, such as the brassy,
is chosen with the object of obtaining length by hitting the ball clean,
is obviously increased by the rule which prohibits the grounding of the
club in addressing. To be on the safe side, the sole of the club is
often kept fully an inch and a half above the sand when the address is
being made, and this inch and a half has to be corrected down to an
eighth in the forward swing, for of all shots that must be taken
accurately this one so full of difficulty must be. In making his
correction the man is very likely to overdo it and strike the sand
before the ball, causing a sclaff, or, on the other hand, not to correct
sufficiently when the only possible result would be a topped ball and
probably a hopeless pos