lies far ahead of the tee just at
the distance of a good drive, beats in trouble when there are but thirty
inches of smooth even turf to be run over before the play of the hole is
ended. I am reminded of a story of Andrew Kirkaldy, who in his young
days once carried for a young student of divinity who was most painfully
nervous on the putting greens, and repeatedly lost holes in consequence.
When Andrew could stand this reckless waste of opportunities no longer,
he exclaimed to his employer, "Man, this is awfu' wark. Ye're dreivin'
like a roarin' lion and puttin' like a puir kittlin'." But the men whose
occupations are of the philosophical and peaceful kind are not the only
ones who may be fairly likened to Andrew's "puir kittlin'" when there
are short putts to be holed. Is there not the famous case of the
Anglo-Indian sportsman, one of the mightiest of hunters, who feared
nothing like the hole when it lay so near to him that his tears of agony
might almost have fallen into it? It was this man who declared, "I have
encountered all the manifold perils of the jungle, I have tracked the
huge elephant to his destruction, and I have stood eye to eye with the
man-eating tiger. And never once have I trembled until I came to a short
putt." Yet with such facts as these before us, some people still wonder
wherein lies the fascination of golf. How often does it happen that an
inch on the putting green is worth more than a hundred yards in the
drive, and that the best of players are confounded by this circumstance?
It is very nearly true, as Willie Park has so often said, that the man
who can putt need fear nobody. Certainly a player can never be really
great until he is nearly always certain to hole out in two putts on the
green, and to get down a few in one. The approach stroke has been well
played when the ball comes to rest within four or five feet of the pin,
but what is the use of that unless the ball is to be putted out more
often than not in one more stroke?

For the proper playing of the other strokes in golf, I have told my
readers to the best of my ability how they should stand and where they
should put their feet. But except for the playing of particular strokes,
which come within the category of those called "fancy," I have no
similar instruction to offer in the matter of putting. There is no rule,
and there is no best way. Sometimes you see a player bend down and hold
the putter right out in front of him with both wri