lf-way along its course, and yet, at the last instant, when they make
the stroke their nerve and resolution seem to fail them, and they point
the ball but a few inches up the slope, with the result that before it
reaches the hole it goes running away on the other side and comes to a
standstill anything but dead. Putting practice on undulating greens is
very valuable, not so much because it teaches the golfer exactly what
allowance he should make in various cases, but because it helps by
experience to give him the courage of his convictions. It is impossible
to give any directions as to the precise allowance that should be made,
for the simple reason that this varies in every case. The length of the
putt, the degree of slope, and the speed of the green, are all
controlling factors. The amount of borrow, as we term it, that must be
taken from the side of any particular slope is entirely a matter of
mathematical calculation, and the problem will be solved to satisfaction
most frequently by the man who trains himself to make an accurate and
speedy analysis of the controlling factors in the limited amount of time
available for the purpose. The putt is difficult enough when there is a
pronounced slope all the way from one particular side, but the question
is much more puzzling when it is first one and then the other and then
perhaps a repetition of one or both. To begin with, there may be a slope
of fifteen degrees from the right, so the ball must go away to the
right. But a couple of yards further on this slope may be transformed
into one of thirty degrees the other way, and after a short piece of
level running the original slope, but now at twenty degrees, is reverted
to. What in the name of golf is the line that must be taken in a
tantalising case of this kind? It is plain that the second slope if it
lasts as long as the first one more than neutralises it, being steeper,
so that instead of borrowing from the first one we must start running
down it in order to tackle the second one in good time. But the third
slope again, to some extent, though not entirely, neutralises the
second, and this entirely upsets the calculation which only included the
first two. It is evident that the first and third hold the advantage
between them, and that in such a case as this we should send the ball
on its journey with a slight borrow from the first incline with which it
had to contend. As I have just said, in these complicated cases it is a
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