obvious that you cannot pitch over it. From such a distance
your own ball could not be made to clear the other one and drop again
in time to fall into the tin. But, when an examination of the situation
makes it clear that there is really space enough to pitch over and get
into the hole, take the most lofted club in your bag--either a highly
lofted mashie or even a niblick--and when making the little pitch shot
that is demanded, apply cut to the ball in the way I have already
directed, and aim to the left-hand side of the tin. The stroke should be
very short and quick, the blade of the club not passing through a space
of more than nine inches or a foot. The cut will make the ball lift
quickly, and, with the spin upon it, it is evident that the left-hand
side of the hole is the proper one to play to. Everything depends upon
the measurements of the situation as to whether you ought to pitch right
into the hole or to pitch short and run in, but in any case you should
pitch close up, and in a general way four or five inches would be a fair
distance to ask the ball to run. When your own ball is many yards away
from the hole, and the one that makes the stymie is also far from it as
well as far from yours, a pitch shot seems very often to be either
inadequate or impossible. Usually it will be better to aim at going very
near to the stymie with the object of getting up dead, making quite
certain at the same time that you do not bungle the whole thing by
hitting the other ball, or else to play to the left with much cut, so
that with a little luck you may circle into the hole. Evidently the
latter would be a somewhat hazardous stroke to make.

There is one other way of attacking a stymie, and that is by the
application of the run-through method, when the ball in front of you is
on the edge of the hole and your own is very close to it--only just
outside the six inches limit that makes the stymie. If the balls are
much more than a foot apart, the "follow-through method" of playing
stymies is almost certain to fail. This system is nothing more than the
follow-through shot at billiards, and the principles upon which the
strokes in the two games are made are much the same. Hit your own ball
very high up,--that is to say, put all the top and run on it that you
can, and strike the other ball fairly in the centre and fairly hard. The
object is to knock the stymie right away over the hole, and to follow
through with your own and drop in. I