Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/200

Rh of old clubs, it has seemed to me obvious that the modern player requires altogether more powerful, heavier, and stiffer clubs than our forefathers did. He cultivates the art of distance more than was the case formerly, he is always trying to be up in two strokes, where the older player would be content to be within lofting distance for his third shot. Perhaps the newer links have been laid out to encourage this method. Sandwich, for instance, which ranks as high as any English links, seems to have been specially laid out to promote the interests of the long driver, and St. Andrews, perhaps more than formerly, seems to be laid out not only to encourage long driving, but long second shots as well. If this is the case, it would seem natural to infer that the scientific short lofting shot was better played formerly than it is now; and judging from what I hear, I should think that such is the case. Putting is a matter of nerve, as is remarked in a previous chapter, and was the same yesterday as it is to-day, and as it will be for ever.

The development of golf appears to me to be quite unlike the development of cricket. Cricket has changed in all its features simply and solely