Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/217

178 striker is afraid of missing the stroke and hits too hardy and the balls are scattered and the break lost.

In putting, a man is generally so impressed by the fact that a reserve of strength is needful, that a contrary effect is produced, and he is nearly always short—nervousness in putting in nine cases out of ten makes a man hit too softly. He is on a smooth green which looks so fast that it terrifies him, while if it should slope slightly down hill he is more terrified still. For some reason which it is impossible to explain, golfers always seem to be far more frightened at being two yards beyond the hole than they are at being two yards short. To be two yards beyond is far better than to be two yards short, for in the first place you give the ball a chance of holing, and in the second place it relieves the eye somewhat to turn round and putt along a different line.

I watched a final match once in the amateur championship, in which two most distinguished amateurs were struggling for the mastery, and both drove and played through the green as well as could be desired, and both putted in a