Page:Out-door Games Cricket and Golf (1901).djvu/219

180 he has learnt the terrors of putting, and his skill is overpowered by his nerves.

Nerves appear to be absent one day and painfully present another: so there are red-letter days when even a nervous man can putt, but the more nervous a man is the worse will he putt, and in no other part of the game will he find nerves play such demoniacal tricks.

Golf is the most nervous game yet invented, because most of the success of the game is a question of strength; it is an interesting question to ask. Why is it more of a trial to nerves than billiards, which is wholly a question of strength with a reasonable amount of accuracy? In a long hole of over four hundred yards, the golfer need not bother his head about strength for the first two strokes; he has to hit both these as hard as he can—there is no nice calculation of less or more. In billiards every stroke requires thought of the question of strength; even a safety miss may easily be altogether defeated in its object if played too hard or too soft. If strength or the consideration of strength be the chief cause of nervousness, billiards ought