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186 to avoid being compelled some time or other to play with a club you have little confidence in, and to negotiate distances you hate. I have heard it said that Goethe used to go to the top of a tower every day in order to accustom himself to look down without growing giddy. A golfer by practice may improve his play with a club, but he very likely will find that, during the time he has occupied himself with this club, another has mysteriously failed him; and in any case the terrible ordeal of putting has to be gone through, and it is the painful experience of bad putters that practice does by no means perfect, but only causes new terrors to appear.

Still, I think, on the whole, increasing age does carry some compensation for golfers; and I believe that when a man has played some years, and his handicap, may be, is brought from scratch to three, it is often found that his short game, especially his putting, is rather improved than otherwise. He has lost some of his length, he cannot force a ball out of its bunker as he did formerly, and his eye is not quick at judging the distance of about