The Complete Golfer quotes

When the golfer's mind turns to reflections such as these, you may depend upon it that it has been one of those days when everything has gone right and nothing wrong, and the supreme joy of life has been experienced on the links.

The little white ball has seemed possessed of a soul—a soul full of kindness and the desire for doing good.

The clubs have seemed endowed with some subtle qualities that had rarely been discovered in them before.

The feeling that was always uppermost in my mind was that I had everything to gain and nothing to lose.

It is only when a man has everything to lose and nothing to gain that he should become uneasy about his game.

When you have won a few prizes and there are critical eyes upon you, there may be some excuse for nerves, but not before. All young players should grasp the simple truth of this simple statement;

So I waited for it to steady itself, and my waiting exasperated Andrew to such an extent that at length he exclaimed,

"Man, d'ye ken I'm cauld? Are ye gaun to keep me waiting here a' nicht?"

Then I took the putt and missed it, so the hole was halved. However, I set about my opponent after that, and had begun to enjoy the game immensely by the time we reached the turn.

I was standing near him when a player came up and bluntly asked, "What d'ye think o' Muirfield now, Andrew?" Andrew's lip curled as he replied,

"No for gowff ava'. Just an auld watter meedie. I'm gled I'm gaun hame."

But the inquirer must needs ejaculate, "Hooch ay, she would be ferry coot whateffer if you had peen in Harry Fardon's shoes."

Andrew's lip curled as he replied, "No for gowff ava'. Just an auld watter meedie. I'm gled I'm gaun hame." But the inquirer must needs ejaculate,

"Hooch ay, she would be ferry coot whateffer if you had peen in Harry Fardon's shoes."

There was an exciting finish also to the 1898 Championship, which was held at Prestwick.

As nearly as I can reckon, I have up to date won the first prize in forty-eight first-class tournaments, and by being four times British Open Champion and once American have still that record to my credit.

And I hope to play many of my best games in the future, for it takes longer to kill the golf in a man than it does to breed it.

Forty-Five, you are not a day too old, and I might even make scratch men of you, if I were to take you in hand and you did all the things I told you to do and for as long as I told you.

Given fair circumstances, there is no reason why any man should despair of becoming either a scratch player or one who is somewhere very near it, and it is as easy to learn to play well as it is to learn to play badly.

So I advise every golfer to get hold of the game stroke by stroke, and never be too ambitious at the commencement. I have heard it stated on very good authority that when Mr.

Thus he knows better than any man the erratic tendencies of the golfing initiate and the best means of counteracting them.

Experience has given him the faculty for sizing up the golfing points of the tyro almost at the first glance

, and therefore he can supply him at the beginning with those clubs with which certainly he will have most chance of success.

I am inclined to think that one reason why so many players find it extremely difficult to get good work out of their cleeks, is that they use them with heads too thin and light.

A large proportion of the cleeks one sees about are too delicate and ladylike.

It is sometimes expected of a cleek that it will despatch a ball for, say, a hundred and sixty yards, and no club will do that, no matter how skilful the golfer who wields it may be, unless there is sufficient weight in it.

The philosophy of putting is simple, but is rarely appreciated.

The search for the magic putter that will always pop the ball into the hole and leave the player nothing to do will go on for ever.

One other observation that I have to make on clubs in general is, that I think it is a mistake to have the shafts any longer than is absolutely necessary.

If he has only one putter he will generally make some sort of a success of it if he can putt at all, and my private belief is that the putter itself has very little to do with the way in which a golfer putts.

It is the man that counts and not the tool.

I have tried all kinds of putters in my time, and have generally gone back to the plainest and simplest of all. I have occasionally used the aluminium putter.

… hole a short putt, or nearly so, and from the golfer who does not drive well a most marvellous excellence is required in the short game if he is to hold his own in good company, or ever be anything more than a long-handicap man.

The good drive is the foundation of a good game, and just as one and one make two, so it follows that the man who drives the longer ball has the rest of the game made easier and more certain for him.

This apart, there is no stroke in golf that gives the same amount of pleasure as does the perfect driving of the ball from the tee, none that makes the heart feel lighter, and none that seems to bring the glow of delight into the …

As a first injunction, it may be stated that the club should be drawn back rather more slowly than you intend to bring it down again.

"Slow back" is a golfing maxim that is both old and wise.

The club should begin to gain speed when the upward swing is about half made, and the increase should be gradual until the top is reached, but it should never be so fast that control of the club is to any extent lost at the …

To the man who has never driven a good ball in his life this process must seem very tedious. All these things to attend to, and something less than a second in which to attend to them!

It only indicates how much there is in this wonderful game—more by far than any of us suspect or shall ever discover.

But the time comes, and it should come speedily, when they are all accomplished without any effort, and, indeed, to a great extent, unconsciously. The upward swing is everything.

But the time comes, and it should come speedily, when they are all accomplished without any effort, and, indeed, to a great extent, unconsciously.

The upward swing is everything.

If it is bad and faulty, the downward swing will be wrong and the ball will not be properly driven. If it is perfect, there is a splendid prospect of a long and straight drive, carrying any hazard that may lie before the tee.

In such circumstances a long ball is an impossibility, and a straight one a matter of exceeding doubt. The odds are not very greatly in favour of the ball being rolled off the teeing ground.

So don't dwell at the turn; come back again with the club.

The club should gradually gain in speed from the moment of the turn until it is in contact with the ball, so that at the moment of impact its head is travelling at its fastest pace.

… sometimes do, that he cannot play with the cleek, that he gets equal or superior results with other clubs, and that therefore he has abandoned it to permanent seclusion in the locker, you may shake your head at him, for he is only deceiving himself.

Like the wares of boastful advertisers, there is no other which is "just as good,"

and if a golfer finds that he can do no business with his cleek, the sooner he learns to do it the better will it be for his game.

and I remember that when on one occasion Andrew Kirkaldy was informed that I was playing a driving mashie shot, he was indignant, and exclaimed,

"Mashie! Nay, man, thon's no mashie. It's jest a driver."

Then the day came when I found to my sorrow that I was off my driving mashie, and not all the most laborious practice or the fiercest determination to recover my lost form with it was rewarded with any appreciable amount of success.

For some reason which I cannot explain, there seems to be an enormous number of players who prefer a full shot with any club to a half shot with another, the result being the same or practically so.

Why is it that they like to swing so much and waste so much power, unmindful of the fact that the shorter the swing the greater the accuracy?

The principle of my own game, and that which I always impress upon others when I have an opportunity, is, "Reach the hole in the easiest way you can." The easier way is generally the surer way.

The principle of my own game, and that which I always impress upon others when I have an opportunity, is,

"Reach the hole in the easiest way you can."

The easier way is generally the surer way. When, therefore, there is a choice between a full shot with one club or a half shot with another, I invariably ask the caddie for the instrument with which to make the half shot.

Take a half swing, hit the ball before the turf as in the case of the push, and finish with the shaft of the club almost perpendicular, the arms and wrists being held in severe subjection throughout.

The ball skims ahead low down like a swallow, and by the time it begins to rise and the wind to act upon it, it has almost reached its destination, and the wind is now welcome as a brake.

Having thus dealt with these different cleek shots separately, I think some useful instruction may be obtained from a comparison of them, noting the points of difference as they are set forth in the photographs.

… it—The quality of instinct—All sorts of putters—How I once putted for a Championship—The part that the right hand plays—The manner of hitting the ball—On always being up and "giving the hole a chance"—Easier to putt back after overrunning than when short—The trouble of Tom Morris.

Putting in golf is a game within another game.

While I am not prepared to endorse the opinion that is commonly expressed, that a golfer is born and not made, I am convinced that no amount of teaching will make a golfer hole out long putts with any frequency, nor will it even make …

They are not afraid of the hole.

The fact is that putting is to a far greater extent than most of us suspect purely a matter of confidence.

When a man feels that he can putt he putts, and when he has a doubt about it he almost invariably makes a poor show upon the greens.

When Andrew could stand this reckless waste of opportunities no longer, he exclaimed to his employer,

"Man, this is awfu' wark. Ye're dreivin' like a roarin' lion and puttin' like a puir kittlin'."

But the men whose occupations are of the philosophical and peaceful kind are not the only ones who may be fairly likened to Andrew's "puir kittlin'" when there are short putts to be holed.

It was this man who declared,

"I have encountered all the manifold perils of the jungle, I have tracked the huge elephant to his destruction, and I have stood eye to eye with the man-eating tiger. And never once have I trembled until I came to a short putt."

Yet with such facts as these before us, some people still wonder wherein lies the fascination of golf.

Before I close my remarks on the simple putt, I feel that it is a duty to repeat once more those wise maxims relating to putting that have been uttered some tens of thousands of times already.

"Never up, never in."

There is nothing so true, and the number of matches and medals that have been lost through the reckless and foolish disregard of this rule must be enormous. The hole will never come to you;

They rarely give a thought as to exactly how they did it, though it must be obvious that for that good result to have been obtained the stroke must have been played in a particularly correct and able manner.

Unless by pure accident, no good ever comes of a bad stroke.

When you have made a really wonderfully good shot—for you—bring yourself up sharply to find out exactly how you did it. Notice your stance, your grip, and try to remember the exact character of the swing that you made and precisely how you followed through.

Such expressions imply a kind of patronage for which your opponent will not thank you, and he knows all the time that you do not really mean it, and therefore infers that you are a hypocrite.

The best golf is that which is played in comparative silence.

At the beginning of a match do not worry yourself with the idea that the result is likely to be against you. By reflecting thus upon the possibilities of defeat one often becomes too anxious and loses one's freedom of style.

When you have taken up your position but still ponder in a state of uncertainty, it is very probable that your mind will be affected by your hesitation, and then your swing and the result thereof will be bad.

There are fewer certainties in golf than in any other game, and dogged pluck is rarely so well rewarded as on the links.

If you are playing golf in the afternoon, do not lunch any more heavily that you feel to be necessary.

I am aware that this is very simple advice, and that it appears like a string of platitudes, but it is extremely sound and yet it is ignored on every medal day.

Never, never tear up your card, for golf is indeed a funny game, and no man knows what is going to happen when it is being played.

There are numberless historic instances to support this counsel, but I will quote only one which came under my personal observation recently, and which to my mind is one of the most remarkable of all. It occurred at a London club.

The tee shot was pulled, and the ball went twisting round in the direction of the driver's boy. It struck him and he fell flat upon the ground. The driving partner dropped his club, and, with his face turned pale, muttered hoarsely to his friend,

"Tonalt, I've kilt the caddie!"

But Donald's mind was fixed upon other matters than the mere question of life and death, and with many excited gestures and a shriek of despair he exclaimed, "Then, tamn it all, we've lost the hole," as under Rule 25 they had.

My experience tells me that the perfection of a good course is slowly attained.

Like wine, it takes time for the richness of its qualities to mature.

Therefore, when the committee of a new club in the country sits in conference with a plan of its newly-acquired land laid on the table, and decides unanimously that a tee shall be placed at a point marked A, a bunker along the line B, …

… so much trouble is being taken over the laying of the greens, do I beg the makers of courses to see that they are not made dead level and as much like a billiard table as possible, which often seems to be the chief desire.

To say that a putting green is like a billiard table is one of the worst compliments that you can pay to it.

By all means let it be true in the sense of being smooth and even, and presenting no lumps or inequalities of surface that are not plainly visible to the eye, and the effect of which cannot be accurately gauged by the golfer who has …

Mr. Tait chipped the ball out beautifully on to the green, and saved a hole which seemed a certain loss. It is hard to find many holes that are worthy of being put in the same class as this.

Man cannot make such holes.

They are there when he seeks out the land for the first time with his golf clubs.

But they serve to show the whole-hearted manner in which America was going in for golf, and the tremendous hold that it took on the people. We talk on this side of the "golfing fever" and of people "going mad" about the game.

Believe me, the Britisher is a mere dallier in comparison with his American golfing cousin.

An interesting incident happened when the American Championship was played for on the Wheaton course, when, as I was informed, the game of golf achieved the most notable victory that it had ever achieved in the United States.

On one occasion, after I had got in a good one with a cleek, an excited spectator jumped the ropes, ran up to a friend of mine and screamed,

"Say, which arm did he do that with?"

I looked to see if all my arms and legs were intact, or if there was anything that appeared unusual about them. I discovered afterwards that by "arm" he meant "club."

When this "copy" was duly returned with thanks, the late-comer remarked to his obliging friend, "Say, you made a bad mistake in one part." "What was it?" the other asked. "Waal, you say that So-and-so 'lipped the hole for a half.'" "Yes, that is right."

"Oh, go away; you don't mean to tell me that a rich man like that would be playing for a paltry fifty cents. I've altered it to 'lipped the hole for a hundred dollars.'"

And I remember that once when I was playing the best ball of two amateurs, one of the reporters had been instructed by his chief to keep the best ball score.

The paper said that it was. I could not make anything out of it for some time, until at last I discovered that the reporter had reckoned my score also in the best ball figures!

Obviously I could not beat myself.

The best I could do was to get a half, and that was how it came about that I never won a single hole in the "Harry Vardon v. Harry Vardon and two others" match.

"I will carry for sixpence, then." "No, go away." On the next tee the player, overcome by conflicting emotions, missed the ball altogether two or three times, and then was the caddie's opportunity, which he seized without hesitation.

"I will carry for the fun of the thing, sir!"

This is a digression, but I fear that digressions are inevitable when one enters upon the subject of caddies, and is persuaded to dip into one's recollection of caddie stories.

At last there came a day when he could stand it no longer, and when the Welshman had taken a mighty swipe at the ball with a heavy iron and made a deep excavation for several inches behind it, the club carrier moaned painfully,

"O lord, man, hae mercy on puir auld Scotland!"

It is said that the golfer played no more on those links.

in fact, he is a first-rate all-round man." Expecting confirmation of this eulogium, he turned to his caddie and said, "You know the Captain's play well enough. Now, what sort of a player would you say he is?" The caddie replied scornfully,

"Captain Blank! He canna play a shot worth a d——. He's nae better than yoursel'!"

The fact is that no player is great in the eyes of his caddie, for on one occasion when two gentlemen who were very fair hands at the game were doing a round and being closely pressed by a couple behind, who seemed to be …

The case was heartbreaking, and he turned despairingly to his caddie with the question, "What on earth shall I take now?" There was little encouragement in the answer,

"Take the 4.5 train."

There is a good story also of a certain Welshman of title who became enthusiastic over the game, though he did not excel at it.

There is the story told by Mr. Balfour of the distinguished general, hero of many battles, who, having duly found his way into his twentieth bunker, was startled by a cry of irritation from his caddie,

"Come, come, old gentleman, this will never do!"

This great statesman-golfer relates another anecdote showing that caddies are much the same the whole world over. An English golfer was playing at Pau and had a French caddie attending upon him.

Sympathetically he turned to his caddie to ask him what was the amount of the lost wager that he might pay it for him and soften his disappointment.

"It was a penny, sir," said the boy.

But despite his constant sarcasm and his utter inability to tolerate anything except the very best in golf, there is after all much good human kindness in your caddie if he is worthy of the name.

Naturally the caddie was immensely pleased, and turning to one of his colleagues he remarked,

"Ye see hoo we Conservatives ken ane anither!"

Another instance of the deep humanity of "Big Crawford," whom I have just mentioned, occurred on one occasion when he was carrying for an Edinburgh clergyman, who, in going for the Redan, had the misfortune to be badly bunkered, his ball, in addition to the …

Balfour now?" "Big Crawford" was carrying for him that day, and he heard the question. He turned with a look of severe pride towards the quarter whence it came, and answered it as loudly,

"Aw'm lookin' aifter Maister Balfour."

There was nothing more to be said. The chief of the Conservatives has certainly an enormous popularity with the caddies. He so evidently loves his golf so much, and he has great sympathy with them. He bears amiably with their weaknesses.

Sandy seemed shocked at such a cold-blooded greed for holes, and reprovingly, very seriously, and sharply said to his employer,

"Haud yer tongue, sir; haud yer tongue. Wad ye break the man's heart?"

Sandy used to remark that "the finest gowffer on the green was Maister Edward Blyth," and it was not until he had expressed this opinion with an almost wearying frequency that his hearers suspected that there was some connection between his choice and the fact, …

"It'll nae do, sir; ye ken ye canna drive as far as that." "Wha—wha—what do you mean by such a remark? As far as what?" gasped the reverend but irate gentleman.

"I jist mean, sir, that ye canna drive as far as ye wad like."

Perhaps we shall never hear the best caddie stories, for is it not likely that a great abundance of them are made and told in the sheds after the day's play is over, and when the golfer's tools are being wiped and cleaned, and his …

… had trickled safely into the hole, and the spectators were moving towards the next tee, Braid and I were amused, but not flattered, by the words of a man who was speaking to a friend in such a loud voice that we could all hear.

"Oh," he exclaimed deprecatingly, "those fellows only do that sort of thing for the sake of the applause!"

How happy we should be if we could always make certain of those long putts without any applause at all!

but the task was hopeless. The conversation went on more loudly than ever, and he was doomed to certain failure if he attempted his stroke in these circumstances. So he stood up again, and looked round in the direction whence the voices came.

"Oh," said one of the ladies then, "you can go on now. We've quite finished."

We must be thankful for small mercies. James Braid and I were once playing down at Beckenham. At one of the putting greens we were both a long way from the hole.

Then he lifted up his hands in horror and delivered himself of his famous remark,

"Ye're enough to break the heart of an iron ox!"

During the last round of this same tournament Andrew, who was playing some holes behind me, and was then himself in the running for the first place, was kept posted up by a friend as to my score for each hole.

After all it is better to play golf than to write or read about it. What anticipation is more gloriously joyful than that of the man who handles his driver on the first tee on a bright morning of the spring-time!

He has all the round, and all the day, and all the spring and summer and autumn before him.

And at this moment another spring is breaking brightly, and the golf that is before each of us promises to be as momentous and soul-satisfying as any that has gone before.

And now I think I have holed out on the last green and this long match is finished.

After all it is better to play golf than to write or read about it.

What anticipation is more gloriously joyful than that of the man who handles his driver on the first tee on a bright morning of the spring-time! He has all the round, and all the day, and all the spring and summer and autumn before him.