Golf for Girls

BY

AN OLD STAGER

 I veil my identity because I am not a girl--old or young. Being, indeed, a mere man, it becomes me to offer advice with modesty.

And, of course, in the matter of golf, women--many of them no more than girls--play so well that men cannot affect any assurance of superiority. On my own course I sometimes come upon a middle-aged married couple playing with great contentment a friendly game. The wife always drives the longer ball, and upon most occasions manages to give her husband a few strokes and a beating.

However, I did not start out to write a disquisition on women as golfers, but only to offer some hints on golf for girls.

And first, as to making a start.

A BREEZY MORNING

The best way is the way that is not possible to everybody. No girl plays golf so naturally or so well as the girl who learned it young; who, armed with a light cleek or an iron, wandered around the links in company with her small brothers almost as soon as she was big enough to swing a club. Such a girl probably had the advantage of seeing the game played well by her elders, and she would readily learn to imitate their methods. Of course, very young learners may and do pick up bad habits; but a little good advice will soon correct these if the learner is at all keen on the game.

A girl who grows up under these conditions--and many do in Scotland--does not need any hints from me. She starts under ideal conditions, and ought to make the most of them. Others begin at a later age, with fewer advantages, and perhaps without much help to be got at home.

How, then, to begin. Be sure of one thing: you cannot learn to play golf out of your own head, or even by an intelligent study of books on the subject. For, if you try, you will do wrong and yet be unable to say _what_ you are doing wrong. In that you will not be peculiar. Many an experienced golfer will suddenly pick up a fault. After a few bad strokes he knows he is wrong somewhere, but may not be able to spot the particular defect. Perhaps a kindly disposed opponent--who knows his disposition, for not everybody will welcome or take advice--tells him; and then in a stroke or two he puts the thing right. So you need a teacher.

Generally speaking, a professional is the best teacher, because he has had the most experience in instruction. But professionals vary greatly in teaching capacity, and cannot be expected in every case to take the same interest in a pupil's progress that a friend may. If you are to have the help of a relative or friend, try to get competent help. There _are_ well-meaning persons whose instruction had better be shunned as the plague.

Let your teacher choose your clubs for you, and, in any case, do not make the mistake of fitting yourself up at first either with too many clubs or with clubs too heavy for you.

As to first steps in learning, I am disposed to think that an old-time method, by which young people learned first to use _one_ club with some skill and confidence before going on to another, was a good one. In that case they would begin with a cleek or an iron before using the driver.

The learner should give great attention to some first principles. Let her note the _grip_ she is told to use. Very likely it will seem to her uncomfortable, and not at all the most convenient way of holding a club in order to hit a ball; but it is the result of much experience, and has not been arbitrarily chosen for her especial discomfort.

In like manner the stance, or way of standing when making a stroke, must be noted carefully and copied exactly. In private practice defy the inward tempter which suggests that you can do much better in some other way. Don't, above all, allow yourself to think that you will hit the ball more surely if you stand farther behind it--not even if you have seen your brother tee a ball away to the left of his left foot and still get a long shot.

Don't think that the perpetual injunction, 'Keep your eye on the ball,' is an irritating formula with little reason behind it. It is, as a matter of fact, a law quite as much for your teacher as for yourself. And don't suppose that you _have_ kept your eye on the ball because you think you have. It is wonderful how easy it is to keep your eye glued--so to speak--to the ball until the very half-second when that duty is most important and then to lift the head, spoiling the shot. If you can persuade yourself to look at the ball all through the stroke, and to look at the spot where the ball was even after the ball is away, you will find that you not only hit the ball satisfactorily but that it flies straighter than you had hitherto found it willing to do. When you are getting on, and begin to have some satisfaction with yourself, then remember that this maxim still requires as close observance as ever. If you find yourself off your game--such as it is--ask yourself at once, 'Am I keeping my eye on the ball?' And don't be in a hurry to assume that you were.

Always bear in mind, too, that you want to hit the ball with a kind of combined motion, which is to include the swing of your body. You are not there to use your arms only. If you begin young, you will, I expect, find little difficulty in this. It is, to older players, quite amazing how readily a youngster will fall into a swing that is the embodiment of grace and ease.

Putting is said by some to be not an art but an inspiration. Perhaps that is why ladies take so readily to it. On the green a girl is at no disadvantage with a boy. But remember that there is no ordinary stroke over which care pays so well as the putt; and that there is no stroke in which carelessness can be followed by such humiliating disaster. Don't think it superfluous to examine the line of a putt; and don't, on any account, suppose that, because the ball is near the hole, you are bound to run it down.

Forgive me for offering a piece of advice which ought to be superfluous and is not. I have sometimes found ladies most culpably careless in the matter of divots. It is a fundamental rule that, if in playing you cut out a piece of turf, you or your caddy should replace it. Never, under any circumstances, neglect this rule or allow your caddy to neglect it. Nobody who consistently neglects this rule ought to be allowed on any course.

A word as to clothing. I _have_ seen ladies playing in hats that rather suggested the comparative repose of a croquet lawn on a hot summer's day. But of course you only want good sense as your guide in this matter. Ease without eccentricity should be your aim. Remember, too, that whilst men like to play golf in old clothes, and often have a kind of superstitious regard for some disgracefully old and dirty jacket, a girl must not follow their example. Be sure, in any case, that your boots or shoes are strong and water-tight.

Finally, keep your heart up! Golf is a game of moods and vagaries. It is hard to say why one plays well one day and badly another; well, perhaps, when in bad health, and badly when as fit as possible; well, perhaps, when you have started expecting nothing, and badly when you have felt that you could hit the ball over the moon. Why one may play well for three weeks and then go to pieces; why one will go off a particular club and suddenly do wonders with a club neglected; why on certain days everything goes well--any likely putt running down, every ball kicking the right way, every weak shot near a hazard scrambling out of danger, every difficult shot coming off; and why on other days every shot that can go astray will go astray--these are mysteries which no man can fathom. But they add to the infinite variety of the game; only requiring that you should have inexhaustible patience and hope as part of your equipment. And patience is a womanly virtue.