Keep your eye on the side of the ball, particularly when you are near the hole and perhaps playing a little chip shot on to the green. There is a tendency at such a time, so great is the anxiety of the golfer to know whether he is laying himself dead or not, to take the eye from the ball and direct its attention to the pin before the downward swing is complete and the stroke has been made. But I do not approve of keeping the eye fixed upon the place where the ball lay, so that the grass is seen after the ball has departed. Keep your eye on the ball until you have hit it, but no longer. You cannot follow through properly with a long shot if your eye remains fastened on the ground. Hit the ball, and then let your eye pick it up in its flight as quickly as possible. Of course this needs skilful timing and management, but precision will soon become habitual.
When you hit the small of your back with the head of your club in the upward swing, it is not so much a sign that you are swinging too far back as that your wrists are enjoying too much play, that you are not holding your club with sufficient firmness, and that your arms are thrown too much upwards. Try a tighter grip. Remember that the grip with both hands should be firm. That with the right hand should not be slack, as one is so often told.
If your eyesight is not good and you are obliged to resort to artificial aids when playing the game, wear spectacles rather than eye-glasses, and specially made sporting spectacles in preference to any others. It is of the utmost importance that the glasses should not only be perfectly steady at all times, but that the rims should not be so near to the centre of vision as to interfere with it under any circumstances. The sporting spectacles which I recommend are similar to those used for billiards and shooting. The rims and the glasses are circular and not oval in shape, and they are unusually large—about 1½ inches in diameter. By the use of them the player is afforded a field of vision as wide as with the naked eye, so that practically he is not conscious that he is wearing glasses at all. The eye is a factor of such immense importance in the proper playing of golf, that this is a matter to be strongly insisted upon. My own eyesight is perfect, and I have never had occasion to resort to artificial assistance of it, but I adopt these suggestions from players of experience who have worn these glasses and upon whose judgment I can rely.
If you have no caddie, do not order your opponent's caddie about as if you were paying for his services. Any assistance that he may give you is an act of courtesy extended to you by your opponent.
Always fill in afterwards every hole that you make in a bunker. If all players do that, both you and the others will benefit constantly.