Now here are the common symptoms and the results of staleness. Almost the first real sign of it is swaying of the body. This is very slight at first, and is rarely suspected; but it brings about a general collapse of the swing and the entire golfing apparatus. A very hopeless sort of tap is given to the ball on the tee, and it is driven perhaps only a hundred and fifty yards. As everything seems to have been done properly, the player is mystified, begins to experiment, and then worse troubles come on. Shakiness of the legs, and much exaggerated knee and foot work, often resulting in collapse of the right leg and the player getting up on his toes, make up the next symptom; and another one that is a common accompaniment of the beginning of staleness is falling or lurching forward as the club is brought down on to the ball. Anything like a proper swing is, in such circumstances, impossible. Bad timing begins immediately; then there is overswinging and too fast swinging; and, of course, the moving of the head and the taking of the eye from the ball, those two faults that never miss an opportunity of coming in to add to the woes of the worried golfer.
What must the stale golfer do for his salvation and happiness? In the first place, if he has had this thing before, he should be on his guard against it and catch it in time. If taken at the very beginning an early cure is quite practicable. The golf should be stopped at once for a few days, and a rest and change, as complete as possible, taken. Then the game should be resumed warily—one round a day. In addition to this, some men will insist on having alterations made in their clubs. They deceive themselves. One of the greatest champions of all times once, in intimate conversation, laid down a rule to me with great seriousness, and it is one never to be forgotten. He said: "Never make a change in your regular clubs, and never buy a new one, unless it is a putter, when you are playing badly. Only make changes when you are playing at your very best. You may then play even better, knowing so well what you want." Yet, warn them as much as you may, many men will make extensive changes when they are stale and desperate. One plea to them then—the change having failed, go back to the old clubs before changing again. Never get far from your base, or you will be lost in doubt and confusion. Let it be the same with methods as with clubs. If a new way fails, let the sick man go back to the old one before experimenting again. He should remember that that old one has served him well, and the possibilities are that he will have to stand by it after all. Then the stale golfer should try to encourage himself; he should try a new set of opponents, play with men of longer handicap than himself, who normally would never outdrive him, and so on. A change of links often works wonders, but if the staleness has gone very far, and it matters little, it is often wise to give up the golfing part of the holiday if one is in progress. We have seen the advice given to play through a period of staleness. This is a heroic measure, but it would not succeed in one in six cases, and the suffering would be too great for the ordinary mortal. We tell him to take few clubs away with him, and to be faithful to them, and they will serve him well. And we tell him when his golf is ill not to fly to the dangerous stimulant of a new club. And yet, where is the man who does come back from his holiday without a new one in his bag, one fond relic of those days that were so tightly packed with golf? We bring them back with us, the names of their nativity upon them, as hunters and explorers bring trophies from distant lands. Mutely they testify for us. Sometimes when the holiday is done they are added, for their merit and fine service, to the clubs in commission in the bag; oftener they fall into the reserve; frequently they are given a purely honorary office and sent off with a title to the golfer's own private House of Lords as magnificent relics.
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A diary should be kept during the golfing holiday; indeed it should be kept at all times. More such are made than the golfing world realises, because they are often, to the uttermost degree, secret and private, and that not merely for the reason that some diarists place themselves in the confessional when they make their entries, but because, alas! they are conscious of serving their own vanity by exaggeration of their best achievements. It may be kept for one of two distinct reasons, or for both of them, though the latter is not generally done. The two different objects are entertainment and instruction. For the former, the small things that are sold in shops will do. You write down, each time you have been playing, where the game was had, who the other man was, and what you beat him by; or the extent of the disaster if it was the other way about. In the column devoted to "Conditions" you exaggerate the force of the wind; and under "Remarks" you say you were driving and putting splendidly when you won. If you lost, the space is left blank. This record is in its own way valuable, because at a future time it will refresh the memory concerning great golfing days of the past, and thus furnish a real enjoyment. When a game of golf is played, and finished, it is not done with. It is lodged in a great store of remembrance, with full particulars attached to it, ripening with time, so that the player's memories are among the best happenings of his golfing possessions. All of us know that this is so, and it is as a kind of catalogue that the little diaries serve their purpose well.
The diary of analysis or instruction is a very different thing. The object is to make a serial record of ideas and successful experiments, faults and tendencies—most particularly tendencies—in order that on periodical examination of it the player may derive useful lessons and improve his game. One should get a good exercise book, bound nicely and strongly, with morocco corners, and just enter up one's performances on the plain paper according to any system that one may choose, giving prominence to a line at the top of each entry, naming the day, the place, and the man. I have seen diaries kept in this way, and they have been very serviceable. But the man who is starting anything of this kind must come to a definite agreement with himself to be absolutely honest and sincere; and he must also be very introspective, and have keen discernment for his own faults and constant observation for all that he does at every stroke. Otherwise it were better that he merely kept the diary of glorious remembrances.
Let him, if he keeps a diary of fact, hold it secret from all the world; but every night after his play put down in it the plain, real truth about what happened; and let him see to it, after much thought upon recent events, that he does properly know the truth. This point is emphasised because men may be short with their putts, say on sixteen of eighteen greens in one round, and yet not notice the frequency of the same fault; or they may be pulling or cutting their putts all the time and be oblivious, in the same way, to the circumstance. Or they may be pitching their approaches too short of the greens, or slicing most of their drives. The point is that the golfer's memory for his own misdeeds is an exceedingly short one, and he rarely gets them tabulated and analysed as he should. If he made an analysis of his play at the end of the day, stated the truth about it in the book, and then examined that book carefully once a week, he would learn something about the causes that were preventing him from getting on in the game, and the next step would suggest itself. Some would say that the making of personal statistics in this way would be a very troublesome matter, and they would be certain to tire of it soon. It is not so much a nuisance as might be imagined; it becomes interesting, and it helps one's game.
But if you are doubtful about this idea, do keep a diary of sorts anyhow, for it is such a pity to let the golf that has been played die out of memory. You may gather a notion of the value and interest of what might be called played golf by reading through the match-book of another man, like that of the late F. G. Tait, which is included in the delightful and pathetic memoir that Mr. John Low wrote about him. Tait, model of golfers, always filed the facts about his matches, but briefly. Not many words were wasted in the "Remarks" column; what was said there was the plain truth. Often it was "F. G. T. in great form," but the recorder knew how to denounce himself. It does one good to read through this diary of one who was soldier, hero, golfer, and darling of the game.
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But not every man departs on a golfing holiday for a strenuous time of continuous match-play with keen rivals who might be fine companions, and who would keep him up at night with bridge, after a day's work on the links was done. All sorts and conditions of men are included in this comprehensive golfing world of ours; and some have most contemplative moods, love solitude, and, alone with themselves and the game, probe deeply into its mysteries and into their own weaknesses. It is to the credit of the pastime that it accommodates itself most splendidly to every disposition and mood and manner; and men of a lonely way have gone solus on their holidays, and held themselves solus all the time, and have come back again, well refreshed and satisfied. They have often enough had fewer disappointments than the others. They have practised extensively, and they have improved themselves as golfers. Practice is indeed a feature of many golfing holidays. Here at such times we have the full game at our disposal and nothing but the game, and now, if ever, we can make ourselves to be better golfers. That is how we reason. It is a matter to be considered carefully.
Practice fails in most cases because the golfers concerned do not concentrate upon their efforts with that keenness, thoroughness, and determination they exhibit when playing a real match. The game is not the same to them; they do not try so hard, however much, as one might say, they try to try, and the result is there is such an excess of looseness, carelessness, about their methods, that bad habits are born; and these persons then had really better not be practising at all, for thus they do harm to their game. This is one reason why one-club practice is better in small quantities than in large ones. It is not sufficiently interesting when kept up. What we should do, therefore, is to make the practice interesting, and fortunately the circumstances of the game afford wide scope for doing so. There is no other game that is half so good in this way. Golf to many people's minds is not merely a game to be played with others and against them; it is a study, a subject for meditative research and exultant discovery. If others should regard such terms as immoderate, golfers anyhow know they are fairly employed. The essential difference that the presence of a man as opponent makes is that a real game, hard and according to the law, has then to be played, and there can be a winning or a losing of it.