Spirit of the links

168 THE SPIRIT OF THE LINKS
if Mr. Lingen had never missed a short putt, who
knows but what he would have been the champion
of the year after all ?
Therefore we may take it as established that the
very greatest players cannot do the very shortest
putts with anything approaching to certainty, when
it is of the very greatest importance that they should
do so. They are no better at this game than quite
moderate players, and the chances of their holing
such putts decrease according to the importance of
the occasion—that is to say, the more necessary it is
to hole the putt in order to promote one's success in
the encounter in progress, the less likely is one to do
so. This is one of the fundamental principles of the
thing. Anybody can hole a putt of four or five feet
when it doesn't matter, and when there is no particular
credit in doing it. It is when it does matter that you
cannot do it. The hole is
¢4
in. wide, and the ball
is about
i 2
in. in diameter. You may use anything
from an umbrella to a lawn-roller in order to putt
that little ball into that huge pit, and yet at that
distance of three or four feet you cannot do it—that
is, as often as you ought to do. Training and
practice are no use. Do not beginners always do
these putts well? That is because they do not know
how difficult they are. They will by and by, and
then they will begin to miss them! At home I have
a little baby girl, and sometimes she gets one of my
putters out of the corner, and begs for the loan of a
ball. Make a sort of hole on the carpet, or even go
out on to the lawn and play at a real hole in the
real way, and that little thing will hole the putts of a
yard and two yards every time! She never bothers
about any particular stance or anything of that kind,