Golf, like tennis, is a favorite outdoor game. It is essentially an open weather game, but it may be played all the year around. It is deservedly popular because it combines cross-country walking, with all of its many benefits, and a peculiar skill with a variety of implements or clubs.

Anybody—woman, girl or child in her teens—who has perseverance can make a golfer. No great strength is necessary. The only requisites are a good eye, persistence, a good teacher and the facilities of a course. Fortunate is the person who at an early age learned his or her golf from a competent instructor, and fortunate is the person who has the facilities of a golf course either public or private.

The standard golf course is of eighteen holes. The average hole is 300 yards or more, although the distances usually vary from 125 yards to 600 yards and of a total length of upward of 6,000 yards. Should a player play straight over the course it will be seen that a single round would usually require a walk of four miles. Play is started from a driving green—a leveled mound of earth. The ball is teed-up on the driving green by placing a pinch of fine sand on the green and the ball upon it so that it is a half inch or more above the surface. The driver, a wooden club with a heavy head or sole, is used and the ball sent with a full stroke as far on its way to the hole as possible. Usually the space immediately in front of the tee for 50 or 75 yards is rough ground, terminating with a bunker and sand pit or some other form of hazard such as a brook, etc. Then comes the fair green, a more or less level grassy stretch extending to within a few yards of the putting green, which contains the hole or cup. On either side of the fair green is the rough, which is long grass, sand, water and other hazards. Usually the putting green is surrounded by traps such as sand pits, bunkers or mounds of earth and water hazards, while often a brook trickles through the fair green. The object of the game is to negotiate the course in the fewest number of strokes.

The drive from the tee should carry one over the first rough and over the first bunker or trap and well on to the fair green. On the fair green, if the hole is a long one and the lie of the ball favorable, the club used to send the ball again on its way is the brassie, which is a wooden club quite similar to the driver. It has a wooden head or sole, but the bottom of the head is plaited with a strip of brass to protect the wood, as the ball must be picked up off the ground without the aid of teeing. The drive for a girl should net a hundred yards, more or less, and the brassie stroke about the same. Often the lie of the ball on the fair green is not favorable to a brassie stroke, in which case an iron club with a pitch to the head of the club with which to loft the ball is used. This may be the mid-iron, the cleek, the mashie-niblic, or the mashie. The last named club is sometimes called the lofter and is used mainly for approaching the hole from off the green from distances of a hundred yards or less. The putting green is a very well levelled surface of extremely fine grass in which the cap is sunk. Putting greens vary from very fine levels likened to billiard tables to undulating slopes. The club to use on this green is the putter.

When a player is unfortunate enough to send the ball into the rough or long grass, a heavy iron club such as the mashie-niblic or mid-iron is used. And when the ball is sent into the sand or in a bunker the niblic is played. This club has a very heavy sole with a decided pitch for lofting and sends the ball high into the air out of trouble and on to the fair green when the stroke is played properly.

In learning to putt, the game of Clock Golf, found on most good courses, is a great help for it means that a girl may get diversion while grasping the fundamentals. The first question in putting, as with every club, is to establish the most efficient grip. There are two classes of grips—the overlapping grip and the regular or two-handed grip. The former is the more modern grip and is, I believe, the more efficient. The left hand is placed nearly at the end of the club. The right hand is so placed that the little finger of the right overlaps the first finger of the left, and the left thumb is almost entirely covered by the right hand. This grip brings the wrists closer together than the two-handed method and so produces greater harmony of action in the swing.

With the grip established, the next fundamental is the stance and address. Draw an imaginary line from the ball to the hole; stand behind the line with heels together—feet at right angles to each other, the left foot pointing toward the hole; the player stands bending slightly from the hips with arms stretched down full length; the right elbow points to the right thigh; the left points toward the hole; the club swings as a pendulum; the sole of the club addresses the ball at right angles to the imaginary line. The player’s eye should be right above the ball. The secret of the putt is two-fold—the swing, which should be in direct proportion to the distance (and state of the green) from the hole, and the impact of club and ball at a perfect right angle. The follow through should be along the imaginary line still preserving the right angle. With the fundamentals established, practice will develop astonishingly accurate putting.

When the beginner has become adept at putting, the next step is to place the ball back on to the fairway twenty yards or so and take up the mashie. Here again the fundamentals are important. The grip is already mastered. The stance however differs in that the heels are not together—the feet being farther apart, the right foot farther behind the ball. The stance and address are important and the player should obtain the advice of a professional or seasoned player. The best advice the writer can give is to study the club and let it do its work. The mashie can be used for a chip stroke for short distance and for a full stroke when the ball lies farther from the hole. It is an extremely important club and when mastered can save the player many strokes.

The next club to study is the brassie. The stroke with the brassie is the same as with the driver on the tee. The stance and address for the drive and the brassie shot finds the player with feet well apart, the right foot well behind the ball, the arms extended, the body upright and flexible, the weight evenly on both feet and the head down with the eye somewhat behind the ball. The club addresses the ball at right angles. In the upward swing of the club the forearms are turned and the left knee shifts so as to bring the weight on to the right foot; the club descends down through the arc it has described; the right foot pivots, the forearms turn, the weight comes almost wholly on the left foot and the club returns to the ball exactly at right angles. The club head is ahead of the hands and the ball is hit cleanly, the power coming from the right arm. The follow through finds the weight on the left foot, the right having only enough to preserve the player’s balance.

It is on the drive and brassie stroke that “pressing” is a severe fault. It is more important to hit true and to preserve the right angle by following through than to hit hard. Most girls do not hit a long ball. A far surer game is the short game. Accurate strokes down the middle of the fair green is sounder golf, so do not “press” and do not try to kill the ball.

After the brassie and driver are mastered, one can take up the mid-iron, cleek, niblic, spoon, and jigger in the order named. These clubs are for special service, and cannot be described in detail here.

An excellent practice to follow when taking up the game for the first time is to devote a day or even a week to each club, although it takes will-power to resist playing with the whole set instead of one club. As you master a club practice with it continuously. You will find such practice invaluable. Do not take up your second club until you have thoroughly mastered the first. And as I have said before, I would recommend that the game be learned backward—so to speak—with putter first, then with mashie, brassie, driver and down through the other clubs.

An adjacent golf course is a welcome requisite to a girls’ school or club. It is desirable for athletic associations or faculties to organize tournaments, as competition usually heightens interest. Where skill is unequal handicaps may be arranged by averaging a player’s scores and allowing the differences between the average score and par as a handicap. In this way evenness in competition is assured. Usually matches are decided by the winning of holes, although many competitions are decided on medal score or the total strokes for 18 holes. There are several kinds of tournaments possible in golf—two-ball or four-ball matches, or best ball matches. The last is where four players go around the course, two playing against the other two and counting only the best ball on each hole. Possibly the most satisfactory form for a tournament to take is the round robin tournament, where the number of entries is not too great, as each player meets everyone entered. Where the entry list is big the elimination tournament is most efficacious, and when there is still a larger entry list it is well to divide the players into first and second flights by first playing a qualifying round, counting medal scores, the lowest scores being grouped together in the first flight. A match may be made even by handicaps when players of varying skill are entered.