THE COMPLETE GOLFER
THE
COMPLETE GOLFER
BY
HARRY VARDON
OPEN CHAMPION, 1896, 1898, 1899, 1903
AMERICAN CHAMPION, 1900
WITH SIXTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
SECOND EDITION
METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON
First Published June 1905
Second Edition June 1905
PREFACE
Many times I have been strongly advised to write a book on golf, and nowI offer a volume to the great and increasing public who are devoted tothe game. So far as the instructional part of the book is concerned, Imay say that, while I have had the needs of the novice constantly inmind, and have endeavoured to the best of my ability to put him on theright road to success, I have also presented the full fruits of myexperience in regard to the fine points of the game, so that what I havewritten may be of advantage to improving golfers of all degrees ofskill. There are some things in golf which cannot be explained inwriting, or for the matter of that even by practical demonstration onthe links. They come to the golfer only through instinct and experience.But I am far from believing that, as is so often said, a player canlearn next to nothing from a book. If he goes about his golf in theproper manner he can learn very much indeed. The services of a competenttutor will be as necessary to him as ever, and I must not be understoodto suggest that this work can to any extent take the place of thatcompulsory and most invaluable tuition. On the other hand, it is next toimpossible for a tutor to tell a pupil on the links everything about anyparticular stroke while he is playing it, and if he could it would notbe remembered. Therefore I hope and think that, in conjunction withcareful coaching by those who are qualified for the task, and byimmediate and constant practice of the methods which I set forth, thisbook may be of service to all who aspire to play a really good game. Ifany player of the first degree of skill should take exception to any ofthese methods, I have only one answer to make, and that is that, justas they are explained in the following pages, they are precisely thosewhich helped me to win my five championships. These and no others Ipractise every day upon the links. I attach great importance to thephotographs and the accompanying diagrams, the objects of which aresimplicity and lucidity. When a golfer is in difficulty with anyparticular stroke—and the best of us are constantly in trouble withsome stroke or other—I think that a careful examination of the picturesrelating to that stroke will frequently put him right, while a glance atthe companion in the "How not to do it" series may reveal to him at oncethe error into which he has fallen and which has hitherto defieddetection. All the illustrations in this volume have been prepared fromphotographs of myself in the act of playing the different strokes on theTotteridge links last autumn. Each stroke was carefully studied at thetime for absolute exactness, and the pictures now reproduced werefinally selected by me from about two hundred which were taken. In orderto obtain complete satisfaction, I found it necessary to have a few ofthe negatives repeated after the winter had set in, and there was aslight fall of snow the night before the morning appointed for the