Percy Adolphus Vaile

The Soul of Golf Percy Adolphus Vaile

It is frequently and emphatically asserted by reviewers of golf books that golf cannot be learned from a book. If they would add "in a room" they would be very near the truth-but not quite. It would be quite possible for an intelligent man with a special faculty for games, a good book on golf, and a properly equipped practising-room to start his golfing career with a game equal to a single figure handicap. As a matter of fact the most important things concerning golf may be more easily and better learned in an arm-chair than on the links. As a matter of good and scientific tuition the arm-chair is the place for them. In both golf and lawn tennis countless players ruin their game by thinking too much about how they are playing the stroke while they are doing it. That is not the time to study first principles.