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Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville), 1881-1975

"The Clicking of Cuthbert"

I have read of men who,
never having swum in their lives, studied a text-book on their way down
to the swimming bath, mastered its contents, and dived in and won the
big race. In just such a spirit did Vincent Jopp start to play golf. He
committed McHoots's hints to memory, and then went out on the links and
put them into practice. He came to the tee with a clear picture in his
mind of what he had to do, and he did it. He was not intimidated, like
the average novice, by the thought that if he pulled in his hands he
would slice, or if he gripped too tightly with the right he would pull.
Pulling in the hands was an error, so he did not pull in his hands.
Gripping too tightly was a defect, so he did not grip too tightly. With
that weird concentration which had served him so well in business he
did precisely what he had set out to do--no less and no more. Golf with
Vincent Jopp was an exact science.
The annals of the game are studded with the names of those who have
made rapid progress in their first season. Colonel Quill, we read in
our Vardon, took up golf at the age of fifty-six, and by devising an
ingenious machine consisting of a fishing-line and a sawn-down bedpost
was enabled to keep his head so still that he became a scratch player
before the end of the year.


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