THE COMPLETE GOLFER
THE
COMPLETE GOLFERBY
HARRY VARDON
OPEN CHAMPION, 1896, 1898, 1899, 1903
AMERICAN CHAMPION, 1900
WITH SIXTY-SIX ILLUSTRATIONS
SECOND EDITIONMETHUEN & 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 now I offer a volume to the great and increasing public who are devoted to the game."
- Harry Vardon
So far as the instructional part of the following book is concerned, I may say that, while I have constantly considered the needs of the novice, and have endeavored... to the best of my ability... to put him or her on the right road to success, I have also presented the full fruits of my experience in regard to the fine points of the game. This has been done so that what is written may be of advantage to improving golfers of all skill levels.
Keeping that also in mind that there are some things in golf which cannot be explained in writing, or for that matter, even by practical demonstration on the golf course. They come to the golfer only through instinct, and experience.
But I am far from believing that a golfer can learn next to nothing from a book. If he goes about the game of golf in the proper manner he can learn very much indeed. The services of a competent golf pro will be as necessary to him as ever, and I do not suggest that this work can to any extent take the place of that compulsory and most invaluable hands on training. On the other hand, it is next to impossible for a tutor to tell a pupil on the golf course everything about any particular stroke while he/she is actually playing it, and if he could it would not be remembered.
Therefore I hope and think that, this book may be of service to all who want to play a really good game of golf, when used in conjunction with careful coaching by those who are qualified for the task, AND, of course, by immediate and constant practice of the methods set forth here.
If skilled and experienced golfer takes exception to any of these methods, I have only one answer, and that is that, just as they are explained in the following pages, they are precisely those which helped me to win five championships. These and no others I practice every day upon the golf course. I attach great importance to the photographs and the accompanying diagrams, the objects of which are simplicity and lucidity.
When a golfer is in difficulty with any particular stroke...and the best of us are constantly in trouble with some stroke or other...I think that a careful review of the pictures I provide which relate to that stroke, will frequently point out the right direction, while a glance at the companion in the "How not to do it" series may reveal the error the golfer has fallen into, and not yet detected. All the illustrations in this volume have been prepared from photographs of Harry Vardon in the act of making the different strokes on the Totteridge links last autumn. Each stroke was carefully studied at the time for absolute exactness, and the pictures shown were carefully selected from about two hundred photos.
For complete satisfaction, I found it necessary to have a few of the negatives repeated after winter had set in, and there was a slight fall of snow the night before the morning we shot the photos.
I owe so much...everything...to this great game of golf, which I love very dearly, and which I believe is without a superior for deep human and sporting interest, that I shall feel very delighted if my book, "Complete Golfer" is of benefit to others who play, or are about to play. I give my good wishes to every golfer, and express the hope to each that he may one day regard himself as complete.
However, I fear that, in the playing sense, this is an impossible ideal. However, he may in time be nearly "dead" in his "approach" to it.
I have specially to thank Mr. Henry Leach for the invaluable services he has rendered to me in the preparation of the work
H.V.
Totteridge, May 1905.
