Advanced Golf. By James Braid. (Methuen and Co. 10s. 6d.
net.)—The modesty of a critic is much tried when he has to appreciate these" hints and instruction for progressive players." Of course, he is not so foolish as to decline the task ,of reviewing a book which he knows he could not have written ; but he may well feel that he ought to be, at the least, one of the readers for whom it is meant. "Am I that?" he doubtfully asks him- self. "Am I progressive'?" "Do I diminish my handicap by, say, two a year ? " Well, we will say generally that the "hints and instruction" seem admirably suited for their purpose ; and, further, that if they perform the miracle of wcrking a practical improvement, acknowledgment shall not be wanting. What we can say without reserve is that the biographical chapters are highly entertaining. Jame Braid played his first match when he was eight, and won by twenty strokes,—it was a nine-hole course, or, to speak more exactly, a three-hole course played thrice. At nine be was told by James Anderson to persevere, and that he would some day be Open Champion. His parents were anti-golf, and apprenticed him to a joiner; but he found time to play, and at sixteen broke the record of the course on which he played. For years short driving and bad putting (at short putts) troubled him. The latter fault it took "hours and days and years of hard practice to cure"; in the former "a complete conversion took place within a week." To this day he does not understand how it came about. "I went to bed one night a short driver and got up a long driver in the morning." "Waking up famous" is nothing to this. In 1893—he was then twenty-three—he definitely adopted golf as an occupation. One side of the business is akin to joinery. His first essay at fulfilling Anderson's prophecy was in 1894, when he was bracketed ninth with Mr. F. E. Tait; in 1897 he was second to Mr. H. Hilton at Hoylake ; in 1901 he won. All this and more is told in a very interesting fashion.
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