While over here he placed himself in my hands.  Art Clark was not in the top flight of American pros, but he was desperately keen, and, I am afraid, rather too much of a perfectionist.  It was this that held him back.

  I was able to do a good deal to advance his game but I never quite got through to his perfectionist's mind that the bad shot must be accepted, shrugged off and forgotten.  If he could have disciplined himself to accept this philosophy he could have gone to the top for he was a fine shot-maker.

  But no matter how well Art Clark might be playing, as soon as he hit a poor shot, maybe it was well struck but nevertheless one which missed the target, he started to worry, the worst thing any golfer can do.

  We cannot all be Bobby Lockes, but I often wonder where Art Clark might have gone with Locke's remarkable concentration and outlook.

  Another perfectionist was the late Philip Scrutton, British Walker Cup player, who, notwithstanding his many brilliant stroke play returns, never did himself full justice in match-play.

  Scrutton too was a worrier, and he allowed a sharp thrust, or a lucky break by his opponent, to break his own concentration. In such circumstances he could never give his undivided attention to his own game.

  What I want to put across to you is that no man, however gifted a striker of the ball, is a machine, though Henry Cotton in those peak years of 1935-7 came as near to this un-scaleable height in his play through the greens as any golfer I ever saw or heard of.

  The bad and the indifferent shots, the unexpected thrusts of a match-play opponent, are bound to come in the course of a round.  One's reflexes will inevitably play tricks now and again.  But the hole you have just played is done with.  Another hole, with a fresh challenge, awaits you on the next tee.  Go to meet it in the right frame of mind, or it is odds on your dropping another stroke, perhaps more.

  Always your refuge, when the imagination threatens to overcome self-discipline and when you feel the tension mounting, is the picture of the shape of the swing which you have stored in your mind.  Only through this mental picture can you feel and sense the position of the club head at the various stages of the movement.

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