From Our Own Correspondent, Edinburgh, Nov. 99.
When high-brow science inter—yenes in the game of golf it is not to see the value of any contribution it has sought to make to the solution of its mysteries. The British Association intervened a couple of year's ago, and in a dis—eussion arising out of the exhibition of an electric device for measuring the human emotions it was argued that the fear which -ereeps into the heart of a golfer when driving off the first tee is conveyed to the soles of the feet and the palms of the hands, and through these sensitive parts of the body is expressed in a duffed shot. As a scientific explanation of too painfully familiar experience it did not much interest any more than it convinced the average golfer.
Last week, Edinburgh had a distinguished guest in M. ile Coue, the famous exponent of autosuggestion. There were many golfers in his audiences who went doubtless hoping to hear something of the application of Coué's principles to the game. If by repeating the familiar formula you became in every way better and better, what about the effect of the formula acting through the unconscious mind on one's game? The matter was raised in the form of a question at the close of one of the meetings. There was a note of flippancy about its treatment on the part both of the questioner and the audience, and perhaps even by M. Coue himself. He was asked, "What about the application of auto-suggestion to the putting greens?' Here is the answer of M. Coué—golfers can make what they like of it—''Auto-suggestion is an instrument which produces good effects when put to a good use. When it is put to a bad use, it produces bad effects." Autosuggestion on the greens, and indeed anywhere, is largely the old question of confidence.
M. Coue really evaded the question of auto-suggestion and the putting greens, and you have to turn to one of his expositors to learn where the principles come in in such matters as golf. The Rev. GE. O'Flaherty, an Episcopalian clergyman in Edinburgh, who was host to M. Coue during his Edinburgh visit, brings in golf to illustrate a point in the course of an article on the principles of Coue. 'S: two golfers," he says, of about equal merit. They will equally try win. But the one who is in good form may slightly dismay the other. He wants to win as much as before, but he feels, 'I cannot outdistance that drive. I cannot better that approach. He is lying dead, and I have an I8ft. putt to make a half." He is apt to lose self-confidence, not will, and thus; loses the hole. And the more he tries, the more he presses and spoils his shots, while his unperturbed opponent appears unable to make a mistake. The Josing one wishes} more than ever to make a mighty effort to win, but his subconscious mind has now got the idea, 'You are going to lose,' and unless he can regain his self-confidence he wil! certainly lose the match."
That may be the up to-date Coue reading of a familiar situation, but it boils down to the single sentence, that confidence in golf. as in everything else, is more than half the battle
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.