of the Schenectady center-shafted putter in his British Amateur victory attracted considerable comment and controversy. Some six years later, the Royal and Ancient would issue a ban on all mallet-headed putters, including the Schenectady. Travis conducted careful experiments with varying lengths of driver shafts, often using a driver with a shaft as long as 50 inches in his search for greater distance off the tee. At his home course, Garden City Golf Club, Travis installed smaller sized cups on the practice green to help hone the accuracy of his putting. Though he was innovative with his equipment, and practiced incessantly, Travis disdained the notion of physical training after his first trial of abstaining from smoking and drinking during an 1897 tournament. He reported that he "putted like a baby", and would never again depart from his usual habits. Throughout his career as a journalist, Travis produced numerous comprehensive and detailed golf instructional essays. Given the reputation he earned as an outstanding putter, it was natural that many of his articles dealt with his well-proven principles of putting. In one of his earliest articles, Travis wrote "The sum of it all is, that my experience shows conclusively that the really good putter is largely born, not made, and is inherently endowed with a good eye and a tactile delicacy of grip which are denied the ordinary run of mortals. At the same time, less favored players may, by the adoption of methods which stood the test of actual experience, materially improve their game." His effectiveness as an instructor was demonstrated in the following example: In 1916, while observing a 14-year-old Bobby Jones, Travis is reported to have commented that Jones' putting methods were "faulty". There are accounts that suggest that young Jones held Travis in high esteem and eagerly agreed to meet Travis the following morning at 8 am for a putting lesson. Unfortunately, Jones and his party awoke late and were over an hour behind schedule. When they arrived, Travis had left. The lesson did not occur until years later, when Travis suggested a change in Jones's grip, altered his stance and recommended a longer and more sweeping stroke. A key point was to try to "drive an imaginary tack into the back of the ball". There are some who have expressed the opinion that the Travis putting lesson helped Jones to become one of the great putters of all