The quote attributed to Bob Brister is stolen from Greener. Anecdotally it was a response from Purdey to Greener when the observation was posed about the hard closing of self openers. Greener reputedly answers, 'So you admit you have a problem".

If you can't close a self-opener quickly and easily, it is either set up wrong or your technique is wrong. It is easy to learn, if a tiny bit different. Far too much has been made of the observation. In my experience, it is a total non-issue.

Sorry if that was a bit off tangent. One of my pet hates is repeated observations from historical literature passed off as originally observed truth. It perpetuates myths. It is unreliable and, IMO, spurious.

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