The Soul of Golf

ly in a chapter, so I must here content myself with dealing generally with them, and specifically with a few of the minor mis

of weight, the sweep, the power of the left hand and arm, the gradually inc

e Duncan's swing could surely be excused for thinking that slow back must be a delusion. It is not, however, given to everybody to be able to swing with the rapidity and accuracy which characterise Duncan's wonderful drive. In fact, the most that can be said in favour of going

moment, which is undoubtedly a critical portion of the swing, there shall be no undue conflict of the force which brought the club head up to the top of the swing and th

ther of the blindly followed fetiches of golf. Let it be understood then, once and for all, that undue slowness is almost as great a vice as undue quickness. What the player must, in every case, strive after is th

ous places we are told plainly that the club is not to be lifted away from the ball, but that it must be swung back, whe

the pendulum of a clock which is hanging motionless, it will be impossible to swing it one way or the

early, and probably rightly, instructed, when driving, to take the clu

ed curve. On the return journey, the downward swing, we travel all the way at express speed. He would indeed be credulous and unanalytical who could believe that the arc of the downward swing coincides with that of the upward, when the upward swing i

on this point, which is a matter of fundamental importance in the game; in fact, it is of such great importance that I shall not deal with it fully here, but shall reser

golf book insists upon the fact that the drive at golf is a sweep and not a hit. Jam

swept from the tee and carried forward in the even and rapid swing of the club. The drive in golf differs from almost every other stroke in every game in whi

s as "implying a sudden and sharp impact." Braid goes on to say, "when the ball is so 'hit' and the club stops very soon afterwards, the result is tha

me indicates, to stop very shortly afterwards. The head of a golf club at the moment of impact with the golf ball is travelling so rapidly that a camera timed to take photographs at the rate of one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second's exposure, gets for the club head and shaft merely a vague swish of light, while the ball itself, if it is caught at all, appears merely to be a sec

ct," the golf stroke, probably of all strokes played in athletics, is, at the moment of impact, incomparably the mos

utstanding importance as exploding anot

b and in the right manner, this will have to be done by the proper regulation of all the other parts of the swing, and any

uring impact, by the intention of the player during that brief period, in order to influence the flight of the ball. There can be no greater fallacy in golf than this. No human being is capable of thi

te from the same book and the

or these faults is not to be found in a more deliberate directing of the club on to the ball just as the two are about

f impact, through following, in complete ignorance, the teaching of those who should know better, and they then blame themselves for their want of timing in trying to execute an impossibility,

lies to the drive applies to every stroke in the

t place, that the despatching of the ball from the tee by the driver

he club's head has been predetermined long before it reaches the ball, so that, as I have frequently pointed out in the same words which Braid uses in this

when we come to deal with the master strokes of the game. Brai

makes the swing properly and finishes it well, for-and this signifies the truth of what I have been saying-the success of the driv

d, therefore, that the success of the drive cannot possibly in any way be "due largely to the course taken by the club after the ball has been hit." The success of the stroke must, of course, be due entirely to the course taken by the club h

an be that the second half will be almost equally good, but it is certain that nothing which the club does after contact with the ball has ceased can possibly influence the flight or run of the ball. It is, for instance, obvious that if a man has played a good straight drive clean down the middle of the fair-way, his follow-through cannot be the

lest principles of mechanics that it is strange to see them stated in

nd the club is then brought forward rapidly and with an even accelerat

e must be "hard at it from the very top, and the harder you start the greater will be the momentum of the club when the ball is reached." Here there is no notion whatever of even acceleration of pace. It is to get the most o

ced Golf at page 58 we read: "But when he has got all his movements right, when his timing is correct, and when

of the fetich of the sweep, than re-echo Braid's words that for a golfer who wants to

amazing fallacy of the sweep ruins innumerable drives, and renders many a golfer, who would possibly otherwise play a decent game, merely an object

fetich of the sweep. At page

od-but the effort of making a sweep. This is an all-important thing, and unless a player thoroughly understands that he must play in this style I cann

onti

xact distance from the ball. All that is then necessary is that with a swinging stroke he should sweep the ball off the tee. But, if in place

e much to convert any golfer, who is in doubt about the matter, to my views, for the comparative results obtained will speak for themselves. Moreover, if there is any one man more than another who is a living refutation of the sweep noti

as did Braid in How to Play Golf, but he does unquestionably subscribe to the notion of the clu

he turn until it is in contact with the ball, so that at the

t it' right from the beginning." The gradual and even acceleration of pace must unquestionably be left to take care of itself, and it has no more ri

AT

. TA

atter of the utmost importance. Taylor is at times inclined to get a little on to his right

est to instil into the minds of their pupils the idea that the left hand is the more important. This is a fallacy of the most pronounced and harmfu

. I have already, to a certain extent, dealt with this matter. Nearly all writers m

d the club is then brought forward rapidly, and with an even accelerati

r is, during the course of the downward swing, to exercise some consc

en goes

but at this point there should be some tightening-up of the

he swing, or to introduce into the swing any new element of grip, touch, control, or anything else whatever, must be fatal to accuracy. Braid is much sounder on this m

aid says. It is

d gradually since the club could not possibly be started off on its quickest rate. The longer the force applied to the down swing, the greater do the speed and the momentum become, but this gradual increase is independent of the golfer, and he should, as far as possible, be unconscious o

ub leaves the ball till it gets back to it, should have nothing whatever wherewith to cumber his mind but the one idea, and that is to hit the ball. Braid

ell that he will gradually increase his pace until he hits the ball, but he will not have it in his mind that he has to do so. All this is bound to be in the hit. The man who drives the nail does not worry himself about gradually increasing the pace of the hammer head until it encounters the head of the nail. He knows he is doing it, but he does not worry himself about it as

has given up the idea expressed in his smaller and less important work How to Play Golf, that one should trouble oneself with the even acceleration of speed. Whether he has or not, it is an absolute certainty that any idea of consciously regulating the speed of the club's head in the drive, will result in a very serious loss of distance, for it will be found an utter impossibility for anyone so to regulate the spe

om the top of the swing to the moment of impact should practically be done naturally, instinctively, sub-consciously-any way you like, except by the exercise of thought during that process as especially applied to any par

he golf stroke, yet this is a matter of the utmost importance, a matter of such grave importance that I m

of the swing-in fact, we have seen that according to many of them the stroke is a sweep and not a hit, yet we are told distinctly that at the moment of impact a snap of the wrists is int

so far; but the action of the wrists is, or should be, the same. The club head travels, stroke for stroke, relatively in exactly the same arc; the beginning of the stroke and finish of the stroke is the same, and all the other laws, mutatis mutandis, apply. It would, indeed, be hardly too much to say that there is at golf only one stroke, and that every other stroke is a portion of that stroke, that stroke being, of course, the drive. If we take the drive as the supr

umberless cases, where, from the stiffness of their joints and their build generally, it is impossible in the nature of things that they can obtain a very full swing. It is bad enough in these cases, for I speak now of people who have taken to the game when their frames have become so set that it is practically an impossibility for them to

s at the top of the swing over the left shoulder. There can be no doubt that with a swing like this, when one can control it sufficiently, one gets a very long ball, and there is a very delig

the accuracy?" There can be no doubt whatever that in the very full swing, such as I have described, there is a waste of power and a sacrifice of accuracy. The rule which is

n con

way that a large proportion of good golfers would employ for reaching the green from the same distance. For some reason, which I cannot explain, there

fore has no necessity to exercise any conscious muscular restraint. He plays the shot and trusts the club for his regulation of distance, but on the other hand, in playing a half shot he knows that he must exercise a good deal of judgment in applying his strength

le doubt that if the value of this advice were thoroughly realised, it would make golf pleasanter and better for every one. The blind worship of the full swing has been carried to a lamentable extent, and golfers who devote an

the habit of thinking for himself. Of course, directly he started to learn golf, every one wished to make him tie himself into the usual knots, but he refused to be influenced by other people's ideas. He was content to work out

mit of his drive, and had found that no further swinging back would give him extra distance. He found that he got no farther with his drive when he carried his club right rou

many other pleasant little things like this. It had no effect whatever on him, for he knew that he was producing the stroke, in so far as he played it, exactly according to the best-know

is golf, and he had very much the best of the argument when within a remarkably short space of time he won the championship of his Province. He proved quite conclusiv

he orthodox swing is a trap. A very great number of them get the swing, but not the ball. Many of them are, I am afraid, under

r shot as long as you can both before and after impact, will be found as sound to-day as it always has been. Probably it will be found, and before very long too, that what is true for the la

m. It is obvious that the shorter the swing is, the less necessity will there be for disturbing the position of one's feet. This naturally means that there is less likelihood of any

ed to move the feet than there is in the upright swing. It is in the latter that one feels soonest the necessity for lifting the heel of the left foot, but in the short swing there is not the same necessity for balancing a

golf the left heel must come away from the earth as soon as the head of the club leaves the ball. The motions are practically simultaneous. This matter of the management of the feet is probably the greatest contributing cause to the complexity of the golf drive, and the many erroneous

ss-that is, that the heels should be firmly planted on the ground. Although he says this, the instantaneous photographs of him in the act of driving show conclusively that he does not carry his theory into practice. Many of our greatest golfers are beginning

a game which demands a wonderful degree of mechanical accuracy, and it is only b

atter of fact, imported into the drive far too great an opportunity for the player to move his weight about. He takes full advantage of this, and the usual result is that he transfers his weight, when driving, to his rig

golfer in a hundred realises that the vast majority of his strokes are made in a manner wholly opposed to the best science of golf. They are, generally speaking, hit upwards,

club to perform its natural function. They seem to forget that each club has been made with a loft of such a nature that, given the ball is struck fairly and properly, the loft may be relied on to do its share of the work. Consequently,

is point, for it is of great importance, as back-spin is of the essence of the modern game, and particularly of the modern drive. If, therefore, we can show that the short swing tends more naturally to produce back-spin than does the full St. Andre