a new way to better golf

A NEW WAY
TO BETTER
GOLF
A NEW WAY
TO BETTER
GOLF
BY ALEX J. MORRISON
WITH A FOREWORD BY
REX BEACH
SIMON AND SCHUSTER
NEW YORK 1932
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
COPYRIGHT, 1932, BY ALEX J. MORRISON
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND SCHUSTER, INC.
386 FOURTH AVE., NEW YORK
PRINTED IN U.S.A. BY THE STRATFORD PRESS, INC., NEW YORK
First Printing May, 1932 …………….. 3,000 Copies
Second Printing, May 1932………….. 3,000 Copies
Third Printing, May, 1932…………… 5,200 Copies
Fourth Printing, June 1932………….. 11,250 Copies
Fifth Printing, June, 1932…………… 11,250 Copies
Sixth Printing, Aug., 1932……………...5,000 Copies
AUTHOR’S NOTE
THIS is not “just another golf book.”
The material that I present here is entirely original and describes completely for
the first time the only method of playing golf that is based on the inescapable
mechanical and anatomical factors that govern the execution of a successful shot.
Golf is not a matter of hitting a ball but of swinging a club. Hitting the ball is
merely incidental to making the swing. This is not the popular conception of golf,
and many of my readers undoubtedly will find it strange. Yet it is the only
possible approach to successful golf. If the swing is made correctly, the flight of
the ball must be correct; natural laws take care of that.
I have made the only complete analysis of the golf swing; consequently, I am able
to state positively—and to prove—exactly what takes place in the process of
projecting a ball in a desired flight.
I am not a theorist. I have been actively identified with the game of golf for
almost twenty years as a player, instructor, writer, and lecturer. In developing my
system of play I have confined myself entirely to practical consideration. My
effort has been, first, to discover the scientific basis of successful golf, then to
devise a formula by means of which I could place the results of my investigation
at the disposal of every player.
That formula I offer to the golfing public in this book. Its soundness has been
tested by the countless pupils I have instructed personally, and their success has
demonstrated its practical value.
I can recommend it, and guarantee it, as a sure way to better golf.
ALEX J. MORRISON,
New York City
April, 1932
FOREWORD
By Rex Beach
I
AM a golfer. I have played for twenty years but I have recently made a
discovery. I hate it!
Golf is a game only to the dub: he alone gets any fun, any satisfaction and any
considerable benefit out of it. To the man who takes his game seriously, it is a
torment. Annoyance, impatience, disappointment, rage—the confirmed addict
suffers all of these. If he likes golf enough to try and play it well its pleasure
vanishes; if he sets out to shoot a low score he dooms himself to anxiety, anguish
and chagrin. For him all pleasure in the sport evaporates and the residue upon his
tongue is wormwood.
The duffer, on the other hand, tastes nothing but pure satisfaction. He speeds to
the links with joy in his heart, he dresses with the inflammatory eagerness of a
bridegroom and he capers to the caddy house. He plays an explosion shot from
the first tee, removing a great chunk there from with his driver. It is a shot which
Kirkwood couldn’t duplicate and it gains him nearly thirty yards. But is he
disturbed? By no means. He goes blithely ahead lacerating the ball as he kicks it
along, drinking in the sunshine, enjoying the exercise and caring little whether he
does a hole in four or in multiples thereof. If by some accident he occasionally
hits the ball squarely on the button he drops ten yards from his age: if not, it
doesn’t matter. There’s another hole coming.
That, without doubt, is the spirit in which golf should be played by the average
man—carelessly, gladly, terribly. The advantage, mental, physical, and spiritual,
which the cluck player enjoys over the low-handicap man is that he gets a great
kick out of one or two good shots during a round, whereas the other, if he muffs a
couple, decides to drink iodine and jump off a bridge.
But let the dub beware. He is toying with razor blades, he is juggling hand
grenades. If he ever makes a decent score, ten to one he will be lost. He will begin
to take lessons. He will study the science of the thing. He will sneak off and
practice. He will buy a set of matched clubs. There isn’t much hope for him after
that. Gone are the days when he could top a ball and say something funny. As he
explores the mysteries, parts the veil and gradually improves his game, a complete
change in his mental and physical metabolism. He grows pessimistic and
apprehensive. He develops temperament and gets so jumpy that he can’t putt if an
ant stirs. He may, and probably will, remain a duffer—few graduate from that
class—but his peace of mind is gone forever. The worst has happened. Thereafter
he will be no stranger to torment of soul and bitterness of spirit.
Not long ago, in the locker room of a club, I noticed a globular little man, pinkfaced and beaming. He was surrounded by half a dozen members who were
clinking glasses and patting him on the bare back. I learned that they were
congratulating him on having broken a hundred for the first time and that fat man
radiated happiness like a base-burner. He glowed, he expanded until he had fewer
wrinkles than a grape, he was a boy again.
Presently the club champion slouched in dragging his heels. His pallid face was
seamed, his shoulders drooped and in his eyes was that expression of hope
abandoned which one saw in the eyes of people bent over the ticker tape in the
ghastly month of October, 1929. With a deep sigh, half moan, he sank onto a
bench and sat gazing at the floor, his cupped hands supporting his face.
“Hello, Jim!” somebody called, “Will you join us in a snifter?”
The champion’s shoulders heaved, he shook his head without looking up.
“How’d it go today?” the other asked.
“Oh, my god!” Jim ran a trembling hand through his wet hair: in a voice that
seemed to issue from the tomb, he answered: “I hooked one out of bounds and
three-putted two greens! …A lousy seventy-seven! I guess I’ll quit the game.
There’s no hope for me.”
Hope! It is all the serious-minded golfer has to cling to. And how he clings! To
him the game is a dull chore, a battle in which he invariably meets defeat. Day
after day it beats him and he only licks his wounds and comes back for more. But
it breaks his spirit finally.
Women have the right idea. Never hurry, enjoy a cozy chat on every green, take
four or five practice swings to each shot and never let anybody go through—the
brutes! And don’t be fussy about the rules, either—they’re only technicalities;
improve your lie; if there’s any doubt about a putt, concede it to yourself.
People think prize-fighting is difficult, but in reality, it is easy. One merely has to
keep his eye on his adversary and retain his balance. Golf is much harder, for the
player must think of more things: he must keep his eye on the ball, and maintain
the balance of a tight-rope walker; he must shift his weight properly, hit down
freely and smoothly and hold his chin back. In order to accomplish this, he has to
see that his wrists, elbows, shoulders, feet, ankles, knees, hips, teeth, eyebrows,
larynx, tonsils, toenails, and abdominal ring function properly and coordinate. The
hit takes care of itself.
This is at least my idea of the game and my mental picture of the muscular action
of the golf swing, developed after years of expensive lessons, diligent practice and
painful playing. Alex Morrison diagnoses it differently. He has taken it apart and
examined it: he has oiled up the loose parts, reassembled them and put the whole
thing into smooth running order. One has only to watch him execute a shot to
realize that he has mastered the elusive principles of the golf stroke to a nicety
which makes the swing of most experts look crude. And the simple way he
describes it!
I hate the game, mind you, and I’m off of it. That is to say, I was off it until I met
him and adopted his method. I have learned lately that I possess a left hand and
that it is possible to hit a golf ball down the fairway without suffering physical
convulsions and mental collapse.
If you are an earnest, ambitious golfer, you will find here the soundest, the
simplest, the most sensible help you have ever found. Mr. Morrison isn’t a
therapist; he deals in scientific facts and mechanical principles. He is exact. He is
practical.
If you are satisfied with your game, then shut this book, shun his teachings, or he
will raise the dickens with your handicap.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I.
WHY PLAY GOLF?
II.
LEARNING TO PLAY GOLF
III.
THE CORRECT SWING
IV.
THE SWING IN SLOW MOTION
V.
LET’S NOT GO WRONG!
VI.
FIXING THE SWING IN YOUR
MUSCLE MEMORY
VII. USING THE SWING ON THE GOLF
COURSE
VIII. PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
IX.
DOCTORING THE AILING SWING
X.
IS THE CORRECT SWING USED BY
THE LEADING PLAYERS?
CHAPTER I
WHY PLAY GOLF?
EVERYONE who takes up golf has his or her moments of despair, of remorse
and deep humiliation as well as occasions of great exaltation. This earns for
golf the reputation of being a hard master, but it is also a generous one. It is
perhaps the only game at which the hopelessly incompetent player can
occasionally win a bit of happiness. Though it may be on the basis of a blind
hog finding an acorn, even the worst of golfers manages to hit a good one now
and then.
If the game is so difficult, why do people take it up in the first place?
The answer is simple. Nearly every one has been led to expect from golf all of
the benefits of mental and physical relaxation. But it is a regrettable fact that
golfers get altogether too little amusement, too little satisfaction and too little
benefit out of the time and money and application they spend on the game.
Let’s check up, for instance, on one afternoon in the life of Mr. Average
Golfer. He has taken up the sport to escape from the pressure of business
worries, or the routine of professional work, golf being about the only game
that can be played by a man of his age, or by anyone who is not in first rate
condition. He dashes out to the course and dresses hurriedly, perhaps wolfing
a sandwich while kicking his other leg into his plus fours. Without indulging
in any practice whatever, he starts his round by striding to the first tee and
laying a series of bets, based not upon experience but upon hope. He assumes
that he’ll be rotten, but he gambles that the others will be worse.
When it comes his turn to tee off, he stiffly bends a creaking spine to place the
ball, then takes a series of terrific practice swings to shake the cramps out of
his system and start his blood to circulating at the double click.
He steps up to the ball with a savage frown upon his face. His teeth are
clenched, his knuckles are white, and his muscles are like bands of steel.
Nobody within earshot must speak, or move, or breathe—for he is
“concentrating.” Golf, he knows, is a game of strained and feverish
concentration; for he has read it a hundred times, and the pro has told him so.
If he lets his mind wander for a fraction of a second, he is sunk. So he
concentrates. He believes he is concentrating upon his swing, but in reality he
is concentrating upon a spot on the fairway two hundred yards away, and in
his mind’s eye he sees the ball bound therefore. Along with this vision,
however, he sees others; the picture of his ball slicing fiendishly to the right or
hooking maliciously into the woods on the left, or dribbling into the ravine
just ahead—any number of such ghastly possibilities present themselves.
He silently rehearses the “don’ts” that have been drilled into him by
experience and by coaching, and when the major rigor mortis in his frame has
abated sufficiently to permit muscular action of a sort, he snatches his club
back and belts away. The result may be anything. He places every shot
thereafter with a grunt as explosive as the blowing of a porpoise; the cords of
his neck swells, the tension in his joints and muscles increase. He hits the ball,
to be sure, but the results bear little if any relation to his intentions.
By the time he has played three holes, he is sweating; every move he makes is
jerky and muscle-bound. He may forget his business worries, but only because
he is venomously harassed by his golf worries. He comes in walking on his
arches, and yells for the locker boy to fetch four set-ups and come-a-running.
It is only at the nineteenth hole that the average player enjoys any relaxation.
The golfer who has a sincere desire to better his game almost invariably ends
his round in dejection of spirit and weariness of body. Presumably the air and
the sunshine have benefited him, but disappointment at his score, smothered
rage at his missed shots and general mental depression at his lack of skill
offset that good. He has used up his physical energy and his moral resistance;
he has endured hours of tension, both mental and physical, and wasted enough
nervous force to exhaust a trained athlete. Furthermore, he has fought a losing
battle with his baser instincts and is both fagged and bewildered by the effort
of concentrating on a thousand “don’ts.”
That bugaboo of “concentration.” Those maddening “don’ts.” The one is as
false as the other, and neither has a place in good golf. The ferocious effort to
“concentrate” results in rigid muscles and stiff joints, which are fatal to
anything like the proper swing.
When properly played, golf is fun; it is also a mental and physical stimulus, a
revitalizer of brain and body. But as played by ninety-nine out of a hundred
people, it results in mental strain, nerve-racking and actual physical suffering.
The average player lives in continual fear of doing the wrong thing, and quite
often, as he stands over the ball, the fear approaches an absolute panic,
seemingly beyond human power to control, much less overcome. To him golf
is a misery and a penance. He loves it, but he hates himself for the way he
plays it.
“Well, before I’d let a silly game bother me like that, I’d give it up,” says an
innocent bystander.
To one who has never played, there would be no sacrifice in putting the game
aside, but the golfer has at least one very good reason for keeping on: He
recognizes in the game a direct challenge to his self-control.
And there is the nub of the whole matter—self-control. Not the spurious
control of a set jaw, furrowed brow and finger nails biting into palms to
conceal a quaking heart and sinking entrails, but the true self-control of inner
peace arising from confidence in your ability to do what is really rather an
easy job well.
For the truth of the matter is that good golf is by no means so difficult as it is
generally pictured. The trials and tribulations that the average golfer
undergoes are simply the result of an erroneous approach to the game.
If the word “concentration” has been erased from the golfer’s dictionary, and
“relaxation” substituted for it, fewer players would be struggling to break a
hundred and club handicaps would be much lower that they are.
To begin with, golf is not a game of strength but of accuracy, and accuracy
comes only from muscular relaxation, muscular freedom. Tension is fatal to
good golf, and lies at the root of every error. Brute force has no place in this
game; neither does athletic skill in other lines fit any player for it. Champions
of various sports have been leveled by golf. So have great minds. If it were a
game of strength, All-America guards or wrestling champions would
dominate our National Open. If it were a test of concentration, Professor
Einstein would break seventy.
Rex Beach and Clarence Budington Kelland, well-known authors, both have
been my golf pupils. It would be difficult to find two men more dissimilar
physically. Mr. Beach is a huge man, who in his youth was a noted football
player and a champion swimmer; and to this day is an enthusiastic participant
in strenuous athletic sports. With little or no effort he excelled at any game—
until he took up golf. Mr. Kelland, on the other hand, though very much a
man’s man, is of such a size and shape that he can get appreciable distance
from a golf stroke only when he scores an absolutely clean hit.
Yet the same method of teaching that removed the chronic hooks and slices
from the terrifically long drive of the powerful Mr. Beach sufficed as well to
give added distance and improved direction to the strokes of slender Mr.
Kelland. And the basis of that method—relaxation—complete relaxation,
mental and physical.
It may give the reader a more definite idea of the value which those two
players found in learning to relax on the golf course when I say that Mr.
Beach won a recent thirty-six hole tournament with a score of 154, while Mr.
Kelland, during the past summer, managed to shoot many rounds in the
seventies.
No golfer who wants to improve his game need make a pilgrimage to any
distant shrine. Everything necessary to play good golf is contained right
within his own body. It is merely a matter of learning to swing a club
properly, which in turn is merely a matter of approaching the task with the
right mental attitude. Age, size, or physical peculiarities have nothing to do
with it; the only person who cannot learn to play golf is the one who refuses to
walk.
I have more than once posted a wager that I can show any man, woman or
child how to make the correct swing in three minutes or less, and in hundreds
of public demonstrations I have yet to fail.
Paul Whiteman doesn’t look like a golfer. When I first met him some years
ago, while we were both playing on the same bill at the Palace Theatre in New
York, most people probably would have said the he didn’t look much like a
musician either. For despite the fact that he is well above medium height, at
that time he was built rather like the Jack of Clubs—as broad as he was tall.
His weight, I should say, was much closer to three hundred pounds that to two
hundred.
I was rather impressed when he told me that he was an enthusiastic golfer.
Moreover, he offered me a “proposition.” So impressed was he, he said, by
the easy way in which I performed a variety of trick shots on the stage that, if
I would try to teach him to swing a golf club “my” way, he would reciprocate
by giving me music lessons. And I could name my own instrument—anything
for a pipe-organ to a jew’s-harp.
I needed no such inducement. Paul Whiteman’s exceptional girth gave me just
one more opportunity to demonstrate that size and physical peculiarities offer
no bar to learning and performing the correct swing, so we started him in golf
school immediately.
Like most hefty golfers, particularly those with big arms and shoulders, Paul
had been getting virtually no body action in his swing. In fact, he made an
effort to keep his body still while hitting with the arms and hands. I
demonstrated to him that he was merely subjecting himself to unnecessary
strain while at the same time ruining any prospect of making a useful stroke.
He agreed with me, but habit and his bulk combined to make it difficult for
him to learn a new way of doing it.
So I decided to talk to him in his own language. I had one of his pianists play
“Rock-a-bye-Baby” and set Paul to swinging in time with the tune. Back one
beat, forward with the next. It worked like a charm. In less than no time Paul
had loosened up and was getting plenty of action in his legs, hips, back,
shoulders and wrists. After which, it was easy to coordinate and systematize
Alex Morrison instructing Paul Whitman on the fine points of a trick shot.
his movements into as smooth and graceful a swing as anyone would care to
see.
He really proved such an apt pupil that he and I made a golf movie, shortly
after that, in which he successfully performed some of my pet tricks, such as
knocking a ball off the crystal of a watch.
The correct swing can be learned by anyone, for there is nothing artificial or
unnatural about it. The mental poise that goes with it can be acquired, and so
can much of the muscular coordination that is necessary. Not all, for we are
not machines. The excellence of your game, once you have mastered the
proper swing, will depend upon the extent to which your mind takes charge
and the nicety with which your body responds to the commands. Once you
have that swing and have learned the meaning and application of relaxation,
you will for the first time begin to realize that golf, while not an easy game, is
above all things a game of ease.
Learning the correct swing does not mean that the player will always execute
it under certain playing conditions. That would be too much to expect, for
even Bobby Jones is not proof against mistakes. However, even with an
approximation of the right swing, any player can improve his score, his health,
and his disposition. He can and will accomplish even more than that; he will
discover a new and unexplored realm of satisfaction and enjoyment in the
ancient and honorable game. The extent to which he may explore it depends
entirely on one circumstance that I have already mentioned—his self-control.
Why is it that the average amateur’s score is well above a hundred and that of
the average professional is in the low seventies? Lack of practice, you say.
Professionals play every day and they are in good physical condition. It is
their business and so on.
That is true, of course. A man must be a skillful player to start with or he
cannot well make a living as a professional. But there are thousands of
amateurs, young and old, who devote as much time to golf as do the majority
of professionals, or at least ample time to develop a sound technique; men
who take their golf seriously, practice regularly and avail themselves of the
best coaching possible. Many of them are stronger, better athletes than their
teachers, too. Out of this total number a very few are good, some never
improve, and most of them gradually get worse. Professionals on the other
hand, play good golf perennially; age affects them but little. There must be
some reason for it.
Probably you say, “What’s the difference whether I play well or badly? I don’t
take the game seriously. I play only for the fun of the thing.”
You know you are kidding yourself when you say this. You know you do take
golf seriously, and you know you’d get a lot more fun out of the game if you
played it better. Think it over. The round you enjoyed the most keenly of all
rounds was the one you played best. That was your day of days when you got
more fun out of golf than ever before or since. You’d give a great deal to
repeat it, wouldn’t you?
Don’t deceive yourself. Golf is vital to you and to the rest of us or we
wouldn’t bother with it. Golf is more than a sport. It is an accepted part of our
modern civilized life. If players did not take it seriously, they would not suffer
as they do; clubs by the thousands would not be smashed against tee boxes,
ponds would not be bottomed with rusting Putters.
Never again alibi your lack of skill with the assertion that you don’t take golf
seriously. You do take it seriously or you wouldn’t play it and you know very
well that you would give most anything to play better.
You can play better. Nor is there any reason why your game should go back.
You have it in you to play well and consistently and easily at eighty if you’re
still able to walk and to swing a club as it should be swung.
Good golf is easy golf—effortless golf with the strains and stresses removed.
The reason that the game tires you and you are becoming no better fast is
because you are tightening, straining, sweating, not to master the secrets of
efficiency but to overcome certain definite and stubborn faults which have
become fixed. Those pernicious habits can be overcome, but not by will
power, not by practice, however patient. Practice may cut them down, but they
will spring up again like weeds. They can be eliminated only by a cultivation
of the correct, scientific swing.
This swing makes golf, in a manner of speaking, a left-handed game for a
right-handed man and a right-handed game for a left-handed player.
Anomalous as it sounds, in order to play well, one must play with the weaker
and more imperfectly trained of his two sets of muscles; for the proper swing
originates in and is made to function by those which he uses least and has
under poorest control. No wonder the average golfer is confused. This fact in
itself explains why most self-taught players are knocking at a door that never
opens; why they fail to improve or slowly grow worse. They are utilizing the
wrong muscles, “concentrating” upon the impossible tasks of perfecting an
improper muscular action and waiting for any army of impotent “don’ts” to
compensate for errors which are an inevitable part of every stroke.
In the manner of this right-handed, left-handed thing, I have a well-founded
theory—no, I’ll make the categorical statement that I know—that the average
left-handed player would be a better golfer if he played with right-handed
clubs. This shift would give him a decided advantage over the right-handed
player in that, in executing the correct swing, he would be able to utilize the
stronger, more practiced and more responsive muscles of the left side of his
body. More than that, he would receive a larger benefit from instruction; for
his teacher, probably a right-handed player himself and accustomed to dealing
with right-handed golfers almost entirely, finds great difficulty in executing
the mental gymnastics to obtain the “mirror view” he requires to observe the
defects in a left-handed player’s swing.
Rube Goldberg, the comic artist, and Babe Ruth, the home run king, are but
two of a large group of “southpaw” golfers whom I was able to persuade and
experiment with right-handed clubs as a means of improving their golf. And,
while I am thinking of the one and only Babe, let me say that he is one golfer
who derived instant and, I think, permanent benefit from learning the meaning
of relaxation.
When I first encountered the Babe on a California golf course a few years ago,
he apparently had his golf slightly confused with his baseball. Anyway, he
was employing to its fullest his well-known ability to “sock ‘em on the nose”
and was enjoying hugely the really terrifying amount of distance he obtained
when he happened to meet one at full speed ahead. After playing with him a
few times, I pointed out that I, seventy pounds lighter and possibly one-third
as strong, was hitting them out farther than he on the average and never
drawing a long breath in the process; that golf was a game in which there were
penalties, not rewards, for knocking a ball out of sight of everyone interested,
and that the golfer who got the largest amount of satisfaction out of the game
was invariably he who was decidedly parsimonious about expending strokes.
Babe caught the idea, insisted that I teach him the correct swing, began to
practice systematically, and at last report was breaking eighty with regularity.
With voice, pen and personal example I have been endeavoring a decade and a
half at least to make better golfers—and more of them. Through lectures,
theatrical engagements, exhibition matches, personal instruction and
newspaper and magazine articles, I have probably demonstrated and taught
golf to more people than has any man in the history of the game. Naturally, I
have met many great golfers, and the majority of them have been sincerely
and hopefully desirous of improving their game. One fact, though, has thrust
itself to the fore whenever I have talked with golfers, and that is that the game
of golf is surrounded by more misstatements, misconceptions, superstitions
and fetishes than any other form of human activity. The average golfer, even
the one who plays what is regarded as a respectable brand of “week-end golf,”
has little more knowledge of the basic principles of executing a golf shot than
is expressed in the meaningless maxims that are posted on the fence at a
public driving range.
Often, when talking with golfers, I am reminded of the poem in our school
reader about the blind men who examined an elephant. One touched the tail
and brought back the report that elephants were like ropes. Another bumped
against a leg and announced that an elephant resembled a tree. Another felt of
the beast’s broad flank and maintained thereafter that elephants were merely
walls. Those who happened to touch an ear, a tusk, or the trunk got other very
different partial pictures—a fan, a sword, a snake. Yet each insisted he was
right, for he had actually touched an elephant—and knew!
Take the so called “pivot” as one example of the partial picture of a golf
stroke that so many players have painted for themselves. It is the duffer’s
bane. He practices it by the hour, but it is elusive; it baffles him and he never
gets it just right. He therefore curses it as the cause of all his miseries. If he
could pivot properly he could hit the ball, he tells himself. He failed to pivot
that time, or he pivoted too much, or too little. He takes more lessons; he
twists his spine and digs fright-wigs from the course. He pivots until he has to
see an osteopath.
Another counterfeit! Another ghost! Those hours he spent trying to learn to
“pivot” were wasted—for there is no “pivot” in the correct swing.
Is it to be wondered at that golf, as he plays it, fails to straighten out his
mental kinks and tires instead of rest him. How can he relax either mentally or
physically, how can he improve, how can he have any fun out of the game
when he has to fight every stroke he attempts, when every hole is a new and a
terrifying adventure?
Probably you are saying, “Golf may be easy for some people, but it’s hard for
me. I have to concentrate, or I’ll miss that pill; and I have to give it all I’ve
got, or it won’t ride. If there’s such a thing as ‘easy golf,’ there must be some
formula for acquiring it; there must be some positive method of overcoming
my faults. What is it?
There is a formula. It lies in the mastery of the correct swing, and this book is
written in an attempt to make the mechanics of that swing understood. Those
mechanical principles apply to all shots from the drive to the putt, and once
they are properly understood and put into practice, your “don’ts” may be
forgotten, ease will replace effort and I can guarantee that you will finally
come to taste the joys of good golf rather than the bitterness of bad golf.
CHAPTER II
LEARNING TO PLAY GOLF
GOLF instruction is almost as free as the air. The beginner finds it virtually
impossible to dodge it. Let him execute a single unsuccessful shot and a
deluge of advice, hints and suggestion descends upon him.
“You didn’t keep your head down,” says the caddy.
“You didn’t follow through,” contributes one member of the foursome.
“Look, old man,” offers another. “I don’t want to give you this unless you ask
for it—but the proper way to make a shot—“
In his humility the would-be golfer swallows it all—and is lost. Thereafter he
is a shining mark. Instructions and tips are thrown at him before, during and
after every shot he makes. He is told that he looked up, that he is standing too
close to the ball, that the swing is an arm movement, and he must distribute
his weight evenly on both feet, that he mustn’t try to kill the ball, that he’s not
using enough wrist, that the ball must be “swept” from the tee. His clubs are
taken from his hands to demonstrate. The one crumb of comfort tossed to him
is the remark, “Well, Bill, we all had to learn it once,” but he catches even in
this an implication that in all the history of the game no one so ill equipped as
he in temperament and physique ever aspired to be a golfer.
He is bewildered, confused, chagrined at his inability to apply the seemingly
simple principles of play that were so generously showered upon him.
It does not dawn on him, however, that not once did caddy or golfer make to
him a specific, definite statement of exactly what to do; such a statement, for
example, as a drill sergeant might make in instructing a squad of rookies in
the first movement of “right shoulder arms,” or as might be made with regard
to the movements of the gear shift in teaching a beginner how to operate an
automobile.
Generalities. Jargon. Negative statements masked by positive terms. But it
passes for golf instruction the world over.
Take the time-honored mandate, “Keep your eye on the ball.” It is entirely
possible to keep your eye both eye, and all the attention of which you are
capable, focused on the ball while at the same time moving your head in a
way that makes the execution of the correct swing absolutely impossible. As a
matter of fact, that is the way it is generally done. It is entirely possible to
satisfy every requirement of the stance, as the term is generally understood,
and yet hit a bad shot. For the position and alignment of the feet are but a part
of the harmonious arrangement of the entire body that must be accomplished
before any successful golf shot can be made.
But let’s follow our beginner a little farther along on his golfing career. He
plays a few more times, manfully endeavoring to put into practice the
instructions he received on his first visit to the course, with, of course, the
additional advice with which the caddy and fellow player bombard him on
each new round. Through the fog of bewilderment that surrounds him he
perceives one stark, unmistakable fact—he is making no improvement. It
dawns on him that in rushing headlong in to the game of golf he has essayed a
feat comparable to jumping overboard in mid-ocean without having taken the
preliminary precaution of learning to swim.
And so he decides to take lessons, regular lessons, from the pro.
The pro undoubtedly is an excellent player. It is possible that he is even tat
exceedingly rare phenomenon, a good golf instructor. Left to himself, given
sufficient time and adequate cooperation in the form of application from his
pupil, he probably could make a respectable golfer out of almost anybody.
But does our beginner give the pro a change to get him started right? He does
not. Although the sketchy recital of his accomplishments that I have given
represents an understandable picture of the sort of massacre he has been
perpetrating on the course, nevertheless, by the time he places himself under
the wing of a pro, he has observed enough, and learned enough, particularly of
the usual golf lingo, to tell his instructor just what kind of lessons he requires.
He not only knows his faults; he has some ideas about likely ways of
overcoming them. He slices, for example. Wouldn’t that disappear if he
played with an absolute poker-like left arm? His unfortunate propensity to top
his drives. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to stand a little closer to the ball and
bend his back a little more?
The pro has but one source of livelihood.
Likewise, he has been in the game long enough to have acquired something of
the outlook of the family physician. He has become a person of sympathetic
understanding, not to say what Grantland Rice calls a “Willing Listener.” To
the best of his ability he gives his pupil what the pupil seems to want. Under
these conditions the most substantial contribution that he can possibly make
toward his pupil’s progress is to bolster up his waning self-confidence. As for
the highly essential process of supplying the pupil with a solid groundwork on
which to build his game, a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of golf
technique, that is lost in the shuffle. The pupil, if he is the average person, has
neither the patience, nor the perseverance to pursue the lengthy, arduous and
possibly uninteresting course of drills, exercises and practice, which is the
only way that I know of by which the thing can be acquired. He wants to
travel a royal road to golf skill, and the pros know it. The result is that he
remains just another golfer without the proper conception of the golf swing.
It is no easy task to reduce the fundamental positions and movements of a
successful golf stroke to positive, understandable, definite instructions that
anyone can follow.
With the rest of the golfing world I acknowledge Bobby Jones to be the
greatest player. His performances illustrate better than those of any one else
who ever lived, the scientific principles of correct golf which I am
endeavoring to lay down in this book. Yet, when he saw the first slow motion
pictures of his swing, he was astounded to note that the details of his stroke as
actually performed differed markedly from the swing he believed he made and
the one he advocated in his writings. Even at this time Bob occasionally
makes statements regarding the execution of shots that are not entirely
consistent with what actually takes place. I have in my possession motion
pictures taken during tournament play of Jones and many other famous
players and golf writers which show conclusively that their own ideas of their
swings and the actual swings they make are at wide variance.
When I gave my first golf lessons at the Los Angeles Country Club, I knew
little or nothing about playing golf, let alone teaching it. I couldn’t drive a ball
a hundred and fifty years within forty-five degrees of any direction. In fact, I
had only a casual interest in golf, for I was getting a lot of fun our of playing
tennis, being good at that game to play in local tournaments with such
champions as Mary Browne, her brother Nate, May Sutton and Tom Bundy.
One day in an emergency I was called out to the practice tee to give a lesson. I
tried to avoid the assignment, but without success. Two circumstances made
possible my debut as an instructor. The pupil was a new member of the club
and hence did not recognize me as the handy man of the pro shop and a
former caddy; also, my victim was taking his first lesson.
While my innocent pupil politely and rather respectfully passed the usual
remarks about the unusual California weather, I racked my brains trying to
think of a way out of this embarrassing situation. For a time I toyed with the
notion of suggesting that it might be better for all concerned if the caddy gave
the lesson while I went out in the field to chase balls. The pupil, though,
continued so respectful and so expectant, that I decided to take the plunge.
I had picked up the conventional line of golf lingo in the years I had been
caddying and working in the pro shop, and I let him have it all, interspersed
with things I had heard the pro tell other pupils and my individual
interpretations of the grips, stances and movements I had seen other players
use.
Somehow or other I got through the hour and returned to my work in the ship
thanking Heaven that was over. And the next day I almost dropped dead when
my pupil came back for another lesson, asking specifically that I give it to
him. More than that, he continued to come back and he brought his friends,
and they brought theirs, and, before I knew it, I was a full-fledged golf
instructor while knowing about as much about the game as I now know about
the Einstein theory.
And there was not escape. The pro, who had more business than he could
handle personally, was relieved to find someone to share the burden. My
pupils seemed satisfied, possibly because I made myself agreeable to them as
I could; in the light of the knowledge I have gained since, I cannot imagine
how any of them could have been satisfied with the progress made under my
tutelage. Still, as I suggested before, the average golfer fancies an instructor
who gives him the sort of lessons he wants.
At all events, my native honesty and the desire I have always had to do my
best with any job caused me to conclude that, as long as fate apparently had
marked me for golf instruction, it would be well if I learned something about
golf.
I was about sixteen years old at the time, exactly six feet tall and I carried less
than one hundred and thirty pounds on my skinny frame. The pro and others
to whom I confided my intention of taking up golf in a serious way shook
their head doubtfully. Physically, they told me, I was entirely unequal to the
task of producing enough power and control in swinging a club to send a ball
much farther than the edge of the tee. They pointed to my small hands and
thin arms. No punch there. Of course, they’d be glad to help me, give me what
tips they could, but as for playing golf—why not take up some game I could
sit down to, something where brawny arms and broad shoulders weren’t prime
essentials?
Point was given to their objections by the fact that I was unsuccessful in
learning how to play golf by orthodox methods. Yet, in spite of my failure and
in spite of everything my teachers said, I could not put aside several obvious
and to me extremely pertinent facts. First, I had been able for several years to
put considerable steam into my tennis stroke and to bat a baseball as well as
other youngsters. Therefore, I reasoned, in my attenuated body must lie power
sufficient to propel a golf ball an adequate distance—if only I could find the
right combination. Second, every successful golf stroke I had seen looked
simple, so much so that I felt certain that anything that was so simple in
execution certainly must have a simple explanation. All golf instructions I had
received, all I had given at this time were in terms of the knees, elbows and
wrists; how the player placed and moved them, and what happened as a result
of his doing so. Light first began to dawn on my problem when it occurred to
me one day that I was merely confusing the issue, complicating matters
hopelessly in trying to cover so many different phases of body action. The
obvious and logical first point of attack in analyzing the swing was the action
of the club and the ball.
Even casual observation of this action demonstrated that to produce a
successful shot the head of the club must move in an accurate and consistent
“groove” so that the clubface will strike the ball exactly at right angles to the
intended line of flight with the required amount of force.
The more I considered the action of the club, the more I experimented, the
more apparent it became that the surest, most certain, the most efficient way
of obtaining maximum power in the clubhead at the all-important moment
when it strikes the ball came not from a conscious application of “punch” to
rt
The whirling motion of a weight on a cord demonstrates centrifugal force. Force,
similarly applied, is the foundation of every successful golf swing.
the club at that moment by any action of the hands, arm or body but through
the clubhead traveling at gradually increased speed as it approached the ball
and reaching it maximum speed at the moment of impact.
I recognized this motion. You will recognize it too. Everyone at some time
has attached a stone or another weight to a length of cord and whirled it
around by revolving the hand. Terrific speed of the weight results from a
comparatively slight motion of the hand. And the faster the weight whirls, the
truer its path. Furthermore, the weight being whirled will strike any object in
its path with great force. This striking force, of course, is proportionate to the
speed at which it travels. A whirling motion of this kind demonstrates the
application of centrifugal force—a scientific principle dealing with force
directed or tensing away from a central point.
I perceived in this action of the weight the very qualities I sought to bring
about in the movement of the clubhead. I reasoned and eventually
demonstrated to my satisfaction, that, once the proper whirling motion of the
club was attained, the clubhead traveled in a “groove” and had plenty of
striking power.
When I knew that a whirling motion of the club satisfied the required action of
the clubhead and the ball I set out to learn whether it was possible to make this
application of centrifugal force through a perfectly natural action of the body,
arms and hands.
Despite everything I had heard, I could not make myself believe that the main
force of a golf swing should originate in the hands and arms. This possibly
was my first radical departure from the orthodox methods of playing and
teaching golf. Trial and experimentation demonstrated to me that the
necessary whirling motion of the club was produced only when the force
actuating the club had its origin near the center of my body. I had not
perfected my swing, of course; yet it was apparent that, only when this
condition was met, was I able to produce a swing accomplished with a
minimum of effort and a natural and efficient use of my entire body.
Needless to say, it was necessary for me to overcome many physical and
mental tendencies that interfered with my efforts to produce a whirling motion
of the club. I did not succeed in developing anything resembling the proper
action until I had suffered innumerable discouragements and had forced
myself to practice hours on end. Fortunately it is unnecessary for the reader to
undergo any such painful process, for I have devised, and shortly will explain,
a simple method by which anyone can learn the correct swing.
The swing I finally developed is not only powerful and accurate, but it is a
perfectly natural and easy motion to perform. I have been using it for more
than eighteen years. In all that time it has not been necessary to change it in
the slightest detail—and it has become better and better every year.
The exigencies of theatrical and lecture work, particularly the necessity for
extensive travel at times over which I have had no control, have allowed me
little opportunity for tournament competition, but my swing has been put to
unlimited tests in other respects under the most trying conditions.
In exhibition matches played all over the United States and Canada, I
frequently agreed in advance of the round to play my shots so that the ball
would curve to the right or left or travel in a high or low trajectory as directed
by my gallery. And even under such circumstances I have broken course
records. In my theatrical work it has been necessary for me to perform as a
matter of routine, feats of accuracy such as even the most expert player is
never called upon to execute.
Hitting a ball off a man’s head, for example, I have done that more than four
thousand times in the last ten years, and I have done it, along with other
similar feats, whether I felt fit or not, for, unlike the tournament golfer, I was
not entitled to any “off” days. The average player aims only to hit the ball and
even the good player is conscious only that his clubhead passes over, under or
across a ball, whereas in all my performances, both in the theatre and on the
golf course, I not only aim at but hit one tiny spot on the ball.
And so I believe I can say, not as a boast by as a calm statement of fact, that I
have subjected my method of play to tests which no other golfer has met; nor
would I have met them successfully had I used any other method.
Besides putting my method to the test of personal use, I have investigated
thoroughly its practicability as a fundamental basis for teaching others to play
golf. I have taught it to fat people, thin people, the young, the old, to those
who have never swung a golf club, and to those who had played for years and
who assured me before I started that they were “too set in their habits to learn
something new. And I found that anyone, regardless of age, or size, could
make a successful swing immediately provided that he were willing to put
aside personal peculiarities and concern himself with acquiring the correct
principle.
It is quite possible that the reader at some time may have found himself under
test in my “laboratory,” for the list of my patients is long and is comprised of
people in every walk of life, including two former Presidents of the United
States, leaders in professional, financial and industrial activities and such well
known-persons as Henry Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Annette
Kellermann and Babe Ruth.
My experience with Henry Ford illustrates perfectly the truth of my statement
that the correct swing is accomplished readily by anyone who catches the
idea.
Some years ago, while playing a theatrical engagement at the Detroit Opera
House, I decided to use the interval between afternoon and evening
performances by visiting that Detroit wonder show, the famous Ford plant at
Highland Park. A Detroit business man had given me a letter of introduction
to an executive of the Ford Motor Company and I presented this in an outer
office.
In a few minutes a messenger returned, not with a pass to go through the plant
but with the information that Mr. Ford wanted to see me in his office.
Wondering, I permitted myself to be led to a room in one of the upper stories
of the building. Two men sat at desks there, and one of them I instantly
recognized, from newspaper portraits I had seen, as Mr. Ford.
Without preliminaries, he leveled a forefinger at me. “I saw you in the
theatre,” he announced. “I read one of your newspaper articles. I can make
your golf swing.”
Probably he read doubt in my face, because he continued: “I know what
centrifugal force is. I couldn’t be in this business without knowing. And I
know just how it’s applied to hitting a golf ball. I haven’t had time to play golf
myself; but my son Edsel plays, and I’ve been showing him just how you say
a club should be swung.”
“Well, Mr. Ford,” I said, ‘I hope some time you’ll have an opportunity of
showing me.”
He was out of his chain in a flash. Desks, tables and other pieces of furniture
were pushed to the wall. From some mysterious hiding place he produced an
old wood shafted iron. Then he stepped to the center of the space he had
cleared, took a stance, and the club swished through the air.
“There! he stated. “That’s it”
“Fine!” I applauded. “And if you’ll stand so”—demonstrating—“and make
your first move like this, so that the swing will start from the center of you
body----“
“I see!” he interrupted, and he proceeded to make a second swing which was a
least a fifty percent improvement on the first.
I removed my overcoat, offered a few more suggestions, and in almost less
time than it takes to tell it, Mr. Ford was whipping that club about with the
unmistakable swish that is the invariable accompaniment of a swing correctly
performed.
And, as a final, clinching demonstration that he actually caught the idea, he
took the club and with a full swing duplicated a feat I had just performed of
knocking an inverted carpet tack cleanly from the glass top of one of his
desks!
Nor is it wholly through my own performances or the efforts of those to whom
I have been privileged to demonstrate and teach my golf method that I have
been convinced of the soundness of my system. A careful study of the
technique of eventually every expert who has played in the United States in
the last fifteen years proves conclusively that every successful shot played by
any one of them is the direct result of the employment of centrifugal force in
swinging the club. And it is only because most of them make use of this
principle accidentally, that the styles of the majority of experts vary so widely.
It also explains the great fluctuation in the performances of individual players.
Moreover, it is only corroboration of the truth of this conclusion to state that
Bobby Jones’s swing illustrates the whirling motion of the club better than
does the swing of any other golfer.
In other words, the correct swing is not my swing, not Jones’s, nor Smith’s,
but simply the exemplification of a scientific principle correctly applied.
“But,” interposes the harassed reader, “this all seems so technical! That’s the
trouble with the game now. I’m not a scientist. I don’t know anything about
centrifugal force, and I care less. What I want to do is play better golf!”
Exactly. The writer appreciates fully that most people are not interested in the
principles underlying any action; they simply want results. For that reason he
will endeavor to present a description of the correct swing and a method of
learning it in such a way that the reader need be no more concerned about
centrifugal force that he need think of the function of the law of gravity if he
were operating an elevator.
Thorough analysis of the mechanical principles involved in the swing and
careful study of the anatomical and mental factors that govern its proper
performance have enabled me to reduce every action of the correct swing to
definite, exact terms of body position and body movement that can be
understood and applied by any one.
CHAPTER III
THE CORRECT SWING
IN PRESENTING a description of the correct swing, let us borrow a method of
procedure from the movies. The reader undoubtedly has seen slow motion
pictures of athletic events—jumping, hurdling, diving and like. First the action
is shown at normal speed, then repeated, but slowed down to a point that
permits leisurely study of the muscular movements of the performer. So with
the golf swing. If we can get a picture of it as a whole, a general idea of it, we
shall be better able to follow with understanding the “slow motion” analysis of
its various stages which we shall be seeing presently.
I have already given a few hints about the swing. I have said that its main
object is to produce a whirling motion of the club through centrifugal force,
thereby propelling the clubhead in a consistently true arc. I have said that the
force of such a swing originates near the center of the body. Let’s look a little
deeper and see if we can discover the “why” of all this. To start things off,
let’s just fan a little about golf.
Each round of golf is made up of an almost endless variety of shots, few of
them executed under precisely similar conditions. Our good friends the club
manufacturers have given us some assistance in making those shots by putting
at our disposal a large assortment of tools, with weight, and length, and loft
scientifically graduated to take care of our problem of getting the ball from
here to there. But we have all discovered that a great deal of the work is still
left to us. We have noticed, for example, that improper movements of our
hands or bodies sometimes nullify the efforts of the manufacturer to equip a
club with a hitting surface that will consistently perform a specific job. Or
when the ball rests on hard or rough surfaces, or lies in sand, or mud, or tough
grass, we have found that we must do something besides pick the proper club
out of the bag if we’re to get the ball out where it belongs.
In short, we have made the interesting discovery that, if we play golf, we must
learn not only how to execute a diversity of shots but how to repeat them
consistently and at will. Permit me to offer a little observation of my own at
this point, which is that we must also learn how to execute those shots in an
easy and natural way; otherwise we shall find our skill forsaking us when
confronted by the necessity of exercising it in the face of hazards either actual
or imaginary.
Everything needed to supplement the work the club manufacturers already
have done for us is found in the correct swing—an accurate, consistent,
powerful, natural action, requiring for its successful performance only that the
player learn the proper positions and proper order of movement to be
thoroughly relaxed and at ease.
Some years ago I worked out a definition of the proper swing, one which, like
the fundamentals of my own swing, I have found it unnecessary to change in
any way. It is this: One full, smooth, flowing motion without mental or
physical interruption.
Unless every item in this definition is satisfied, the correct swing cannot be
made. It cannot be made when the player grabs the club as he would a
baseball bat, pressing his thumbs against the shaft so that the muscles of his
hands and forearms are tightly locked. It cannot be made when he grips the
ground with his feet, thereby tightening the muscles of his legs; or, worse still,
when he tries to keep his body in a fixed position and so contrives to tighten
up the muscles of his back. It cannot be made when he is doubtful about the
outcome of his shot, or when the thought of hitting the ball hard enough is
uppermost in his mind. Such mental disturbances produce tension, and tension
is fatal to the freedom of motion which the necessary whirling motion of the
club cannot be produced.
The most certain way of overcoming tension, and consequently insuring
freedom, is through motion. From the moment the hands are placed on the
club until well after the ball has been hit, the entire body must be kept in
motion. How much action there should be in the swing depends, of course, on
the character of the shot, for obviously a drive requires more action that a putt.
But an uninterrupted motion there must be, for no one anywhere ever made a
good golf shot by holding a statuesque pose at the outset while he
contemplated the crime he was about to commit, or by pausing part way
through his swing to wonder whether he was on the right track.
In addition to freedom there must be power, properly generated and applied. A
loose-jointed, flabby sweep of the club is not a swing, no matter how free and
easy the maker may feel during the process. Power is obtained by the efficient
employment of the bones, joints, muscles and tendons of the body to propel
the club with maximum leverage.
The longer the lever, the greater the force produced. That is an elementary law
of mechanics, demonstrated every time you use a crowbar or work the handle
of an automobile jack. Consequently, the greater the “reach” in the swing, the
more speed and power in the clubhead at the moment it strikes the ball.
You can demonstrate this point about leverage to your own satisfaction and at
the same time learn something about the origin of the force that works the
lever, simply by wielding anything like a cane in much the same manner as a
swordsman might execute a backhanded blow with his sword held in his left
hand, palm facing downward.
Just stand erect and perfectly natural; grasp the cane, or whatever you use,
firmly in the palm of your left hand. With this hand turned over so that only
the back can be seen, draw your weapon well over to the right and then slash
back again toward the left. You will note that an exceedingly powerful blow
can be struck in this way. It is obvious, too, that extending your left arm to its
full reach, and adding to the distance you draw the arm over to the right
increases the radius or leverage and the power of your stroke.
Now shift your weight so that it is supported almost entirely on your right leg.
Let your body turn around as far as it will go while you are drawing your left
arm and the cane to the right. Slash out again toward the left. You will find a
surprising amount of force added to the stroke by the turning of your body.
After you have gone through this motion a few times you will become aware
that the main force propelling the cane comes, not from the arm itself, but
from the twisting of your body; that this force seems to “flow” from your
lower back as you unwind, being transmitted through the muscles around your
left shoulder, through your arm and hand to the weapon.
You can see that this is remarkably free movement; that your body performs it
almost automatically, without strain, stress, or effort.
I shall let you in on a little secret. The motion just tested is, in many essential
particulars, the identical motion by which power—maximum force and
maximum leverage—is obtained in the correct swing. In no other way can it
be obtained—so long as the requirements of a golf stroke remain what they
are. Only by winding up the body to its fullest, then releasing the accumulated
force in an expanding motion like the uncoiling of a spring can a golf club be
swing easily, naturally, accurately, and with maximum power.
I have already made the statement that golf is, in a way, a left-handed game
for the left-handed player. This is rather an unfortunate way of stating the
case, for the statement is inexact. Golf is really a two-handed game; yet it is
still a left-handed game for the right-handed man to the extent that muscles on
the left side of the body dominate those of the right side in every swing that is
correctly made. IN THE CORRECT SWING CONSCIOUS USE IS MADE
OF ONLY ONE SMALL GROUP OF MUSCLES ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF
THE BODY.
I have studied the anatomy of golf as thoroughly as any layman could. I know
the names and understand the action of all the principal muscles, bones, joints
and tendons used in swinging the club. There is no point, though, in airing my
knowledge of anatomy in presenting this general description of the swing.
Suffice it to say that practical experiment on myself and others, analysis of the
swings of leading players by the slow motion camera, discussion with
surgeons and anatomists, and many hours with text books on anatomy have
plainly proved that only when the swing is made somewhat in the manner of
the little exercise we just tried, with the muscles of the left side entirely
dominant during the action, can there be a few, natural, uninterrupted,
powerful motion. When the muscles of the right side of the body are permitted
to enter actively into the swing, there is conflict, constriction; muscles that
should be expanding and unleashing their strength contract and hinder the
action. One side of the body is fighting the other. The result? You have only
to compare the heavy-handed, muscle bound lunges of the average player with
the easy, “professional” swing of the expert to know.
And so we can trace the force that propels the club as follows: It originates in
the muscles of the lower back through body torsion such as tried just a little
while ago. It is transmitted through those muscles around the left shoulder to
the left arm, through this arm to the left little finger, and so through the shaft
of the club to the clubhead. When properly carried out, each movement
progresses into and harmonizes with the one following so that the swing truly
is made one full, smooth, flowing motion without metal or physical
interruption. Furthermore, as I believe we were able to demonstrate by
swinging the cane, the use of the muscles on the left side of the body is
perfectly natural, even though generally unfamiliar to most golfers.
Probably I do not need to say there are certain mental as well as physical
components included in the formula for the correct swing. The mental and
physical processes involved, though, complement each other so closely that
both may be included in the “feel” of the action. Psychology, concentration,
the will to win, or anything similar you care to name will to help you perform
the swing correctly if you do not acquire the feel. For this reason, when I
show you the swing in slow motion, I shall try to describe its most vital stages
in terms of what you should sense when executing the proper positions and
order of movement.
The only way in which you can properly sense what you are doing with the
various parts of your body during the swing, keep yourself “oriented” in other
words, is by holding your chin entirely independent of the action. You must
point your chin at a spot just back of the ball and keep it pointed there until
well after the ball has been hit. NO MATTER WHAT METHOD OF
SWINGING A CLUB YOU MAY USE, YOU CANNOT MAKE A
SUCCESSFUL SHOT UNLESS YOU DO THIS.
Lest there be any confusion, let me state here that I am not talking about the
well-know maxims, “Keep you head down,” or, “Keep your eye on the ball.” I
mean exactly what I said; that the chin must be pointed back of the ball and
kept entirely independent of the rest of the action until after the ball has been
hit. It is the most important item in the performance of the correct swing, and I
shall have a lot to say about it as I go along.
Use of these muscles to propel the
club in a whirling motion affords the correct swing.
By dominating the action of the
swing these muscles produce
power and accuracy in hitting.
For the time being it is enough to say that, once the positions and movements
of the correct swing are learned, pointing the chin in the way I have described
permits the main action of the swing to be performed automatically. The
player need not consciously direct any of the movements of his body or the
club. I know of no other successful method of bringing this about.
Many of the statements I am making in this brief sketch of the swing and
those that I shall make as I proceed to a complete analysis and definite
instructions for making it I know will be considered erratic by those who have
expressed their own opinions on the subject. However, the proof is simple,
and, if at the end of my description the reader is still unconvinced, he may be
sure that the fault lies in my exposition. I am endeavoring to make this outline
as complete and informative as I can. Consequently, I am including many
details that the player need not think about once he has learned to make the
swing properly. Indeed, once the player has caught the feel of the action, the
only details he should be wholly conscious of are his starting position and the
means of controlling the whirling motion of the club. And, as I have just said,
the latter is take care of automatically merely by the proper pointing of the
chin.
“But what is this chin thing?” inquires a puzzled gentleman who has been
playing golf for fifteen years. “I don’t get it at all. I’ve taken a lot of lessons—
from good teachers, too!—and I’ve read a lot of golf books, and I have never
heard of it before. I’ve got along pretty well without it, too. Why, this year my
club handicap is twelve.”
Wouldn’t you rather it were a six? Learn to point your chin every time you
make a shot, and I’ll guarantee you’ll get closer to the top flight of Class A
players in your club than you ever believed you could. Moreover, the pointing
of the chin is not so radical a notion as it may seem. I have made the statement
that it is impossible to make a successful shot unless you do it. Isn’t that the
equivalent to saying that every expert player, whether consciously or not,
makes it a part of his swing? It is, for a single example, a conspicuous feature
of Bobby Jones’s swing.
“Ah!” breaks in our friend. “Now I’ve got you. You said once before that
Bobby Jones’s swing is might near perfect. Why bother about centrifugal
force, and the pointing of the chin and all that. Why not just copy Bobby
Jones’s swing and be done with it?”
Anyone who has tried to pattern his golf game on that of Jones or any other
expert knows the answer to that one. It can’t be done for the simple reason
that you haven’t Bobby’s temperament and physique. Granted that you have
the imitative ability to go through the exact positions and moves of Bobby
Jones—which, if you are beyond childhood is doubtful—and you still have
only a synthetic swing, unless you happen to be another Bobby Jones.
The good points of any player’s style are worthy of attention and adoption
only if they illustrate the application of a sound basic principle. It is far better
to adopt a technique which we can demonstrate is basically correct than to
copy any particular individual’s method or to struggle along on the popular
system of trial and error.
Douglas Fairbanks is a rabid golf enthusiast. He has marked talent for the
game, as indeed he has for any athletic sport. Yet he is not the golfer that he
might be solely because he sought to learn the game by imitation.
Not long ago he and I played several rounds over a course hear his home in
Beverly Hills, California. I remarked that his stroke was obviously an
“assembly job” in which it was easy to detect the influence of several
prominent players. Doug admitted that he had played with about every noted
golfer, amateur and pro, who had visited California and had employed his
ability at mimicry to borrow whatever seemed useful from the style of each.
“That’s the way I learn things,” he added. “When I had to pick up fencing,
throwing knives, wielding a bull whip and other stunts for my picture parts, I
engaged an expert at each trick and watched him do his stuff until I had it.”
“But that was one expert, and consequently one method, for each stunt,” I
reminded him. “With golf you’ve tried to work into your swing possibly a
half-dozen movements that are merely the personal mannerisms of certain
players and have nothing whatever to do with their basic method of play.”
“Well,” he objected, “if, as you say, there’s only one correct way of playing
golf and all good players use it when they’re on their game, I don’t see why
they all look so different when they do it. Why, I could tell Walter Hagen’s
swing from Bobby Jones’s a mile away!”
“You could tell Jones and Hagen apart whether they were swinging or not,” I
said, “just as you can tell one make of automobile from another. The
automobiles are different only in details; the basic method by which power is
generated and translated into motion is the same for all. And I can
demonstrate to you with motion pictures that, except for such modifications as
are necessitated by differences in physique, the vital stages of Jones’s swing
and Hagen’s are the same.”
Habit, though, is difficult to break. Doug seemed much more interested in
finding a few frills in my swing that could add to his collection than in going
back to the beginning and learning how to do things correctly. However, in
each round we played I managed to promote a little more ease and poise in his
game until he finally scored a seventy-two over a water soaked par seventyone course.
“Well. What’s the matter with that?” demands a reader, “I’d be satisfied with
any old swing if I could shoot in the seventies!”
So would Mr. Fairbanks. But it’s the average that counts in golf, not the
occasional brilliant round; and Douglas Fairbanks has not yet reached the
stage where he can break eighty for a certainty. Nor will he, I predict, while
memories of Diegel and Jones and Hagen and possibly Morrison fight for
ascendancy in his mind every time se swings a golf club!
The method of playing which I advocate and which I am explaining in this
book is basically sound. It is founded on nobody’s personal opinion or
idiosyncrasies but on the anatomical structure of the human body.
Peculiarities of physique or temperament need be taken into account in
successfully applying it no more than the length of your legs need be in
walking.
But let’s get on with your slow motion view of the swing.
CHAPTER IV
THE SWING IN SLOW MOTION
IF THIS book serves no other good purpose, it is the fond hope of the author
that it may do its part in removing some of the non-essentials from golf, and
particularly from golf instruction. In the detailed analysis of the golf swing
which is given in this chapter I shall omit nothing that is necessary. Any one
who learns the positions and movements I am about to describe will know all
that is essential to good golf. Yet I am able to reduce the entire action to eight
stages, each of which follows the preceding one logically and obviously.
These eight stages are (1) the grip, (2) the address, (3) the pointing of the chin,
(4) the backswing, (5) the downswing, (6) the moment of impact, (7) after the
moment of impact and, (8) the finish.
If the reader misses from this analysis the conventional “don’ts” and the
familiar golf maxims, well and good—and the more quickly he puts them
from his mind for all time, the more likely is he to get somewhere as a golfer.
For it is a fact, though few golfers realize it, that most of the golf
“commandments” serve only to put the player on the defensive. Likewise,
most of the “tips” are like advice from back-seat drivers and just as apt to
cause you to wind up in the ditch. Once you know that you can make the
proper swing you can approach any shot to be played under any sort of
conditions with plenty of confidence.
The eight stages of the swing, and the positions and order of movement of
which they are composed, are the same for all shots. But because its wider
scope of action is more easily observed and studied, the full swing is first
described.
Those who find difficulty in visualizing the various positions and movements
from the text and illustrations would do well to take a golf club or a walking
stick and carry them out as detailed.
THE GRIP—In order to perform their proper function, which is, to have each
hand transmit an equal amount of force at exactly the same angle to the club,
the hands must be placed on the club in the following manner:
(A) With the clubhead resting on the ground in its natural position and with
the shaft about in line with the fully extended left arm, palm of the left hand
facing down; grasp the club firmly in the palm of this hand with the thumb
encircling the shaft. The main pressure in holding the club against the palm is
exerted by the third and little fingers. The proper angle of this hand on the
club will permit only the back of the hand to be seen.
(B) Shift the hips over toward the left until a decided pressure is felt against
the left hip joint and most of the weight of the body is supported by a fully
extended left leg. As the left leg straightens, the right leg should bend. The left
leg should be as nearly erect or vertical as possible. Shifting the hips toward
the left should raise the left side of the body and lower the right side.
Straightening the left leg elevates the left hip and shoulder, while the bending
of the right leg depresses the right hip and shoulder. This brings into play a
group of muscles in the left side of the body, but leaves the muscles in the
right side comparatively in a state of rest.
(C) It is easy now to reach over and place the right hand, palm facing upward,
on the club without fully extending the right arm or disturbing the position of
the left arm and the club. The right hand should be placed on the club at
exactly the same angle to it as the left, with the right little finger interlocking
with the left forefinger. The shaft of the club is held firmly in the fingers of
the right hand, not the palm, with the principal pressure between the forefinger
and thumb. There should also be a slight pressure between the hands where
the heel of the right rests on the thumb of the left to keep the hands touching
and working in unison throughout the swing.
From the time this grip is taken until the swing is completed, there must be no
shifting or loosening of the hands or fingers on the club. None whatever! The
hands should become a part of the club, moving and turning as the club does
in response to the movements of the arms and body. This grip should give a
feeling of complete freedom in both forearms and wrists. It is only by such
freedom that the hands can perform their proper function. The position of the
body attained through this manner of placing the hands on the club is virtually
the position it must assume at the start of the swing.
The starting position is most important because the kind of action performed
by the various parts of the body during the swing is determined by the position
from which they start. Particularly are the positions and movements of the
backswing reflected in the positions and movements of the downswing.
Consequently, the starting position for the swing has a definite bearing on the
hitting position. Although the correct hitting position may be arrived at
accidentally, the simplest and surest way of effecting it obviously is to assume
approximately that position at the very start of the swing. This brings into play
the identical muscles that are to be used later in hitting the ball and eliminates
most of the tendencies to utilize the wrong propelling muscles, simplifying the
problem of causing the entire body to function easily and naturally and to
generate maximum power under perfect control.
Both the start of the swing and the moment of impact should find the body in
as natural and as erect a posture as it is possible to maintain while still
bending sufficiently to reach the ground with a fully extended left arm and the
club.
THE PROPER GRIP. 1. The club should be grasped firmly in the palm of the left
hand. 2. The right little finger should be interlocked with the left forefinger. 3. The
club should be held only in the fingers of the right hand.
The body should form a decided curve to the left, with the shaft of the club
appearing as a prolongation of the left arm and forming a straight line between
the left shoulder and the ball.
2. THE ADDRESS—Before addressing the ball, survey the intended line of
flight from behind the ball.
(A) Then place the clubhead in its natural position on the ground just back of
the ball, with the clubface exactly at right angles to the intended line of
flight.
(B) While the clubhead is resting on the ground, place the heel of the left foot
about opposite the ball.
(C) Then place the right foot so that a line across the toes is nearly parallel to
the line of play.
The toes should be turned out slightly and the feet separated a distance about
equal to the width of the shoulders. This “spread” is for a full swing. It varies
according to the amount of force used in each stroke, becoming narrower until
the heels touch in the playing of short, easy shots.
The distance of the feet from the ball depends upon the erectness of the body
and the radius of the swing; that is, the combined reach of the fully extended
left arm and the club.
Let us make sure that we have the correct starting position. The body forms a
decided curve to the left, with the hips thrust toward the left until most of the
weight is supported upon a fully erect left leg. The right ankle and knee are
bent in conformity with the lowering of the right hip and shoulder. The body
is comfortably balanced between the ball and the heel of the left foot and the
inside edge of the right foot. Up to this point the muscles in the left side of the
body have dominated the action. The only muscles in the right side which
should be in conscious use are those which maintain the proper positions of
the right hand on the club.
It is only while the body is in this posture that the muscles which should, and
must, dominate the swing can function properly.
3. POINTING THE CHIN—Aim the chin at a point just behind the ball and
make your mind to keep it there, no matter what other movements you must
make to accomplish the swing, until well after the ball has been hit. While
aiming the chin, keep the body in motion. Now is the time to forestall tension
by loosening up the muscles and making sure that you have the necessary
poise before going into the swing. The amount of action taking place in the
THE PROPER WAY TO PLACE HANDS AND FEET
1. Place left hand on club.
2. Tilt hips toward left.
3. Place right hand without disturbing left artm of
club.
4. Place clubhead with face at right angles to
desired line of flight
5. Place heel of left foot about opposite of ball.
6. Place right foot to so that feet are nearly
parallel to line of play.
7. Point chin at spot on ground back of the ball.
various parts of the body should be in proportion to what the respective parts
will be called upon to perform during the swing. The greatest amount of
action in these preliminary moves should take place in the wrists as the club is
swung slowly back and forth over the ball. Three or four such waggles should
be enough for the player to sense the state of his muscles and joints and to
make sure that his chin is pointed back of the ball.
The next stage of the swing—the backswing—must be started in a deliberate,
unhurried manner. The pace for this can be set by performing the preliminary
motions in the most leisurely way of which you are capable.
4. THE BACKSWING—(A) The initial move of the backswing is made by
the body, carrying with it the arms and the club, (as though all in one piece) in
a shifting of the hips toward the right. This lateral motion of the hips which
moves the base of the spinal column to the right, transfers the body weight
from the left to the right leg.
During this action the right leg straightens, the left knee and ankle bend, the
left foot rolls over toward the inside and at last its heel leaves the ground. This
side motions should continue until a decided pressure is felt against the right
hip joint and most of the body weight is supported by a fully erect right leg,
the weight being balanced between the ball and heel of the right foot.
In spite of the movement of the spinal column, the chin should remain pointed
at the exact spot at which it was aimed originally. Only by keeping the chin
independent of the entire action of the swing can you maintain the proper
body balance and proper control over your movements.
Now the body is in position to accomplish the proper “wind-up” upon which
the whirling motion of the club depends.
(B) The first turning motion of the body must take place on the right hip joint,
and, much as the hub of a wheel turns the rim through moving the spokes, so
the lower part of the back, which is the hub of the whirling motion, turns the
upper part of the body, the arms and the club.
As the lower part of the back completes the full amount of turn permitted by
the right hip joint, the twisting of the upper part of the body commences. The
full turn of the hips should be followed by an even greater turn of the
shoulders.
The raising of the full extended left arm, the hands and the club blends with
the shoulder turn. The club is kept in the proper plane by the action of the left
arm and hand which is aided by a sort of collapsing of the right arm through
the dropping of the right elbow close to the body.
There now remains only a small but vital part of the backswing to be fulfilled.
That is the backward bending of the wrists.
(C) The grip taken at the beginning of the swing leaves the wrists at all times
ready to permit the shaft to move back from the line of the left arm. Now, as
the final stage of the backswing, the wrists bend, taking the club to the rear as
far as it is physically possible to take it while keeping it in the plane of the
swing.
Most of this wrist action must be reserved for the final stage of the backswing
for this reason: It not only rounds out the wind-up, but, by taking place while
the “unwinding” starts, it makes possible the blending of the backswing with
the downswing and the avoidance of any interruption at this stage of the
swing.
This method of winding up the hips, the shoulders, arms and then the wrists
does away with any slack between the hub and the rim and makes possible
maximum leverage and body torsion upon which the power and speed of the
clubhead in the downswing depend.
The main torsional stress will be felt in the muscles of the lower back, those
around the left shoulder, those that keep the left arm fully extended, and those
in the left hand, particularly in the little and third fingers that hold the club
firmly in the palm of this hand.
Throughout the backswing the muscles and joints of the right side should
serve merely to steady the action of the dominant muscles in the left side. The
only muscles in the right side that should be in conscious use are those
employed in maintaining a slight pressure between the forefinger and thumb
and those used to balance the weight of the body on the right leg.
When you have executed the proper wind-up you will have a feeling of
tremendous power generated and ready to be let off through your arms and
hands.
Just as the entire action of the backswing must be unhurried so the downswing
must be started rather slowly, much as a fisherman in casting allows time for
the end of his line to swing well behind him before whipping his rod forward.
This is a critical point in the swing and particular attention must be given to
keeping the chin properly pointed. You must center your entire attention on
your chin. As a practical means toward this end you should try to turn your
chin to the right just before the downswing begins.
5. THE DOWNSWING—While the backward bending of the wrists is
completing the backswing the hips are shifted to the left. Just as a lateral hip
shift is the first movement of the upswing, so it is the first movement of the
downswing as well.
As the base of the spinal column is moved toward the left, transferring the
weight from the right foot back to the left, the left foot drops back into the
same position it held at the start of the swing. The left leg straightens to a fully
erect position and maintains this position to the finish. The right knee and
ankle bend; the right foot rolls over toward the inside and the heel finally
leaves the ground. Most of the body weight is balanced between the ball and
heel of the left foot as the clubhead approaches the ball.
Shifting the weight during the action as described not only facilitates the
proper wind-up and unwinding but is also has a direct bearing on the accuracy
with which the clubhead travels. Its importance cannot be overemphasized.
Body balance is perfectly maintained despite the transfer of weight from one
foot to the other, for it is simply a moving balance such as we keep when
walking. The whole action of the swing, of course, must be accomplished with
utmost smoothness; consequently, the weight must pass from one leg to the
other without interruption.
The brief overlapping of the backswing and downswing results in an eccentric
motion between the lower part of the body and the upper part, including the
shoulders, arms and hands. The forward shifting of the hips while there is still
some winding up in progress brings the torsion of the body to its maximum
and causes the unwinding process to begin immediately.
After the lower part of the body has been moved toward the left, the body
unwinds in precisely the same order in which it was wound up. Thus the order
of movement in the downswing is, first, the hip action, coupled with the action
of the shoulders and the downward swinging of the arms and then the hingelike action of the wrists. It is only through this late action of the wrists in the
downswing that the muscles of the left arm and those of the little and third
fingers of the left hand can produce a leverage to increase the speed of the
clubhead to its maximum as it descends upon the ball.
Starting with the lower back, the force of the downswing is transmitted
through the muscles of the left shoulder, through the fully extended left arm,
through the left little finger into the shaft of the club and on to the clubhead.
The unleashing of the same muscles that bore the main stress of the wind-up
results in whirling the club downward in a motion which, needless to say,
requires but a fraction of the time taken for the backswing. As a single
example of the length of time in which the downswing is accomplished, the
heel of the left foot barely settles into position before the clubhead strikes the
ball. In fact, the motion of the clubhead toward the ball is entirely too fast for
the human eye to follow.
The center of the body, the shoulders, arms and hands must arrive at a certain
point opposite the ball at the same time and since one member has a greater
distance than the other to travel, the various members must move at a speed in
proportion to their distance from the hub of the whirling motion.
6. THE MOMENT OF IMPACT—The spirited reaction of the muscles of
the left side to the winding-up process depends entirely upon keeping the chin
pointed back of the ball. With the chin under control the correct positions of
body, arms and hands as well as the club are assured at the moment of impact.
The proper set of muscles will bring the club down to form a straight line
between the left shoulder and the ball and have the clubface meet the ball at
right angles to the intended line of flight.
THE CORECT ORDER OF MOVEMENT DEMONSTRATED BY THE AUTHOR
1. The starting position which favors the left side of the body, leaving the right
side comparatively relaxed. 2. Starting the backswing. The weight shifts to the
right. 3. The arms and hands move in response to the side motion of the hips.
4. Most of the weight is placed on the right leg before any turning motion takes
place. 5. The wind-up. The backward turning of the hips is followed by the
backward turning of the shoulders and arms. 6. The final stages of the wind-up.
The backward motion of the arms and bending of the wrists continue after the
body turn is completed.
7. Starting the downswing. While the arms and hands are completing the windup, the hips begin to shift toward the left. 8. Unwinding. As in the wind-up, the
arms and hands move in response to the body action. 9. The moment of impact.
The speed of the clubhead developed in the whirling motion assures plenty of
power and accuracy in hitting.
10. The left arm and hand dominate the action until after the ball has been hit.
11. After impact. The momentum of the clubhead swings the hands, arms and
body. 12. The head is not allowed to turn until after the ball has been hit.
Almost any amount of force can be expressed through this set of muscles
without upsetting the timing of the swing—provided the chin is kept properly
pointed.
It is mechanically and anatomically impossible for the muscles and joints in
the right side of the body to do more than harmonize with and supplement the
action of the dominating muscles of the left side if the clubhead is to travel in
a true arc at its maximum speed. The moment the muscles of the right side
take charge, speed and accuracy are greatly decreased. This invariably
happens; there are no if, and, or buts about it.
The proper set of muscles should dominate the action of the swing until well
after the clubhead has struck the ball. There should be no conscious lessening
of the speed or power of the clubhead until after the moment of impact.
Even though maximum power and speed are being expressed in this stage of
the action, even though the temptation to move the chin along in the direction
of the club is swinging seems almost too strong to be resisted, the chin must
be kept pointed back of the ball until after the ball is on its way. This is the
most valuable contribution you can make toward the general efficiency of
your stroke. It helps particularly to effect a clean hit.
7. AFTER IMPACT—The action that takes place after the ball has been hit
is due almost entirely to the momentum of the swing and has no bearing on
the flight of the ball.
In the correct swing the path traveled by the clubhead is at times a curve. No
matter how flat the arc, the clubhead still travels in a curve, and, since the ball
must fly in approximately a straight line, it follows that the path of the
clubhead can coincide with the line of flight only at a single point of
intersection.
Twelve years ago the author made slow motion pictures of this phase of the
action which demonstrated conclusively that the face of the club and the ball
are in actual contact for only a fleeting instant. Consequently, whatever
movements follow the moment of impact is important only as a means of
judging the action in earlier stages of the swing.
For a considerable part of the downswing the right side of the body has been
subject to the outward motion of the club. As a result, after hands and arms
both have passed well beyond the point where the ball is struck, the right arm
is drawn out to its full reach and the momentum of the club causes it to roll
over the left arm.
8. THE FINISH—The mechanics of the swing is completely reversed in its
last stages. Instead of the body, arms and hands moving the club, the
momentum of the clubhead moves the hands, arms, body and at last the chin.
Because the action after impact has no effect on the flight of the ball, it is
necessary to keep the chin pointed back only until after the ball has been hit.
However, as a precautionary measure, because the tendency is to move it too
soon, it is better to permit the hands, arms and shoulders to respond to the
momentum of the club before allowing the chin to drift forward.
In this manner the entire body comes to a position of rest as the action of the
swing finishes.
CHAPTER V
LET’S NOT GO WRONG!
I HAVE endeavored to describe the muscular action and the essential
positions and movements of the correct swing as fully, as accurately and as
concisely as possible, not with any idea that the reader can immediately make
them his own, but so that he may have a detailed analysis to which he can
refer.
Any normal person by following this description can assume the right
positions and execute the right order of movement, call into use the proper set
of muscles and acquire the “feel” of the correct swing. A thorough
understanding of the swing, though, cannot be obtained by reading about it.
You will never actually know the positions and movements until you perform
them.
Despite my promise at the beginning of my analysis to omit nothing essential,
I am certain that some of my readers believe that I have overlooked or slighted
some phases of the swing. I know this because in talking with thousands of
golfers in the last several years, form world famous experts to novices, I have
learned the extent to which the essential elements of the golf swing have been
beclouded by people who talk about golf, write about golf, teach golf and play
golf. Let me repeat that I have left out nothing necessary to the successful
study and execution of the correct movements, and I have made use of only
such explanatory terms as my experience in teaching and writing have
demonstrated to be practical.
However, it may be well to make sure that the reader is actually on the right
track; and the best way to do that is to consider briefly what will happen if the
correct positions and order of movement are not carried out.
The exact order of movement that I have described must be followed in order
to make use of the proper set of muscles and so apply the right principle in
making the swing. If the proper muscles are not in control of the action, the
improper ones will be; there is no possible way of effecting a compromise
between the two sets of muscles.
Trying to mix their action or to bring both into use at the same time can result
in only one thing—the wrong muscles will predominate and spoil the swing.
The ordinary person, when left to his own devices, will invariably do the
wrong thing with a golf club because every inclination or tendency that seems
“natural” to him, when followed, brings only the improper muscles into play.
Those who have not learned to play golf properly may find the action of the
correct swing so unfamiliar to them as to look upon it as “unnatural.”
Furthermore, the use of the wrong muscles always follows any doubt, worry
or fear over the outcome of the shot; also when the player is tempted to act on
impulse at some stage of his swing.
The correct positions and order of movement are the mechanical means of
overcoming these negative influences that are always ready to interfere with
the player’s mental and physical processes.
1. GRIPPING THE CLUB—If the hands are not placed on the club in what
has been described as the correct grip, their action will not be equally
balanced during the swing. It is the only grip that will permit the hands to
retain their original position on the club throughout the swing and still afford
complete freedom in forearms and wrists. Any other position of the hands on
the club is not likely to permit the shaft or clubface to swing into the right
position in relation to the intended line of flight at the moment of impact.
(A) If the clubhead is in any other than its natural position on the ground when
the grip is taken, the hands will be placed at the wrong angle in relation to the
clubface. The hands should transmit force to the shaft at an angle that comes
as near to coinciding with the plane of the swing as it is physically possible to
make it. Since you cannot successfully change your grip during the swing, you
must place your hands at the correct angle at the start.
Unless the left hand is placed on the club with the arm fully extended and the
palm facing down, the shaft will not assume the proper relation to the arm.
If, instead of grasping the club in the palm of the left hand with the thumb
encircling it, the left thumb presses against the shaft, or whenever either or
both thumbs are used in an effort to guide or propel the club, freedom of
motion in the wrists and forearms is sacrificed.
When the little and third fingers of the left hand fail to hold the club firmly in
the palm it indicates that the right hand has taken control of the club.
If, instead of the left, the right hand is placed on the club first, the right hand
will dominate the swing and the correct application of power from the muscles
in the left side of the body cannot be made.
(B) If you fail, after placing the left hand on the club, to shift your hips to the
left, thus causing the right hip and shoulder to drop, the muscles in the right
side of your body will not be sufficiently relaxed to permit the proper muscles
in the left side to predominate at the start of the swing.
(C) If the right hand is placed on the club at a different angle from that of the
left, the two hands cannot work in harmony during the swing. The right hand
is almost certain to overpower the left unless the right little finger is
interlocked with the left forefinger, the shaft held in the fingers of the right
hand and the muscular activity of the right hand restricted to gripping the shaft
between the forefinger and thumb and the slight pressure needed to keep the
hands touching.
If the hands are placed on the club in any other way, they will work apart
during the swing, the club will change its position in the hands and there will
be a loss of control over the hitting angle of the clubface. When the hands lose
their grip on the club it indicates tension in the wrists and arms. Tight wrists
cause an excessive and inefficient elbow action.
Once the proper grip has been taken, any extra attention given to the right
hand will surely prevent the hands from working in unison. Best results are
obtained by forgetting the right hand entirely once it has been placed on the
club. Both hands will work in unison if you think only of the left.
The swing is directed from the body. If you do more with your hands than
merely permit them to respond to movements of the body, the arms and the
club, you are making the fatal mistake of allowing the hands to become the
main source of power; in short, the tail is then wagging the dog.
(2) ADDRESSING THE BALL—If you fail to assume the correct starting
position, you have very little chance of brining the proper set of muscles into
use during the swing.
If the feet are not arranged so that the plane of the swing bears the proper
relation to the intended line of flight, a stroke entirely foreign to the correct
swing will have to be made in order to send the ball in the desired direction.
You cannot be very accurate in judging the line of play from a side view; the
best place to line up the shot is from behind the ball.
Once the line of flight has been planned, it is easy to place the clubhead in the
correct position on the ground back of the ball and to assume the proper body
posture for the swing. If the process is reversed, it is extremely unlikely that
the correct position of either the body or the club will be obtained.
The correct posture of the spinal column depends upon the reach of the left
arm and the club, your distance from the ball and the manner in which you
bend your body. If you neglect to adjust the position of your feet so as to
permit as little forward bending as possible, or if you fail to shift your hips so
that the body forms a decided curve toward the left before you stoop over, you
are bound to have an uncomfortable forward bend at the waist. This makes
impossible a free, easy action of either legs or arms during the swing.
If the feet are not placed with the toes turned slightly outward so that a line
drawn across the toes is parallel to the line of play, or if they are separated in
an unnatural spread, the action of the entire body will be constricted. For
example, if the right foot is placed forward of the left and pointed toward the
ball, the backward turning of the hips will be restricted and the action of the
shoulders cramped.
An incorrect posture at the very start of the swing can mean only that the
wrong muscles have been brought into use, in which case it is not likely that
the proper muscles will come into play in any stage of that swing. Certainly an
incorrect starting position makes it practically impossible for the first move of
the backswing to be correct.
3. POINTING THE CHIN—Unless the chin is pointed back of the ball
before the start of the backswing, there is little chance of keeping it
independent of the body action. If the chin is allowed to turn with the body,
you immediately lose the only certain means of sensing and controlling the
various positions and movements of the swing.
You cannot keep your chin pointed properly by observing the timeworn
golfing precepts, “Keep your head down,” and “Keep your eye on the ball.”
But the converse is true. Keeping your eye on the ball and your head in the
proper position will follow of themselves if the chin is held in position.
Actually to hold the head still throughout the swing is a physical
impossibility, and the effort to do so results only in shutting off the principle
source of muscular control. Also, you can stare at the ball till you’re pop-eyed,
and still fail to sense properly the movements of you body during the swing.
So important and so necessary to a successful swing is the pointing of the chin
that, once the correct starting position is assumed, it is relatively easy to hit a
successful shot with the eyes shut—if only the chin is kept properly pointed. I
have done this scores of times and it has been hailed as a marvelous feat. The
only marvelous thing about it is that I have trained myself to resist the
tendency to let my chin follow the clubhead in its path toward the ball.
Pointing the chin has both a physiological and psychological effect. It is the
most important single item in the correct swing, but it is not, of course, all
there is to the swing. It would be too much to expect that merely pointing your
chin properly would permit you to take your mind entirely off your stroke, and
still make it correctly. It would be too much, too, to expect the pointing of the
chin to bring the proper set of muscles into play automatically. But pointing
your chin will relieve you from the necessity of “concentrating” upon too
many details of your stroke; it will insure the correct use and control of your
body once you have learned the proper positions and proper order of
movement.
In other words, you must learn the swing—all of it. But once you have caught
the feel and by practice made the correct movements your own, you need only
assume the correct starting position and pointing your chin will take care of
the rest.
While aiming the chin, the body should be kept in motion because action is a
sure means of avoiding tension. If you permit yourself to “get set” or tighten
up at this point you will surely ruin your swing.
4. THE BACKSWING—(A) If the first movement is not a lateral motion of
the hips that carries the upper body, the arms, the hands, and the club to the
right as a unit, that is, without preliminary bending at the shoulders, elbows,
or wrists; if it is made a turning motion, or “body pivot” as it is commonly
called, then the whole anatomy is placed in an unnatural and uncomfortable
position and the body balance will be lacking.
The reader can easily demonstrate this for himself. With the body weight
distributed on both feet, try starting a swing with a turning motion on the hips.
The first effect noticed will be a cramped feeling in the mid-section; a
constriction, a rigidity that will effectively prevent coordination of body, arms
and hands. The reason for this should be self-evident. In attempting to “pivot”
in this manner, the center of the body actually moves in the opposite direction
to that of the arms and hands, and when you attempt to compensate for this
incorrect body action and consequent discomfort by movements of the hands
and arms, you sacrifice the use of muscles you need to propel the club.
Note, too, that the muscles and joints of the legs are tightened and strained.
No matter how much the left knee may bend and the left heel lift from the
ground, much of your weight still rests on the toes of that foot. You are “tight”
and uncomfortable in your left side and forced to strain every muscle in your
legs, back and shoulders to take the club far enough to deliver an effective
blow in your downswing.
Now try shifting your weight to your right leg and then making the body turn
on your right hip joint. Notice the difference? Observe, for one thing, how
much farther you can turn your body. Your legs are comfortable and
unstrained. Note that your back and shoulder muscles do not “catch” until you
have swung the club back so that the clubhead is visible over your left
shoulder. With that tremendous arc to the swing through there is bound to be
speed and power in the clubhead as it travels toward the ball.
If you have been told not to “sway,” forget it. Such advice is harmful and
misleading. As stated before, the correct body balance in golf is a moving one,
as in walking. You must shift your weight from foot to foot before turning the
body if you hope to get efficiency and power into your swing. It is because
this fact is not generally understood that a turning of the body is usually
advised and taught as the proper method of beginning the backswing. It is
wrong. Any attempt to maintain a fixed balance or distribute the weight
evenly between the feet while swinging a golf club will tighten the muscles
and joints in the lower part of the body. It creates tension and discomfort, both
of which will increase as the swing progresses.
(B) If, after the weight has been shifted to the right leg, a full backward turn of
the hips is not taken, and, if that turn is not followed by a still fuller turn of the
shoulders, then the winding-up of the body will neither be harmonious nor
effective. For this winding-up, remember, is a progressive process that starts
in the center and proceeds outward to the other parts successively. The center
of the body, the back, the shoulders, the arms, the hands, the shaft of the club,
and the clubhead—that’s the line-up from the hub of the wheel to the rim; and
there must be no slack, no buckling, no looseness in any of the parts as they
revolve.
Of course, if the chin is allowed to turn with the body, the effectiveness of the
wind-up is lost.
If the raising of the arms, hands, and the club precedes the backward turning
of the shoulders, instead of taking place in response to the movement of the
body, you will be forced to rely on the arms and hands as your main source of
power in the downswing. If the club is raised with the arms and hands alone,
these members will not be in position to swing the club correctly. The wrong
order of movement is extremely difficult to time or to control. But when the
proper order of movement is carried out, there need be no worry about the
position of the club; it will always be correct both in relation to the player’s
body and to the intended line of flight.
(C) If the action of the wrists is not made the last movement of the backswing,
the full utility of this highly important adjunct to the power to be generated in
the wind-up will not be obtained. Moreover, if the backward bending of the
wrists does not take place simultaneously with the forward shifting of the
hips, there will be a distinct interruption in the swing. For the simple reason
that there must be no interruption in the action, there is no fixed point that can
rightfully be termed the “top of the backswing.”
Furthermore, if the wrist action that takes place in the backswing is not
correct, the wrists will not function properly in the downswing. The wrists
must bend in such a way that the club is kept in the plane of the swing;
otherwise, the left arm and hand will not dominate the subsequent motion of
the club.
A “DUB IN ACTION
1. An unnatural starting position causes
tension in the arms and legs.
2. 2. Starting the backswing with a
turning motion of the body cramps the
mid-section.
3. An unnatural body twist finds most of
the weight supported by the left leg.
4. An improper wind-up develops no
power because the body is working
against the arms and hands.
White lines afford check on player’s movements
HOW “NOT” TO SWING
1. Allowing the head to turn forward at the
start of the downswing causes the body
to “pivot” on the right leg instead of
shifting to the left.
2. Pulling up or falling away from the ball
in the downswing will defeat any
attempt to hit a clean shot.
3. All control of the action is lost whenever
the head is allowed to turn before the
ball has been hit.
4. An “artificial follow through” is a sure
sign of an unnatural swing.
If, at this stage of the action, strict attention is not given to keeping the chin
properly pointed, and instead you allow yourself to be distracted by the various
details of your swing, it will be your downfall. Even though the winding-up
process has been executed properly up to this point, any turning of the chin with
the body will surely prevent the proper unwinding in the downswing.
5. THE DOWNSWING—If a lateral shift of the hips to the left is not made
as the initial move of the downswing, the hips will turn, causing the knees and
ankles to lock against and resist the movements of the upper part of the body.
The result will be that the weight, instead of moving to the left before the
clubhead strikes the ball, will shift to or remain on the right leg. There is no
more common fault among inexpert players.
It is a physical impossibility to keep the weight entirely unresponsive to the
action of the arms and hands in any swing, long or short. The weight will
either shift in the same direction or in the opposite direction to that in which
the arms and hands move. The latter is plainly demonstrated when the weight
falls back on the right leg in the downswing.
The inclination to turn the hips before shifting them in the downswing
generally arises from the fear that you will not get your body into the correct
hitting position in time. Or you may feel that the club is so far behind that a
turn of the body is necessary to speed it up. There is no reason for
apprehension in either particular.
Neither is there necessity for hast or conscious effort in shifting the hips. If the
chin is properly controlled, the correct lateral motion of the hips and the
proper unwinding process will follow as a matter of course.
6. THE MOMENT OF IMPACT–If you attempt to anticipate the moment of
impact, in other words, if your attention is given to pushing or jabbing, instead
of whirling the club at the ball, you thereby reduce the speed of the clubhead
and undoubtedly fail to hit the ball at the desired angle. Any interruption in
the downward whip of the club, whether caused by a desire to kill the ball or
by uncertainty or hesitation at any point in the downswing, can have but one
result; the proper muscles will cease to function, the wrong muscles will take
charge–and another shot will be dubbed.
Whether you are conscious of the cause or not, you will always know that an
interruption has occurred in your swing when the moment of impact finds you
trying to propel the club at the ball with your right hand. When the right hand
dominates the downswing, it is practically impossible to have the club in the
correct position in relation to the intended line of flight as it strikes the ball.
7. AFTER IMPACT–While you should try to swing past the ball with no
lessening of speed in the clubhead, you must remember that you do so only to
make sure that there is no diminution of speed before impact and not because
anything you may do after you have hit the ball will or can have any effect on
its flight. As I have said before, movements of the body after impact should be
brought about almost entirely by the momentum of the club. However, if the
right side of the body is not sufficiently relaxed to respond to that momentum,
it is bound to upset the action of the hands and the club.
8. THE FINISH–If any attempt is made to control the movement of the club,
body, arms, or hands after the ball has been hit, the end of the swing will find
the body in an unnatural posture. Keeping the chin pointed to the right until
well after impact, plus the momentum of the club, are the only means of
bringing about the proper action in the body members in the final stages of the
swing.
In fact, it will do no harm to keep the chin pointed until the swing has been
completed. There will be plenty of time to observe the flight of the ball, and,
what is more important, you will sense the angle at which the face of your
club has struck the ball and from this know exactly where to look.
The reader may be reluctant to follow this advice but the following points may
convince him:
It is proved that when you allow your chin to turn before the finish of the
swing, or when you “look up” as it is termed, you invariably do so before the
clubhead lands on the ball. This does more to prevent a successful result than
anything else you may do in your swing. Consequently, the only results you
can see by “looking up” are bad ones. Mental telepathy, “body english” and
the like can have nothing to do with the flight of the ball once it has left the
face of the club.
Failure to keep your chin properly pointed is an indication that your mind is
not on your job; that you are disorganized mentally and physically.
CHAPTER VI
FIXING THE SWING IN YOUR MUSCULAR MEMORY
JACK DEMPSEY was playing a vaudeville engagement in Memphis, Tenn.,
several years ago when I was appearing in a theatre of a rival circuit in the
same city. I had met Jack in California and had seen him in the ring. Also, I
had first-hand information about the kind of dynamite he carried in each hand
from one of my brothers, who had sparred with him in a friendly bout, and
from several husky lads of my acquaintance who had appeared on the wrong
end of fight scenes with him in the movies.
The first afternoon of my stay in Memphis, I discovered that a fast taxi ride
immediately after my performance would take me to Jack’s theatre in time to
permit me to catch part of his act. When I reached the theatre, Jack was just
leaving the stage to the accompaniment of thunderous applause while an
announcer stepped before the footlights to herald the concluding feature of his
performance–bouts of one round each with as many local boxing stars as
wished to exchange blows with the then champion.
While Jack was greeting me a half-dozen ambitious stalwarts climbed to the
stage.
“Watch them walk right into my fist!” grinned Jack, nudging me as he left the
wings.
And that was all there was to it. The local fighter would charge, ready to dare
anything on the chance of hanging just one on the jaw of the great Dempsey.
Jack would weave his body, raise his arms as though to defend himself, and –
bingo! A nose would smear itself on his glove. Just a short thrust of the arm
propelling a tightly clinched fist, and whatever it landed against had to give
way.
“Timing, that’s what it is,” Jack told me when he came off the stage. “Just the
same way you take the little white pill off the tee with your driver.”
“If you could deliver that much power to a golf ball,” I began.
“Take you on tomorrow morning,” offered Jack. “We can go eighteen holes
and be back in plenty of time for our shows.”
I didn’t know that Jack was interested in golf, and needless to say I was
delighted with the prospect of observing whether the superb timing, speed and
muscular strength of the champion would serve him as well on the golf course
as in the ring.
To put it charitably, as a golfer Jack was not so hot, even for a beginner. His
lack of direction alone would have caused the ordinary man to quit the game
in disgust. Besides failing to keep his shots on the line, Jack simply could not
hit the ball clean. Either he would top it, get no height and land smack in a
hazard, or dig under it, pop it right up in the air with no distance.
We played every morning that week, sometimes twenty-seven holes, with the
champion in a constant state of perplexity, trying to find a reason for his
inaccurate hitting. Why a man with such tremendous power in body and arms
and with such unusual skill in applying it in boxing could not utilize it in a
golf swing puzzled him more and more each day.
Yet there was nothing strange about it, and the explanation is highly
important, not only to the iron-muscled Hercules who tries to master the game
by main strength, but everyone who attempts to play golf.
Golf is almost unique among outdoor sports in that virtually every correct
movement that the player makes in applying power is an expanding one that
stretches certain muscles of his body to their fullest. Movements that contract
these muscles when an attempt is being made to convey the power the ball are
destructive to good golf. The correct swing, as I have described it in the
preceding chapters, cannot be made unless you extend certain muscles in a
motion as though you were seeking to fling the club away.
In no other game is such generous, almost exclusive use made of the extensor,
or reaching muscles of the body. Rowing and swimming are the only two
sports I can recall offhand in which expanding motions that even approach
those of golf are regularly and systematically employed. Batting a baseball,
stroking a tennis ball and certainly delivering a Dempsey-like short-arm jolt
with the fist in boxing are done mainly with contracting muscles. For the tools
with which these games are played were never designed to transmit power
through the medium of a loose, relaxed, expanding swing.
Try to return a tennis ball with your racket gripped with no more force than
you apply to a golf club, and it will turn in your hand. Take a golf grip on a
baseball bat, and a and school boy pitcher would knock it out of your hands.
Strike a blow with your fist using the same motion and muscles you would
employ in swinging a golf club, and you would probably succeed only in
breaking the small bones in your hand.
That’s why Jack Dempsey’s exceptional physical equipment helped him not at
all on the golf course at the time we played together. For years he had trained
himself to apply force suddenly to a definite point by using contracting
muscles. When he tried a game in which stretching muscles supplied the
power, he was no more ready to take on the job than is the middle-aged office
worker who takes up golf by his doctor’s orders. That is why big league
baseball players, tennis champions, record holders of track and field, football
stars, experts at all sports form billiards to channel swimming, find their
natural aptitude for game somehow doesn’t apply to golf. The muscles they
have trained, the movements they have learned to make, the timing, speed,
control and poise they have developed are of scant use to them on the golf
course—for golf requires that they employ a brand new set of muscles in a
brand new way.
Muscular training of a specialized and precise kind must be pursued by
anyone who hopes to play good golf, for the correct use of the proper golfing
muscles cannot be learned and made a habit in any other way. You must, in
short, impress the feel of the correct swing upon your muscular memory, so
that the proper movements will be almost automatic. The only way in which
this can be done is by constant repetition.
You must practice the swing, first, sections of it, and then the whole of it, until
the mere sight of the ball ready to be knocked off a tee will be sufficient to
cause you to take the proper starting position, go through the right order of
movement and send it in the desired flight. The bewildered, “What-do-I-donext? attitude with which the typical golfer faces the necessity of making a
shot will give way to confidence and certainty under the beneficial influence
of intelligent practice.
When the player has to think of a number of things to do while performing his
swing, he is bound to fail, for it is not humanly possible to keep the mind on
even a few of the vital points during the action and be successful. Even if it
were possible, it isn’t necessary, for nature has attended to that by supplying
our muscles with more retentive and more responsive memories than our
minds.
No motorist need go through the mental acrobatics which many of us find
necessary in recalling names or telephone numbers to remember that it’s the
brake pedal and not the accelerator to which he should apply his right foot
when another car turns suddenly into his path. Experience and training have
taught the motorist’s muscles to respond instantly to a red light, for example,
or a sudden obstruction, through a marvelous process that psychologists call a
conditioned reflex. The turning of the steering wheel of an automobile or the
application of the foot brake in response to a sudden sign of danger are not
instinctive actions. They are acquired by practice—repetition—as are so many
of the habitual actions of our daily lives.
And similarly can the proper positions and movements of the golf swing be
made habitual. I have made them so, and I have devised an exceedingly
simple little group of exercises that has proved singularly successful in
enabling others to make the correct swing as a matter of habit without waste
of time or lost motion.
Only a few months ago Paula Stone, talented young daughter of Fred Stone,
famous comedian, came to me for some golf lesions. She was the kind of
pupil that golf instructors dream about but rarely get. She had never played
golf; consequently, she had no preconceived notions of how it ought to be
done and no acquired faults to be corrected. She had the pliant muscles of
youth, a natural knack for sports, a real willingness to learn, and, above all, a
readiness to practice.
After three weeks in which I gave her five lessons of approximately an hour
each, confined entirely to the exercises I am about to describe, Paula Stone
had learned to execute the most graceful swing I have ever seen a girl make.
More than that, motion pictures that I made of her demonstrate her swing to
be technically more correct and nearer to the perfect swing than are the swings
of any of our leading women players! She has only to practice that swing,
indoors or out, to make a name for herself in golf.
“But, why cite an example that you yourself admit is exceptional to make out
a case for your method?” I seem to hear a reader protest.
Well to begin with, I am not trying to make out a case for myself, but for the
correct way of swinging a golf club. I hold neither a copyright nor a patent on
that. All I can claim is that I have taken the time and the trouble necessary to
analyze the action fully so that I can tell others exactly how it is done. And, if
Paula Stone mastered the correct swing quickly because of natural talent, let
me refer to an extreme case in which my method of teaching proved
successful almost as speedily with not one but forty persons, not one of
whom, as far as I know, had any interest in golf, any desire to play or any
wish to learn the game.
These forty pupils were the chorus in a musical show of a few seasons back,
called “Follow Thru.” Possibly you saw it. At any rate, as the name implies, it
was built on a golf theme, and in one dance number the entire chorus occupied
the stage and swung golf clubs in unison as the orchestra played. I can assure
the theatrical reviewers who commented on the skill and precision with which
the girls moved the clubs that these were no stage swings. There were the real,
bona fide article.
As a matter of fact, nothing but the correct swing would have served for this
number, for not only was it necessary that strict time be kept with the music
for the sake of the spectacular effect, but, because of the distinct limitations of
space, the movements of all the performers had to be absolutely uniform;
otherwise, somebody’s head was likely to be split open. For in addition to
doing the real swing, the girls used real clubs.
Except that I taught them to make the swing to a numerical count, arranged to
keep them in time with the music, the chorus of “Follow Thru” performed the
swing exactly as I have described it here. Same grip, same starting position,
same shifting of weight, and same pointing of the chin. I had only a few weeks
to train the girls, and, of course, had to sandwich my instructions in with their
rehearsals of the songs and dances of other ensemble numbers. Yet, despite
the unfamiliar nature of the routine, every one of them was able to make the
correct swing long before the opening night, and this number became one of
the big hits of the show. I can still recall the great thrill I used to get when I
watched them swing with perfect rhythm and accuracy—and every swing
completed before a single chin came forward!
To those chorus girls learning to swing a golf club was just another chore, a
little more interesting perhaps because of its novelty than learning another
dance step, but still merely part of the day’s work Yet the fact that, under such
circumstances, they were not only able to learn to do it but to do it well,
thoroughly supports my contention that the correct swing is a perfectly natural
action, easy to perform once the “feel” has been impressed on the muscular
memory.
And, if the swing can be learned by forty persons who have absolutely no
interest in its application to playing golf, there is no reason that I can see why
anyone who plays golf and who wants to improve his game should not be
willing to take the small amount of trouble required to go off by himself with
golf club in hand and practice the movements of the wing until he has made
them his own.
The set of simple exercises that I am about to detail was devised especially to
train the muscles used in the proper swing. It constitutes an orderly and
systematic procedure that will effectively iron out any kinks that may have
interfered with a player’s attempt to learn the correct swing from the
directions given in the two previous chapters. Make sure that you can perform
each exercise correctly before going on to the next. Above all, make sure that
you can perform them all correctly before putting their sum—which is the
proper swing—into actual practice either on the golf course or the practice tee.
EXERCISE No. 1—The first and most valuable thing to learn is the proper
position of the head in relation to the body during the swing.
In going through this exercise, make sure that the head is held in its normal
position with reference to the spinal column; that is, do not permit the head to
drop forward, to be throwback, tilted toward either side or held in any other
position than the one in which it rests when perfectly balanced in an erect
posture.
Begin by standing erect and after taking stock of the position of your head and
particularly the direction which you feel your chin to be pointed, allow your
hips and shoulders to turn without letting your head turn with them. After you
are sure that you can keep your chin independent of the turning of your body,
repeat the action with your eyes closed. Your first attempt to do this probably
will not be successful for the simple reason that our every-day habit is to
initiate any turning motion of the body with a like motion of the head. It is,
however, just as natural to turn the body without turning the head as it is to
turn the head without turning the body, after a few tries you will find yourself
able to do it successfully whether your eyes are closed or open.
It is of the utmost importance to establish this position of the head,
particularly its independence over the turning motion of the body, for it gives
you an immediate ascendancy over the mental as well as physical obstacles of
the game. You will cease to worry over the flight of the ball and devote the
necessary attention to the execution of the swing. Furthermore, you will learn
that the proper pointing of your chin is the best means of offsetting countless
errors that you cannot otherwise overcome.
EXERCISE No. 2—This exercise is designed to establish the correct body
balance. Through practicing it you can learn the proper action of your hips,
legs, and feet which accompany the natural shifting of weight. This paves the
way for the proper coordination between body, arms and hands in the swing.
Stand fully erect and hold a club in the horizontal position against the front of
your legs as you would a bar or a railing. Place your feet in a comfortable
spread with your toes turned slightly outward. Face directly forward and aim
your chin at a point directly opposite the center of your body.
Making sure that the position of your chin does not change; shift your hips
slowly to the right until you feel a decided pressure against your right hip
joint. The right leg should straighten to a vertical position and the left relax
with the left foot rolling over until only its inside edge is touching the ground.
Now shift your hips fully to the left. The left leg now straightens to a vertical
position, the right leg relaxes and the right foot rolls over toward the inside.
Repeat the entire action several times, moving the hips and transferring the
body weight from one foot to the other. Be certain there is no twisting or
turning of the body, that the chin remains pointed to its original mark and that
the leg which becomes free of weight with each movement of the hips relaxes
and that its foot rolls over.
EXERCISES TO LOOSEN UP THE “PROPER SET OF MUSCLES”
EXERCISE NO. 1. 1. Stand fully erect with head in a natural position. 2. Without
turning head allow body to turn to the right. 3. Still without turning head allow
body to turn to the left.
EXERCISE NO. 2. 4. Stand in a natural position and hold the club as pictured
above. 5. Shift the hips slowly to the right without turning the body. 6. Then shift
the hips slowly to the left.
EXERCISE NO. 3. 1. Start with the hips tilted toward the left. 2. Shift the entire
weight of the body to the right leg.
3. Without turning the head allow the body to turn on the right hip joint.
4. Without turning the head shift the hips in a side motion toward the left.
EXERCISE No. 3—The foregoing exercise has taught you to shift the weight
of your body by moving your hips from side to side. It has also demonstrated
that the shifting of weight is accomplished more readily when the hips are off
center as they are when most of your weight is supported by one leg. In the
next exercise we take advantage of that discovery by starting with the hips
shifted to the left and the weight supported by the left leg. Take this position,
holding the club against the legs and pointing the chin as before. Shift the hips
to the right, and, when a decided pressure is felt against the right hip joint,
turn you body to the right. Make sure that your chin does not turn with your
body.
Repeat this portion of the exercise until you are certain that you can perform it
correctly. Principal points to watch are the position of the chin and the
balancing of the weight between the ball and heel of the right foot along with
the complete relaxation of the left leg.
Now we are ready to try the forward counterpart of this action. Proceed as just
detailed; then, when the body has been turned to the right, shift the hips to the
left. Make sure that the initial movement is a shift of the hips as previously
performed and not a turning motion. When the weight has been shifted to the
left, turn the body on the left hip joint.
Repeat the whole exercise, always maintaining this order: 1. Shift to the right.
2. Turn. 3. Shift to the left. 4. Turn.
EXERCISE No. 4—Grip the club as described in the outline of the swing.
Take the starting position as described, and, with your right elbow resting
against your body, move the club back and forth slowly, keeping it behind the
line of your left arm. This exercise will accustom you to the correct grip and
the resulting wrist action. The muscular action that moves the club should be
dominated by the left forearm and left hand. Make certain that there is
pressure against the club only from the third and little finger of the left hand
and the forefinger and thumb on the right and that the hands are kept touching
and working in unison throughout the entire action.
If the exercises up to this point have been carried out properly the player may
be encouraged to know that nine-tenths of his job is done. The three principal
sources of muscular freedom will have been opened up.
Exercise No. 1 makes possible the full, free action of the muscles and joints in
the upper part of the body, at the same time establishing the best means of
controlling the movements of the entire body.
Exercise No. 2 takes care of the freedom of action of the muscles and joints in
the lower part of the body and through their natural use establishes the right
body balance for the swing.
Exercise No. 3 opens up the source of power for the correct swing. It
establishes the hub or center upon which the wind-up and unwinding of the
whirling motion of the club depends.
Exercise No. 4, through the manner of placing the hands on the club as
described and the simple routine of moving the club, hand and forearms,
establishes freedom of action in the wrists and forearms, also, the proper
relation between the hands and the club in their respective positions and
movements.
When these vital points have been properly taken care of, the execution of the
right positions and order of movement is a comparatively simple matter.
However, I feel I must warn the reader at this point about the accuracy and
thoroughness with which these instructions must be followed.
If you have any difficulty in carrying out the right order of movement in the
following exercises you can be sure that you have failed to perform some of
the earlier exercises correctly. In order to be successful in learning the swing
as a whole it is first necessary to establish the foundation of complete freedom
of action in all of the muscles and joints used in making the swing.
EXERCISE No 5—Imagine a ball on the ground before you. Take the correct
starting position and place the club properly in reference to it. Point the chin
directly behind the spot where your imaginary ball lies. Move the ball back
and forth with your forearms and hands once or twice. Try to prevent any tight
spots from developing in your body, then shift the hips to the right. Along
with this hip action allow the upper part of the body to move the arms and the
club to the right without any action in the wrists, elbows or shoulder joints.
Any difficulty in moving your arms, hands and the club solely in response to
the body action can be overcome by performing the exercise while holding an
ordinary coat hanger under your arms against your chest. This exercise is
designed to insure your making the first movement of the backswing correctly
and should be practiced until you are “letter perfect.” Do not raise the club,
nor turn the body until you have this much of the action down pat. And, of
course, do not permit your chin to stray.
Exercise No. 6—Make the movements of Exercise No. 5, and, when your
weight is properly balanced on your right leg, turn your hips to the right,
permitting the upper part of your body, but not your chin, to turn with them.
Arms, hands and the club should respond to this twisting motion. As in the
previous exercise, no attempt should be made to raise the club beyond the
point to which it will be carried by the arms and hands as a result of turning
the body. Practice this exercise until you are sure that you are making no
unnecessary movements with the hands, arms and shoulder.
EXERCISE No. 7—When your muscles have been trained to perform the
movements thus far detailed, you will be ready to practice the final
movements of the backswing. Proceed through the action prescribed in
Exercises Nos. 5 and 6, then, when you approach the full backward turning of
your hips, continue the twisting motion with your shoulders. Follow this by
letting your left arm and hands raise the club gradually and then by the
backward bending of your wrists allow it to drop well behind your body. Do
not be afraid to make the fullest possible backswing, for this gives you a
larger arc, which is a decided advantage in building up the speed of the
clubhead in the downswing. Do not be too critical of your muscular action nor
discouraged if it seems to lack the smoothness you think it should have. It will
perfect itself if you practice the various movements as I have detailed them
here. If you are conscious of any restriction or tightness, exaggerate all the
movements from the starting position on, and the kink will disappear.
EXERCISE TO DEVELOP PROPER WRIST ACTION
1. Grip the club as shown in illustrations opposite page xx and hold the club as a
prolongation of the left arm.
2. Move the club back and below the line of the left arm by bending the wrist.
3. After completing the backward bending of the wrists, repeat the action from the
first position as shown above.
EXERCISE No. 8—This is the full swing. If you have practiced the various
movements faithfully, until you are able to bring the club back as far as your
physique will permit in one smooth, continuous motion, you need but little
additional instruction—and one of two words of caution—to enable you to
make the proper downswing. As your hips shift to the left try to swing your
chin to the right and when you succeed in keeping your chin back the rest of
the downswing will take care of itself. Every subsequent movement will
follow automatically in the proper order provided that you simply allow the
unwinding process to whirl the club downward. The unleashing of the muscles
that bore the stress of the wind-up will automatically increase the speed of the
clubhead in the downswing.
Think only of your chin; the proper unwinding will follow as a matter of
course. The greatest difficulty I have encountered in teaching golf has been to
convince players of this fact. The tendency to help the club along, the belief
that the club must be pushed or steered toward the ball are, to many, too
strong to be denied. It seems impossible that the easy, simple unwinding
process that propels the club in the whirling motion could be productive of
enough force in the clubhead to dislodge the ball from its perch on the tee, far
from providing enough striking power to send the ball screaming down the
fairway. Time without number I have seen a look of utter amazement come to
the face of a pupil when, after fruitless punching, slashing and hacking, he has
finally caught the knack of letting nature take its course in the downswing and
for the first time has felt the club whirl toward the ball in a perfectly grooved
swing of which he seems to be little more than a spectator.
All this may sound silly to you. As a matter of fact, I don’t expect you to
believe a word I am saying—until you learn to make a swing that way
yourself. If you do learn the correct swing, I know exactly what you will say,
for I have heard it from the lips of many: It’s the greatest thrill of golf. If you
don’t learn it, the fault is your own. I have described the movements and have
detailed a method that I know will fix them in your muscular memory. The
practicing, though, you must do yourself. And now for a final exercise that
will help to eliminate any interruptions in your swing before the moment of
impact and also teach you to swing right “through the ball.”
Exercise No. 9—Place an old pillow, a rolled up blanket, or any article of
similar softness on the ground where you have plenty of room to make a full
swing. Point your chin well to the right of the object and after a deliberate and
full backswing, whip your club down as though you were going to drive the
clubhead right through the pillow. Make sure that you can keep your chin
back. An old rug or strip of carpet hung on a line will make an excellent target
in this exercise, for the proper action of your left arm and your hands in
swinging the club is similar to that used in beating a carpet backhanded with
your left hand, palm facing downward.
Permit me to request, if not implore you to give yourself a thorough course of
training with these exercises before you attempt to use the swing on the golf
course. No matter how fine the weather, no matter how much you may believe
you need the sunshine and fresh air, no matter what importunities the other
members of your foursome may present, if you really want to learn to play
good golf, stay off the course until you have mastered the correct swing. It
may take a few weeks before you have acquired the feel of the action and the
confidence and self-control necessary to put it into practice. But it will be
worth it. Until making the correct swing is almost second nature, one bad shot
will be sufficient to bring back all your old faults, and you will have all the
work of learning the swing to do over again.
THE WAY TO LEARN THE CORRECT SWING
EXERCISE NO 5. Practice only the starting position and the first move of the
backswing. Positions one and two.
EXERCISE NO. 6. Take the starting position, make the first move and them turn the
body backward. Positions one, two, and three.
EXERCISE NO 7. After shifting the weight to the right and making the backward
turn with the body, complete the wind-up with the backward motion of the arms
and bending of the wrists. Positions one, two, three, and four.
EXERCISE NO. 8. After learning the proper wind-up, keep the chin pointed to the
right and allow the unwinding to take place. Positions one, two, three, four, five,
and six.
CHAPTER VII
USING THE SWING ON THE GOLF COURSE
IN WRITING about golf I have frequently introduced an exceeding naive but,
to me, most useful gentleman who I have tagged with the comic strip name of
Mr. Over A. Hundred. This gentleman interrupts me at intervals, asks me
questions and argues with me, thereby aiding me in establishing my points.
Thus far I have managed to keep Mr. Over A. Hundred out of our discussion
but I think the time has arrived to admit him. Not that he has been pounding
on the door or that I am lonesome without him, but because I am about to
bring up a matter that is rather in his line. And so Mr. Over A. Hundred,
having been properly introduced to the reader, clears his throat and says:
“Well you’ve certainly told us a lot about how to drive. Isn’t it about time you
gave a few hints about putting or making a mashie shot or using a niblick?”
At which the author takes on a pained expression, shakes his head sadly and
replies:
“As usual, you just haven’t been paying attention! I have not been trying to
teach anyone how to drive. The burden of my remarks has been the correct
way to swing a club in all shots.”
“All shots!” exclaims Mr. Over A. Hundred. “Do you mean to stand there and
tell me that I should make the same kind of swing with iron clubs as I do with
wood clubs?”
“Just about,” I answer him. “The mechanics of all properly executed strokes is
pretty much the same. The clubface strikes the ball in approximately the same
manner whether the shot is long or short, high or low; and the hit occurs while
the clubhead is traveling at its maximum speed for that particular swing. The
only variation in the strokes is indicated in the path traveled by the clubhead;
first, in the distance it travels, and second, in the angle at which its face meets
the ball. The same principle that produces speed and accuracy in the clubhead
in one stroke will afford those qualities in all strokes.
I can see that Mr. Over A. Hundred doesn’t quite get his, and the fact doesn’t
astonish me, for my experience with the instructive side of the game has
shown me that there is no idea about the swing more difficult to implant in the
mind of the average player. Golf writers and golf teachers have introduced so
many unnecessary and confusing elements into their descriptions of the
execution of various shots that the ordinary golfer is firmly convinced that it is
necessary to invoke a new kind of magic and employ a new technique with
each different club.
“If my short game were only as good as my tee shots! Or “Somehow I just
can’t get the knack of using a mashie!” You’ve heard such things said
innumerable time; possibly you’ve said them yourself.
Bu why? If you can walk five miles an hour, you certainly can stroll down to
the corner drug store for a package of razor blades. Any man who can throw a
stone a hundred feet can throw one ten. Nor is it necessary to alter the basic
mechanical principles used in walking or throwing in order to perform the
lesser feats.
What, then, is illogical about the statement that the same mechanical principle
which is used to send a golf ball two hundred yards can also be employed to
send one fifty feet? And, if we have found certain positions along with a
certain order of movement which afford accuracy and consistency in the
longer shots, why cannot the identical positions and order of movement yield
equally successful short shots?
Let me answer that one myself. They can and do; simply through a different
amount of action in the various parts of the body and the amount of force
exerted. I think the best way to explain the application of the right principle in
swings of any length is through a short review of the points of similarity and
difference among the strokes.
First of all, the starting position is pretty much the same for all shots. The grip
is exactly the same. The general curve of the body is the same. The stance
varies somewhat. While the ball remains about opposite the heel of the left
foot for all shots, the feet are arranged according to the type of shot being
played and the amount of body movement to be employed.
The shorter the swing and the club, the closer the feet are to one another as
well as to the ball. Likewise in the shorter shots, the arms and the club are not
taken so far back, the body is not so fully wound up, less power is generated
and consequently less force is expressed in the clubhead.
No matter how little resemblance to a whirling motion the club of the casual
observer may catch the action of the shorter swings, the fact remains that the
hub of the swing, the order of movement and particularly the position of the
chin during the action, are the same as in the full swing.
“Oh, now I see. You always go through the same movements but you vary the
amount of force in the different strokes. It’s the loft of the clubface that sends
the ball in the proper flight.”
No indeed! Although every club is designed with a particular width and loft of
face, size and weight of head and a particular length of shaft, to aid in sending
the ball in a certain trajectory, in actual use these features are of secondary
importance. The deciding factor in determining the flight of the ball is the
angle at which the force if the swing is transmitted at the moment of impact.
Any experienced player knows that it is quite possible, for example, to hit a
high shot with a driver and a low one with a niblick. Such results, though,
have no practical value beyond showing that clubs can be used for purposes
other than those for which they are designed and that the loft of the clubface
will not automatically send the ball in the desired flight.
This means that the angle at which the clubhead descends upon the ball really
is the deciding factor in determining the flight. And, since the striking angle of
the clubhead, that is, the angle at which the force of the swing is transmitted at
the moment of impact, depends upon the arc in which the clubhead swings, it
follows that the arc of the swing must be regulated to conform with the
desired flight of the ball.
Now the only way the arc of the swing, or path in which the clubhead travels,
can be regulated is by varying the relative amount of action performed by the
various parts of the body in making the swing. Consequently, the proper
distribution of action becomes just as essential in the execution of different
shots as the right starting position and right order of movement.
In the full swing the movements of the body, particularly the lateral motion of
the hips, are designed to flatten the arc in which the clubhead travels in the
bottom of the swing. Moving the center of the body from side to side in
harmony with the arms and hands permits the clubhead to travel in a curve
that is more nearly elliptical than circular, and the consequent flatter arc tends
to produce a long, low ball.
In shots intended to impart a considerable amount of loft to the flight of the
ball, this flat arc in the bottom of the downswing obviously will not serve.
Since the object is to raise the ball it is apparent that the clubhead must be
traveling in a sharper, that is, a more circular arc at the moment of impact.
Writers on the subject have contrived to muddle this phase of golf technique
until the average player has obtained an altogether erroneous idea of the real
object of using clubs of different sizes and shapes in playing the game. It has
been drummed into his head that he is to “let the clubhead do the work,” and
that he is to “make no attempt to help the clubhead raise the ball.” The result
is that if, using the correct club for a specific shot, he fails to send the ball in
the desired flight, and he blames his failure on the club and not on the fact that
he did not use the club correctly. So the next time he encounters a similar
shot, remembering what happened to him before, he takes a different club out
of the bag, and it isn’t long before he is convinced that, no matter how long he
sticks to the game, he’s never going to learn ho to use his irons properly.
Letting the clubhead do the work is a useful principle but only in the sense
that no conscious effort to guide it must be made in the downswing. It’s sort
of ridiculous, though, isn’t it, to expect the clubhead to do the work if it isn’t
swung correctly; that is, if you don’t see to it that the movements of your
body, arms, and hands are such as will cause the path it describes as it passes
“through” the ball to be in keeping with the desired flight of the ball.
Likewise, this arc should coincide more or less with the loft of the clubface.
This does not mean that the basic plan of the correct swing is altered. Though
the plane of the swing may be made more upright, though the curve of the
swing may be sharpened by reducing the lateral motion of the hips, the order
of movement remains unchanged, as does the mechanics of the action and the
source of power still remains in the center of the body.
Even in putting, where the clubhead moves only a few inches and the amount
of action is so reduced that the movements of the forearms and hands alone
are visible to the eye, the player should still have a feeling of comfort and ease
in his mid-section and that his whole body, particularly the muscles in his left
shoulder, left arm, and his hands, are animated by and responsive to the
central source of power.
Since no two persons are built exactly alike, any statement regarding the
proper amount of movement to be performed by the various parts of the body
for any particular shot can only be approximate. The distribution of the action
depends upon the player’s physique, his temperament and his familiarity with
the proper positions and order of movement. The relative amount of action
also determines the length of the backswing and the amount of effort that is
needed to develop the necessary speed and power in the clubhead.
The following examples of the proper arc of the swings used in playing the
various types of shots will show the relative amount of action performed by
the body members.
The shot can be classified according to the club that is used. The most useful
clubs are: Driver, Brassie, Spoon, Mid-Iron, Mashie, Mashie-Niblick and
Putter. These seven, properly used, will send the ball in any flight desired. The
width and angle of loft in the clubface of each are virtually standardized in
any matched set. However, the weight and length of each club should suit the
build of the player.
DRIVER AND BRASSIE—With Driver or Brassie the full swing is always
taken. Either club is used from the tee as conditions warrant; the Driver when
maximum distance is required and no great amount of loft is needed in the
flight of the ball, the Brassie when a higher ball off the tee is needed, for,
having a bit more loft than the Driver, the Brassie will send the ball in a
higher though somewhat shorter flight. The Brassie is also used to obtain
maximum distance for the fairway but it should be used only when the ball is
in a favorable lie and the layout of fairway, hazards and green warrant the use
of a full swing.
The proper distribution of action is the full swing with either of these clubs
causes the clubhead to travel in a comparatively flat arc at the moment of
impact, and the ball is sent in a long, low flight.
SPOON—When both height and distance are required and conditions,
principally the lie of the ball, do not warrant the use of a full stroke with the
Brassie, a modification of the full swing is used with the Spoon. The body
action is cut down slightly. This in turn effects the movements of the arms and
hands, and the path of the clubhead, which is controlled mainly by the
movements of the latter, approaches more closely a circle.
THE MID-IRON—The next major reduction in the length of the swing is in
connection with long iron shots, when playing conditions do not favor the use
of wood clubs and when a reasonably high flight of the ball is more important
than distance. The Mid-Iron, with medium loft, is not only suitable for such
shots but also for shorter ones to the green. The swing for a long iron shot
require less power that the swing for wood shots and in consequence the
action that takes place at the center of the body is diminished. This in turn
lessens the action in the shoulders, arms and hands. The comparatively small
amount of side to side motion at the hub of the swing causes the clubhead to
move in an arc that is almost that of a true circle.
MASHIE—A decided change in the relative amount of action performed by
the body members from that performed by them in the long shots is necessary
in the execution of shots in which high flight of the ball is required. The
pronounced loft of the Mashie will help to send the ball up in the air, it is true,
nevertheless, the arc of the swing must be such that the blade of the club will
strike the ball at an angle consistent with the desired flight. To produce such
an arc, still less body action is used than is employed in a Mid-Iron stroke, and
the clubhead is swung in a decidedly up-and-down motion. The left arm and
hand dominate this motion, assisted by a liberal amount of wrist action, which
blends the upswing with the downswing. This distribution of the action brings
the clubhead down to the ball at an angle designed to raise it rather than to
send it any great distance.
MASHIE-NIBLICK—In using the Mashie-Niblick for still shorter, higher
shots, the arc of the swing must be even more upright than in the Mashie
stroke. The wide and extremely lofted blade of this club is designed especially
to raise the ball abruptly out of sand traps, bunkers, long grass, rough ground,
or wherever else it is necessary to execute a high shot. However, like all other
clubs, it must strike the ball at the proper angle. The starting position for a
Mashie-Niblick stroke should find the feet placed so that the player’s stomach
faces either directly toward or to the left of his objective. This is because the
plane of the swing with this club crosses the line of flight from the “outside
in,” and the “laid back” position of the clubface at the moment of impact tends
to send the ball away with a slight “fade” to the right. Passing under the ball
on this inward path, the clubface imparts a spin that tends to stop the ball in its
tracks when it hits the ground.
In order to make this upright stroke the clubhead is lifted at a steep angle and
high enough to permit the speed and power to develop in the downswing.
Comparatively little hip and shoulder action is employed; the fully extended
left arm and the hands are raised to a height proportionate to the power
required in the stroke. While the maximum amount of wrist action is needed
in this type of shot, this action must take place as the final stage of the
upswing and be regulated so that the club will be kept in the proper plane of
the swing. The clubhead is then plunged downward just as sharply as it is
raised in the backswing. The body parts used in raising the club will unwind
in the same order in which they were wound up.
Obviously, the higher the ball is to fly, the more upright must be the arc of the
swing. Where it isn’t necessary to raise the ball very much a swing with a
flatter arc can be used.
RUN-UP SHOTS—In a run-up shot the action is so distributed that most of it
appears to be performed by the arms and hands. There is little body motion, as
the fully extended left arm and the hands take the club back from the ball to a
distance in keeping with the length of the shot. At the end of this movement
there is just enough wrist action to blend the back with the forward swing. The
wrists bend less in this stroke than in any other I have described so far. This
causes the clubhead to travel in a comparatively flat arc. An iron club with
very little loft should be used for this type of shot.
Using this same club and stroke with an increased amount of wrist action will
demonstrate convincingly the influence of the arc of the swing on the flight of
the ball. Take the same amount of body and left arm movement and at the end
of the backswing add considerable wrist action. This will cause the clubhead
to rise in a more circular arc and descend upon the ball in like manner. As a
result, a great deal more loft will be imparted to the ball than is obtained by
the regular run-up stroke.
PUTTING—Since putting is merely rolling the ball over the smooth surface
of the green, the Putter has little or no loft to its striking surface and a stroke
with an extremely flat arc is used. This stroke is made with no perceptible
body movement and very little in the arms. Most of the action is performed by
the left forearm and the hands which, after taking the club back from the ball
to a distance in proportions to the length of the putt, incorporate just enough
wrist action to blend the back with the forward swing.
Lining up a putt should be done by sighting over the cup toward the ball and
then over the ball toward the cup.
In addressing the ball the face of the Putter is placed at right angles to the
intended line of the putt, then the feet are placed rather close together with
most of the width on the left leg.
Putting is the subject of a tremendous amount of experimenting because it is
such a valuable means of keeping down one’s score. Most players insist that
putting bears little relation to any other department of the game, that it
demands a different technique than the other strokes and certainly a different
way of hold the club. With this opinion I am entirely in disagreement.
When the ball is hit with the Putter it responds in virtually the same way to
striking the clubface as it does when hit with a Mid-Iron or a driver. The face
of the Putter reacts to the positions and movements of the player’s body
exactly as does the face of any other club. In other words, the mechanics of
the putt is exactly the same as the mechanics of any other stroke.
So, since there is no alteration of principle, why should there be an alteration
of grip and of positions and movements that have already been found
effective? The answer is that there shouldn’t be any.
The same grip that is used in playing other shots should be used in putting,
with the angle of the hands on the club adjusted comfortably. For example, the
left hand need not be turned over so much as when playing distance shots.
From the foregoing anyone should be able to see that the arc of the swing as
the clubhead descends upon the ball, rather than the loft of the clubface, really
determines what the loft in the flight of the ball will be. Also, that this arc or
path of the clubhead depends upon the relative amount of action that is
performed by the various parts of the body.
It is the whirling motion of the club, in swings of any length that grooves the
path of the clubhead and establishes the plane of the swing. The starting
position, including the arrangement of the feet, and body posture, determines
the relation between this plane of the swing and the line of flight.
The plane of the swings used with the Driver, Brassie, Spoon, long Irons and
in run-up shots, as well as in putting, finds the clubhead traveling in the
downswing from the “inside out” in relation to the line of flight. In all strokes
where the main object is to loft the ball, the clubhead travels in the
downswing across the line of flight from the “outside in.”
In regard to direction in the flight of the ball it is unreasonable to expect
anything like the intended line of flight from a poorly executed stroke.
Assuming that the player has not produced a whirling motion of the club
efficient enough to cause the ball to be struck by the middle of the clubface,
which alone can afford a straight ball, and it is struck with the heel or at a
point inside the center of the face, it will be given a spin that will cause it to
cure to the right in its flight. If the ball is struck off the toe or at a point
beyond the center of the clubface, it will curve to the left. These points can be
taken advantage of in the use of any club in practice and playing as I will try
to demonstrate.
While my object has been to describe the proper swing to be used in playing
the more important shots, you can play any kind of a shot simply by swinging
the clubhead with a modification of the foregoing examples in an arc that
corresponds with the flight of the ball you desire.
THE ARC OF THE SWING
An electric lamb attached to the club shows the path traveled by the clubhead or
arc of the swing. The arc of the swing varies according to the type of shot being
played.
1. The elliptical arc of the full swing affords a long and comparatively low flight
of the ball. 2. This side view of the full swing illustrates “hitting from the inside
out” or the relation of the swing to the line of play.
3. The arc of the swing used in playing an iron shot is more nearly a circle, in
keeping with medium distance and loft in the flight of the ball., 4. In the side view
of this swing the path of the clubhead appears to coincide with the line of play.
THE ”GROOVE” OF THE SWING
The relation between the “groove” or plane of the swing and the line of play, like
the arc of the swing, changes according to the loft in the flight of the ball.
1. An arc that is inclined to be more up and down is found in the swing used
where the main object is the raise the ball. 2. This type of swing finds the path
of the clubhead cutting across the line of play from the “outside in.”
3. In short play where the flight of the ball is rather low, the clubhead travels
in a comparatively flat arc. 4. Again, as with medium iron shots, the path of the
clubhead appears to coincide with the line of play.
CHAPTER VIII
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT
NOT long ago I was playing with William L. Chenery, editor of Collier’s
Weekly, at his club in Pelham, N.Y. At the tenth, which is a short water hole,
Mr. Chenery proceeded to drive two successive balls into the lake. Then he
walked off the tee.
“Wait,” I called, believing he had run out of balls, “I can let you have another
ball.”
“No,” he said. “There’s a pocket full in my bag. But it’s more sensible to save
them for practice than to drive them into the pond.”
Although it was almost thrilling to hear a golfer admit that he practiced, or
even thought about practicing, I could subscribe to Mr. Chenery’s point of
view, taking it for granted that he would miss the shot, as I hastened to tell
him.
No golfer—ever, at any time—should step up to a ball with the expectation of
making a bad shot. Of course any player is likely to flub one now and then,
but it should not be because a ravine, a pond, a patch of woods, or some other
hazard, mental or actual, lies before him. No hazard, no annoyance should be
sufficient to take the golfer’s mind off his job, which consists solely of the
correct swing. That is all he need worry about. If the details of his swing are
right, the ball will be hit cleanly, and the result of the shot will be what he
wants it to be.
There is no mystery about it. The secret lies only in establishing the
movement of the correct swing as habit through careful, regular, intelligent
practice. Through practice I have become so sure of my own swing that, when
I am playing golf regularly, I am willing to wager that I can execute it without
a hitch under any difficulties or with any distractions that anyone may care to
name or devise. I know that I can make a shot from the edge of a cliff, or a
body of water, with a brass band blaring beside me or when confronted with
any sort of distraction that does not physically interfere with the movements
of my club.
In the theatre, when I would be hitting a ball off a man’s head, some of the
funniest men on the American stage have indulged in the most fantastic
clowning from the wings, hoping to disconcert me sufficiently to make me
miss a shot. Fortunately, none ever succeeded. I am not boasting. I am in no
way an exceptional person. I simply know that if I attend to my own business,
which means keeping my mind solely on the execution of the correct swing, I
need no more misgivings about the success of the shot than the average man
has about his ability to shuffle a deck of cards.
Anyone can do the same thing. Ah! A gentleman rises to object. It’s not our
friend Mr. Over A. Hundred this time, but his golfing partner, Mr. Tension.
Mr. Tension plays golf, he insists, because he enjoys it. I have often seen him
on the golf course and I don’t see how anybody could enjoy the agonizing
strain, mental and physical, to which he subjects himself from the moment he
approaches the first tee. What Mr. Tension really enjoys about golf, I believe,
is singing in locker room quartets. But at all events he objects to the statement
that I have just made. It may be all right, he says, for a person like myself to
talk about practicing until the movements of the correct swing are a habit; I
haven’t anything to do but play golf—never had anything else to do, as a
matter of fact. But he, he has his business to take care of. He can’t be running
off to a golf course every day of his life. Why, it’s only by cutting corners
pretty close that he manages to get away on Saturday afternoons in time to get
in eighteen holes before dark. Practice, eh? He’d like to know when in hob
he’s find the time to practice!
Well, Mr. Tension, I’m glad you brought that up. Haven’t you a backyard
where you could hang up a practice canvas? No? Well, maybe you could put
one in your cellar? Ceiling not high enough, eh? No driving range or indoor
school near you either? Well, yours is a tough case, to be sure! But I still have
another suggestion for you. Can’t you swing a club, just swing it without
hitting anything, in your bedroom, or your living room, or your attic? Would
that do any good, do you say? It wouldn’t do anything else! It would enable
you to loosen up and strengthen the muscles you use in playing golf. It would
permit you to practice the exercises I devised for learning the correct swing. It
would help you break away from that tug-o’war you make of your swing. In
fact, if you’ll go about it seriously and systematically, I’ll promise you that it
will go a long way toward making a golfer of you. Oh, so you think it’s rather
silly just to swing a club? Well, Mr. Tension, I’ve suspected all along that
you’re really not interested. Just between the two of us, you don’t care
anything about golf after all. You found out after your first few attempts that
golf wasn’t something you could just take in your stride, so you decided to
laugh it off and save your face. But your argument that it’s just a game,
designed for amusement and hence not to be taken seriously, doesn’t hold
water! You wouldn’t get much amusement out of your automobile, would
you, if you took the details of operating it so lightly that you’d never learned
better than to steer into trees and pedestrians every time you took it out? You
wouldn’t get much amusement out of bridge, would you, if you hadn’t taken
the trouble to learn the basic principles of bidding and playing your hand? No,
Mr. Tension, you don’t look on your other amusement as you do on golf.
You’ve observed, though, that learning to play golf requires a certain amount
of trouble and perseverance. You’re—well, let’s say you’re too lazy to bother
yourself. But don’t think that you fool anybody by pretending to laugh at the
game. Your true attitude may not be shown in what you say about it, but it
certainly is disclosed in very move you make with a golf club.
But, after all, I really shouldn’t be preaching to you. It merely bores you and
tires me. Neither should I waste any words on those who expect to conquer
golf by sleight of hand. Some day, they think, somebody will give them just
one tip—a new grip, another way of placing the clubface; something very
simple like that—and, presto! Their golfing troubles will be over. All that I
can say to these fellows is that they are making a terrible mistake; for golfers
have been looking for that same Philosopher’s Stone ever since the shepherds
of Scotland first began playing the game with their crooks—and nobody has
ever found it! There’s only one way to go about it, as I was trying to tell you
when Mr. Tension interrupted, and that is to start from the beginning in
accordance with the directions I have given in earlier chapters; then, when you
have acquired the correct swing, practice regularly and intelligently and it will
never get away from you.
The time to perfect your shots is during you practice sessions. No amount of
analyzing or scheming will help you improve them while you are engaged in a
round of golf. In fact, the pressure of competition, no matter how friendly,
will effectively defeat any attempt to fix up your swing under playing
conditions.
When you go to the practice tee, give your undivided attention to perfecting,
first of all, the physical action of your swing. That is the foundation of your
game. Your job is to make yourself so thoroughly acquainted with the
positions and movements of the swing that they will become habitual. This is
the main thing in golf. It takes care of the mental as well as the physical sides
of the game so that you will not have to worry about getting the desired
results.
I have been strumming this same string pretty regularly throughout this book,
and I shall continue to sound the same not to the end, for, unless I can
convince the reader that the correct swing is the keystone of golf, my book
will have failed in its purpose. Learn the correct swing. Practice the correct
swing. If you like golf maxims, those are the only two you need to remember.
It is unfortunate that even the players who take golf seriously and want to
improve their game rarely devote sufficient time to practice. And even those
who do practice seldom practice correctly.
It is pertinent in this connection to call attention to the fact that golf is the only
athletic sport in which players start out “cold.” No one ever saw competitors
in tennis, baseball, football, or say any other active sport actually begin play
without “warming up.” In golf muscular freedom probably is more important
than in any other game. Yet players almost invariably begin play cramped and
stiff from an automobile or train ride, and it is seldom before the third or
fourth hole that they are properly loosened up.
I am indebted to Babe Ruth for a quick and simple way of taking the knots out
of the golfing muscles preparatory to beginning play. The Babe carried it to
the golf course from the diamond where it is the approved method of getting
ready to go to the bat.
Before every round of golf and before attempting any kind of practice, take
two clubs, grip them about as you would one club and swing them back and
forth easily while standing fully erect. Make a full swing, allowing the clubs
to drop well behind you on the backswing and to come all the way through on
the forward swing. A dozen or so of these swings will serve to loosen up the
muscle and make the early strokes of your round much easier to perform.
The practice routine which I am about to lay down has been designed to bring
about in an orderly, systematic way the muscular freedom needed in any
method of playing. Regardless of what method he uses, every player should
follow this routine.
It begins with strokes made only with a small amount of action and progresses
to strokes in which the full action of the body is required. This gradual
increase in the scope of movement prepares each group of muscles for the
burden it is to assume without forcing any one group, or any part of the body,
to perform any job it is into ready for. I have found this plan of practice
productive of excellent results with players of every degree of skill.
My advice to the player is to go through this routine before every round of
golf and as many times between rounds as is practicable. If your country club
provides you with a regular practice ground, or if there is a public driving
range convenient to you, you have no excuse for not practicing sufficiently to
improve your game.
When practicing, make sure that you are observing the following points:
1. Place your left hand on the club first and have it turned over so that
only the back of it can be seen.
2. Make sure that both hands are placed at about the same angle as the
shaft.
3. In addressing the ball, rest the clubhead in its natural position on the
ground, just back of the ball, with the heel of the clubface opposite the
center of the ball, before and while placing your feet.
4. In playing the shorter shots and all shots where the main object is to
raise the ball abruptly, use an open stance.
5. To build up confidence in hitting under and through the ball, play it
from a favorable lie and tee it up for the long shots.
6. When you are ready to swing, turn your attention to you chin and
thereafter give most of your attention to keeping your chin properly
pointed throughout your swing.
PRACTICE ROUTINE
First: Take an iron club, a number five, say, select some definite line of play
and hit several shots intended to travel about fifty years. If the results in
distance or direction are unsatisfactory, do not be discouraged. Concern
yourself only with the “feel” of your stroke.
Make sure that you are standing with your heels nearly touching and with
your toes turned out. Keep your body practically at rest, and make these short
swings almost entirely with your forearms and hands. After taking the club
back as far as you feel it should go, allow your wrists to bend before starting
your downswing.
In your downswing try to feel that you are swinging directly down on the ball.
At the same time keep your chin pointed back of the ball until after the swing
is completed. Pointing your chin will automatically loosen up your wrists and
cause you to send the ball in the desired line of flight. Don’t take my word for
it; try it and see. And so, having demonstrated the importance of pointing the
chin in these short shots, try some that are a little longer.
Second: use a number four iron. Stand a bit more erect, keep your feet fairly
close together and allow your body to move easily in harmony with whatever
motions your arms and hands perform. You are seeking a bit more distance;
consequently, you use a longer swing.
Sweep the club back with the left arm fully extended, and, when you feel that
you have gone back far enough, allow your wrists to bend. In other words, do
not start the backward movement of the club by bending the wrists. Reserve
that part of the action for the last move of the backswing. Once again, watch
your chin. Keep it pointed back of the ball until the swing is completed.
Widening the arc of the swing naturally causes you to call upon your
shoulders to move your arms and hands. If you are not getting the results you
want in either distance or direction, you will find the cause in one of the
particulars: (1) you have slighted the sweeping motion of your left arm and
hands at the start of your backswing, or (2) you have neglected the bending of
PRACTICE ROUTINE
1. Start your practice by using a slightly
open stance and sweeping the clubhead
back in a few and comparatively flat arc.
2. For shots in which you seek to have
the ball rise abruptly, use a decidedly
open stance and make sure that your
clubhead describes an upright arc in the
backswing.
3. Address the ball of the heel of your
Putter and take approximately the same
starting position for putting as you do in
playing longer shots.
your wrists preceding the downswing, or (3) you have not kept your chin
independent of the entire action.
These short shots have loosened up your wrists, arms and shoulders. Now you
are ready to make some shots that call for a greater action of the body,
particularly in the hips, lets and feet.
Third: Take a number three or a number two iron. Stand more erect that for
the previous shots and increase the spread of your feet a bit, keeping the toes
turned out. The backswing you are now to make requires some side motion of
your hips, a certain amount of body turn along with al the reach you can give
it with a fully extended left arm. The club you are using should net you
approximately all the distance you can hope for from an iron club, certainly in
the way of carry, and unless the proper action takes place in the backswing the
necessary speed of the clubhead in the downswing cannot be developed.
As you make the swing, the proper action of your hips and legs can best be
judged by the behavior of you ankles. If your body is not moving in absolute
harmony with your arms and hands as the club is taken back, that will be
indicated by a lack of freedom in your left ankle. See to it that, in starting your
backswing, you left foot rolls over toward the inside before its heel leaves the
ground. This movement permits a free hip action and body turn and also
enables your left arm to take the club back comfortably as far as you like. As
in making the previous shots, your wrists should bend only in the final stages
of the backswing. The chin, of course, is kept pointed back of the ball until
well after impact.
When you have loosened up the muscles and joints in your whole body and
are satisfied that the proper pointing of your chin helps to maintain this
freedom, you are ready to try a full swing.
Fourth: Start practice with the wood clubs by using a Spoon. As in your iron
shot, play the ball from a favorable lie. It will do no harm to tee it up. In
addressing the ball stand erect, so much so that you may even imagine you are
going to swing over it.
Make sure that you are starting your backswing correctly. Remember that
your body, your arms, you hands and the club must be carried to the right as
though all in one piece as you shift your weight to your right leg. If you wind
up properly and center your attention on keeping your chin pointed back of
the ball, your downswing will take care of itself.
As the length of the backswing is increased, the tendency grows to skip or
slight some of the essential movements. If you find yourself yielding to this
tendency, halt! Stop! The time has come to suspend business long enough to
take an inventory. Study every step of the routine until you have found the
fault and corrected it. Don’t go on until you have done so—even if it is
necessary to start all over again and work your way up to a full swing.
Since the Brassie and the Driver are used only when the lie of the ball is very
favorable, it is advisable to tee up the ball with artificial tees when practicing
with these clubs.
Use the Driver only after you have established the maximum efficiency of
your swing by practice with the other clubs. You can tell when your muscles
and joints are functioning properly by the ease with which you are able to
keep your chin back of the ball. As in the other swings, most of your attention
must be given to the proper pointing of your chin. Keeping your chin back
requires more patience in the longer shots so that it is advisable, after each
ball has been hit, to count one, two, three, before allowing your chin to turn or
looking up.
Fifth: In practicing shots where the flight of the ball must be extremely high,
as well as in playing recovery shots from an unfavorable lie, a club with a
wide and decidedly lofted face should be used.
When you want to raise the ball, instead of trying to sweep the clubhead under
the ball and scoop it up, you must raise the clubhead abruptly in your
backswing and then plunge it down under the ball, making sure as always, that
your chin is held back until the stroke is completed.
Use an open stance and with very little body action lift the club abruptly with
your left arm fully extended and when you feel that you have raised his arm
and your hands high enough use practically the full backward bend of your
wrists before swinging downward.
If you want to practice getting out of a bad lie in bunkers or sand traps, use
this upright backswing and exert your main force in swinging the clubhead
down into the sand back of the ball. Where the ball is teed up in the sand and
you do not have to raise it very high, you can hit clean with the clubhead
swinging in a rather flat arc such as is used in playing pitch and run shots.
If you want to practice putting a spin on the ball that will cause it to stop near
its landing place, use this same upright backswing and increase the angle at
which you take the club back outside the intended line of flight. The
downswing, by cutting across the intended line of flight from the outside in as
the clubhead passes under the ball, causes the clubface to impart the desired
spin to the ball.
Always, in playing from an unfavorable lie, make sure that your grip on the
club is firm, and that your wrists and forearms are flexible, because if they
remain so throughout your swing and your chin is kept back of the ball, the
head of your club will have plenty of speed and power to cut through almost
any kind of rough.
Any shot to be played under the unfavorable conditions should serve as an
added incentive to you to keep your chin properly pointed and thereby make
the best of a bad situation.
Sixth: You can improve your putting a great deal, even if you are not able to
practice on a regular putting surface, by practicing on a carpet or any smooth
surface of about the same speed as the putting green. Start with an eighteeninch putt and gradually work your way back from your target. Just the
movement of your forearms and hands will be enough to swing the Putter, but
no matter how short the shot, the club must be moved first by your arms
before your wrists are allowed to bend.
In putting, as in playing all shots, try to swing the club so that the ball will be
struck by either the center of the clubface or some point on the shaft side of
the center. This is the most solid striking section of the clubface and will
afford you the best and most consistent results in the flight of the ball.
Addressing the heel of the clubface to the center of the ball at the start will
greatly aid you in striking the ball with that section or the center.
This practice routine should be followed by every golfer regardless of what
style he uses or how much experience he may have had at the game. It will
benefit all and help to improve any part of the player’s game.
Perfect results in the flight of the ball, both in distance and in direction, are to
be had only after sufficient time has been given to learning and practicing the
positions and movements of the correct swing.
CHAPTER IX
DOCTORING THE AILING SWING
AMONG a little group of golfers in a country club not far from New York
City I have gained the unsought and entirely undesired reputation of being a
sort of wonder worker. To them I am “the man who cured Joe’s slice.” They
say it as they might say, “the man who discovered the North Pole.”
Joe is athletic director of a big high school. He’s a six-foot, two-hundred
pounder in his early forties, an ex-college football star, baseball pitcher, and
basketball player, He took up golf a few years ago, and quickly distinguished
himself by developing the most remarkable slice ever observed at his club. All
within the range of vision, I have been told, stopped their matches whenever
Joe prepared to drive so that they might observe the amazing phenomenon of
Joe’s ball curving into the wrong fairway.
I met Joe about a year ago at the home of a friend. When our host introduced
us, he said, “Joe, here’s the fellow who can fix up that slice of yours.”
Everybody within earshot thought it was a great joke, but in the course of the
evening I managed to get Joe aside. He demonstrated with a walking stick
how he went about hitting a golf ball. I showed him the correct starting
position, had him try a few swings “my” way, and suggested that he practice
this method before playing golf again.
About a month later I received a letter from him. “Boy, you certainly cured
my slice!” he wrote. “I went out to the practice tee and tried hitting one from
that stance you showed me. It went straight and I haven’t sliced one since.”
Joe and his friends have assured me since then that the cure was permanent.
If it were not for the fact that Joe himself understands how, or, better, why the
few hints I gave him eliminated his slice, I would be displeased with the local
reputation this experience gained me.
For I am not at all complimented by being pointed out as a man who can cure
a slice. Such a statement implies that I have been guilty of giving somebody
the usual kind of lessons—telling the pupil to toe in the head of the club, keep
his right elbow down, or something of that sort as a short cut method of
eradicating temporarily a single fault.
I am not interested in patched-up swings, nor in magic tips or pointers that
compromise with a sloppy technique. I know that there is only one successful
method of playing golf, that the correct swing as I have described it in this
book is its basis and that there can be no effective substitute.
When a man comes to me and asks me to improve his golf, I start from the
beginning, teach him the fundamentals of the correct method, put him in the
primer class, as it were. There is no other way of doing it with any hope of
permanent success. I can see no point in standing with a pupil on the practice
tee, shutting my eyes to the hopeless inefficiency of his swing, and, by dint of
a few minor adjustments of his hands, feet, or the position of the clubhead,
giving him the thrill of hitting out some straight ones. I haven’t improved his
golf; I’ve merely kidded him. For I know that when I am not there to coax
him, browbeat him, or jolly him into using the tricks that have temporarily
triumphed over his faults, he will go right back to his old way of doing things
and slice them, top them, miss them—whatever it was that was bothering him.
And, even if he is the one man in a hundred who carried away something
besides his clubs from a golf lesson, even if he makes a serious effort to use
on the course of the “kinks” I have shown him, it will avail him nothing. A
brand new batch of faults will rise up and smite him. With a week or so his
game will be worse than it ever was, for he has endeavored to place additional
weight on an already tottering foundation.
I’m sorry, but there’s no short cut to good golf—unless you are willing to
subscribe to my opinion that mastering the correct swing is a short cut. My
friend Joe found no short cut even though he was put on the right track in an
informal teaching session that lasted possibly five minutes. Being an athlete
and an athletic coach, he understood immediately that what I showed him was
not merely another way of standing and of holding the club, but a series of
positions and an order of movement that brought into play a set of muscles
that enabled him to make an efficient swing. His golfing companions, not
being athletic coaches and consequently not appreciating that the purpose of
correct form in any sport is not to make the player look pretty but to promote
maximum efficiency, give me credit for curing Joe’s slice and for nothing
else.
Which, of course, does not astonish me and ought not to annoy me. If every
golf pupil had Joe’s ability to connect the anatomical positions and
movements that make up my method with the desired results in the flight of
the ball, my path along golf’s roadway would be rose-strewn.
Experience has taught me, though, that in teaching golf I must face facts as
they are. The typical golfer is a confirmed individualist. His “game,” and
often his faults, are as precious to him as a new-born babe to its mother. Just
dare let anyone disturb them! He’ll stand for a little touching up here and
there, to be sure, but let someone come along, as I do, and tell him frankly that
his game simply won’t stand repairing; that it’s got to be scrapped and
replaced—and the fireworks start to pop!
How do I get that way? He inquires in effect. Haven’t I got brains enough to
see that all he needs is another way of holding his left hand, or his left foot?
My scheme may be all right for me, but it won’t do for him—he’s different!
Can’t I see that he has bow legs, fallen arches, and wears a forty-four-four
inch belt? Besides, he fell out of an apple tree and sprained his left wrist when
he was none years old.
In short, he confesses that he does not want to be cured, put on his feet. What
he wants me to do is take his measure for a pair of crutches so that he can
continue to hobble along.
My heart is touched, but I can do nothing for him. In an earlier chapter I
confessed that for a brief period when I was very young I gave golf lessons by
conventional methods. From those days I retain all the familiar quick cures for
the common golfing ills. Through my almost careless study of golf technique I
have acquired a first aid kit of my own whose contents probably would cause
the average golf teacher’s or golf writer’s eyes to pop out of his head with
envy. This kit is locked up, however, and will remain so, for its contents are
worthless—as a means of enabling anyone to acquire a sound game of golf.
And that’s the only kind of game I shall play any part in helping any player to
acquire.
I have already offered in this book everything that is essential to the
acquisition of a sound game of golf. I have described the correct swing,
presented a systematic method of learning it and explained the variations in
the arc and scope of the swing that are necessary to the execution of the
various shots that make up a round of golf. And that’s all there is to the game.
No matter what your age, no matter how much your height and weight may
differ from the standards of the insurance charts, whether you be a man or
woman, you can assume every position and execute every moment I have
prescribed—provided of course, that you are neither maimed nor crippled. In
other words, I have been talking directly to you!—whoever you are, or
wherever you are—telling you exactly how you can learn to play good golf, or
can improve your game.
It would be a source of great comfort to me could I assume at this point that
all my readers had followed my directions and had learned how to make the
correct swing—or even an approximation of it. I have been too long in the
game, though, to expect one hundred per cent cooperation even from the
pupils I am privileged to instruct in person. But being a persistent sort, with
my own share of patience, I am not easily discouraged. I keep on trying, and
frequently I am rewarded by having a pupil acquire the correct swing almost
despite himself.
So I am going to proceed in my usual persistent way in this book. Instead of
leaving the reader flat with the statement that I have already told him all that
any one need know to play good golf, I am going to help him check up on the
progress he has made; give him a few suggestions for analyzing his swing and
ironing out any rough spots that may have developed.
I can guarantee that the hints I am about to offer will improve your swing as a
whole. You will find them simple enough and they will bring successful
results every time they are properly applied.
First of all, let us consider the club you are using.
THE CLUB—The selection of a club for a particular shot should be governed
by these things: The amount of loft required in the flight of the ball and the
distance it is to travel (the more loft to the clubface, the easier it is to hit a
straight ball) and the amount of confidence you have in a particular club. You
can substitute a “favorite” for the correct club to be used for any shot provided
the favorite is quite similar to the correct club in the oft of the clubface.
In addressing the ball you must see that the clubhead is resting with its entire
bottom surface on the ground; also that the bottom edge of the clubface is at
right angles to the intended line of play. The “lie” of the club, that is, the angle
which the bottom of the clubhead forms with the shaft, must afford you a
comfortable posture as you stand up to the ball. Otherwise, your whole swing
may be upset, or the clubface may twist out of its proper striking position.
At no time should the clubface be “toed in” or closed. No more so at the start
of the swing nor during the backswing than at the moment of impact if a
successful shot is to be made. The clubface is more likely to be in the proper
position during the swing if you keep it slightly open at the start. To bring this
about, once you have taken your grip, you must place the clubhead back of the
ball so that the section of the face next to the shaft is opposite the middle of
the ball. At the same time have the bottom edge of the clubface turned slightly
away from the hole, that is, to your right. The shaft of the club should be held
in such a position that the top of it leans slightly toward the hole.
Obviously any move you make with your hands immediately affects the
position of the clubface, so the next thing to consider is the position of the
hands on the club.
THE HANDS—Each hand must be placed on the club at approximately the
same angle. The V’s formed between the thumb and forefinger at each hand
are good indicators of the angle at which your hands transmit force to the
shaft. Both V’s must be behind the club at the moment of impact if the shot is
to be successful. The best way to bring this about is to place them in that
position when you first take hold of the club. Place your left hand on the club
first, with the hand turned over so that the V points toward your right
shoulder. The natural position of your right hand on the club will find its V
also pointing toward the right shoulder.
It ought to be apparent that if the V of your left hand is permitted to point
toward your left shoulder while the V of your right hand is behind the club,
the variance in these angles will invite the right had to overpower the left and
play havoc with the striking angle of the clubface. And this is something that
cannot be overcome once the swing has started.
THE WRISTS—the way to grip the club has a great deal to do with the kind
of wrist action you’ll have in your swing. When you grip the club with the
first two fingers of your left hand or with the palm of your right hands, or
when any pressure is exerted against the shaft by either or both thumbs, you
immediately sacrifice freedom of action in your wrists and forearms. Proper
wrist action is assured by the correct grip which I have already described.
THE ARMS AND SHOULDERS—Obviously any position of your hands
calls for a corresponding position of your arms and shoulders. In order to
place your hands on the club at the proper angle, your left arm must be
comparatively straight, with your left shoulder slightly raised, while your right
arm is bent and your right shoulder slightly lowered. Having your shoulders,
arms, and hands in these positions at the start of your swing will do much to
overcome tension in these members.
STANCE—It is common practice to use the term “stance” to cover only the
arrangement of the feet. The word, though, should describe the starting
position as a whole, because your posture and the balance and movements of
your whole body are affected by the manner in which you place your feet.
Many of the mistakes that are made in the swing arc are the direct result of
having the feet placed in the wrong position in relation to the ball and to the
line of play. Incorrect arrangement of the feet comes about through the usual
method of planting the feet first then bending forward to place the club behind
the ball. No matter whether you use a closed, open, or square stance, once you
have taken your grip, you should place the head of your club on the ground
just behind the ball, and, while it is resting there, place your left foot with its
heel about opposite the ball. Place your right foot last of all.
This order of placing the club and then your feet will do more to put you in a
comfortable position at the start of your swing than anything else you can do.
The toes of both the feet should always be turned out slightly in order to favor
the full, free action of your body.
Just as your arms and shoulders must accommodate the position of your
hands, so the straightening of your left leg and the bending of your right leg
should conform with the tilt of your shoulders. This will help you overcome
the tight spots in your legs that come from rooting your feet into the soil until
your legs become like two posts.
THE RIGHT AN WRONG POSITION OF THE HANDS
Right. In order to work in harmony both hands must be placed at approximately
the same angle to the club.
Wrong. One hand is bound to work against the other when the hands are
placed on the club at different angles.
RIGHT AND WRONG POSITION OF SHOULDERS AND ARMS
Wrong. If the shoulders are held in a horizontal position at the start, the right
hand is sure to dominate throughout the swing.
Right. The left hand can control the club only when the right shoulder is
lowered and the right arm is in a comparative state of rest.
THE ACTION OF THE SWING–As I have said before, there are two
distinct crisis in the swing. The first comes when you start the club away from
the ball, the second during the first move you make in your downswing.
It is generally at the “top” of your backswing that you experience most of our
troubles. That’s where you feel most uncomfortable. You’re all tied up in
knots. It is there that you realize that you are not in the position to hit a
successful shot. And you have learned from experience that if you are not
right in the final stages of your backswing, it’s just too bad; there are no tricks
you can pull in your downswing that will help matters any. The source of your
trouble has arisen long before you have reached this stage of the action. If you
experience discomfort anywhere in your swing it is certain that you were
uncomfortable at the starting position also. You were so confused at the time
you fell into the starting position that you failed to get into the natural, easy
posture I have described. And when you’re wrong at this point, there is
absolutely nothing you can do to remedy things after the swing has started.
THE BACKSWING–If you have difficulty in getting the club back far
enough and if you feel that it requires a real effort to raise your arms and
hands, you may be sure that the condition is caused by incorrect leg and hip
action. You can overcome this trouble by rolling your left foot over toward the
inside as the initial movement of your backswing. This action will afford you
the necessary freedom in your left side and thus enable you to move your arms
and hands back with little or no effort. You should move the club back in such
a way that the shaft is brought directly behind your left arm as soon as
possible. Save the bending of your wrists for the end of your backswing. If
you will keep your chin pointed at a spot just back of the ball while you are
making the backswing, I can guarantee that you will feel in your shoulders,
arms, and hands sufficient power to send the ball as far as you want it to go.
How far back should you take the club for a certain shot? Nobody can tell
exactly. The length of the swing necessary to send the ball a given distance
depends upon the efficiency with which the various parts of the body function.
Even if you execute every movement of the swing correctly, its scope will still
depend upon how the muscular action feels to you. The best advice I can give
you in this particular is to avoid any deliberate restriction of your backswing.
Make up your mind to use less effort in swinging the club and to take a little
longer backswing than you think is necessary.
ANKLE ACTION AT START OF BACKSWING
Wrong. Lifting the left ankle at the start of the swing indicates an improper leg
action.
Right. To start the backswing properly, the left foot must roll over toward the inside
before its heel leaves the ground.
No matter how the body moves, the head should not turn.
THE DOWNSWING–Even though you may have been fairly well organized
during your backswing, when the time comes for you to swing down toward
the ball you may go all to pieces. Panic is likely to seize you because you
realize that, hit or miss, you can hesitate no longer. The time has come to take
a smack at the ball, and there is no escape. Your period of preparation is past;
you must now deliver the goods. You have learned from experience that you
can consciously direct the movements of the various parts of your body during
your backswing, but that all the willpower you can bring to bear cannot
control their action to any advantage in the downswing. Just as the backswing
depends upon the starting position, so the downswing depends upon the
backswing. It is a progressive action, and there’s no getting away from it.
There you are; what are you going to do about it? It’s too late now to alter
your starting position or to repair the defects of your backswing. What’s the
thing to be done–now? Well, there’s only one thing you can do to help
matters, or, anyway, to keep them from getting worse. Forget all about trying
to control your hips, shoulders, arms, or hands. Give all your attention to
keeping your chin pointed back of the ball–and swing away! Under
subconscious control, the various parts of your body will function far more
efficiently, even after a bad start, than they can under any attempt you may
make to guide them consciously. And keep you chin back of the ball until
after the swing has been completed.
CHAPTER X
IS THE CORRECT SWING
USED BY THE LEADING PLAYERS?
THERE is one point that I feel I have not emphasized sufficiently. I have
hinted at it here and there and have suggested it rather casually to you as a
reason for learning the correct swing. Now, though, I am going to go into
detail about it, and it is possible that what I am about to say will have greater
force than anything that has gone before in convincing you that what I have
been advocating actually is the correct method of playing golf.
Early in the book I made the statement that the successful golf swing is based
on an application of centrifugal force. Then I devoted considerable space to
explaining, through, a detailed outline of the mechanics of the correct swing,
just how this principle is applied. Following this, I gave ample instructions by
means of which anyone can learn this swing. These instructions covered the
proper use of this swing in playing all types of shots.
Up to this point I have been urging you to adopt certain positions and to carry
out a certain order, as well as distribution of movement for purely anatomical
and mechanical reasons. Now I will give you a reason for doing so that you
may regard as the strongest argument I have offered yet in support of my
method.
In presenting this reason I am taking advantage of a very human trait–the
willingness to “buy success.” Few people want to take on anything that hasn’t
been thoroughly tried out by someone else. Most of us believe that the only
sensible time to buy a thing is after it has proved its worth. Consequently, I
can think of no better way of clinching your belief in the soundness and
efficacy of my method than by showing you that when you adopt it you are
actually placing yourself on the same basis of every successful golfer.
Every golfer, when he hits a successful shot, does so only because he
approximates the positions and the order of movement that I have designated
as correct. If he does not do so in all stages of his swing, he certainly does so
during the stage in which the clubhead strikes the ball.
Nobody can make a successful shot unless at the moment of impact his body,
arms, and hands, as well as the club attain the correct hitting position.
In order to strike the ball at the proper angle, the position of the entire club, as
well as that of the clubface, must be correct; and this correct position of the
club cannot be obtained unless the proper set of muscles controls the
movement of the club through the hitting area of the swing. Nor can these
muscles have control at the moment of impact unless the body, arms, and
hands are in the correct position.
I show here pictures of three expert golfers–Tommy Armour, Mac Smith and
Miss Helen Hicks. These are action photographs, taken during actual play, and
are obviously unposed. All three players use widely different styles in
swinging a club. The high speed camera has caught them in the hitting area of
their swings at a point very close to the instant the clubhead strikes the ball.
I think you will agree with me that the similarity of the postures of these
players is most striking. You might even hazard a guess that all learned their
golf from the same teacher. If you had read my analysis of the swing, you
might go even further and suggest that I might have been the teacher; for
every one of the three has been “stopped” by the camera in almost the exact
hitting position I have described as correct. You can readily verify this fact by
comparing these photographs with the photograph of the author that illustrates
the moment of impact in the chapter describing the swing.
These three players of course did not learn their golf from the same teacher,
and none of them learned it from me. Where they learned golf does not matter.
What does matter is that all have learned that, unless, just before the clubhead
strikes the ball, they get into the position in which the camera has caught
them, they cannot make a successful shot. And every other golfer who
executes successful shots with any degree of regularity has learned the same
lesson.
Beside me, as I write, are possibly a hundred action photographs of golfers of
tournament caliber snapped just before the moment of impact. Any three
could be substituted for the three pictures I have selected for inclusion here,
for every one of them illustrates perfectly the point I am making.
“But,” as a reader objects, “I don’t see anything remarkable about that.
Everybody expects tournament golfers to get the ball away correctly. And if,
as you say, the three golfers whose pictures you show all swing a club in a
different way, why aren’t their ways just as good as yours? You admit
yourself that they get into the correct hitting position eventually.”
If you were in New York and had to go to Chicago would there be any point
in making your trip via Florida, and on a bicycle? No, I haven’t gone suddenly
insane; I am trying to answer your question. Why get into the correct hitting
position eventually? Why leave it to chance whether you get there at all? Why
not insure getting into the correct hitting position by taking the correct starting
position and employing only the proper set of muscles from the start to the
finish of your swing? You can do it. It is as easy as taking a train to Chicago
instead of pedaling your way there by a roundabout route. The most simple
and the only certain way of doing so is by using the method I have been
explaining. That is its whole purpose of the sole subject.
THE “GATEWAY” TO A SUCCESSFUL SHOT
The position of the body, arms, and hands as well
as of the club must be correct at the moment of
impact if the shot is to be truly successful.
1. Tommy Armour. Just before the clubhead strikes
the ball. Most of the weight is supported by an
almost straight left leg. The action is dominated by
the left hand and the fully extended left arm. The
chin is pointed back of the ball.
2. Helen Hicks. Just as the clubhead strikes the
ball. The fully extended left arm and the club form
a straight line between the left shoulder and the
ball. The head does not turn with the body.
3. MacDonald Smith. Immediately after the moment
of impact. Here is an exceptionally fine example of
the proper body balance, the correct position of the
left arm and hand and the chin, as the clubhead
swings “through” the ball.
“So you’ve said before. But you spike your own argument when you say that
players with many kinds of swings still manage to get into the correct hitting
position.”
They do so accidentally. Few if any golfers, no matter how skillful,
consciously put their swings under the domination of the proper set of muscles
at the outset and permit the proper muscles to dominate throughout. Hence,
the in and out of playing of even our best golfers. This, though, you can write
down in your little book of permanent reference: The more closely a player
approximates the correct positions and order of movement, which keep the
proper set of muscles in use, the greater and more lasting will be his success in
golf. And in support of this statement permit me to point to the most
consistently of all golfers–Bobby Jones.
“But Bobby Jones doesn’t take the starting position you describe as correct,”
interposes a close observer.
That is true. But in every other stage of his swing he carries out the correct
positions and movements more exactly than does any other golfer. You need
only refer to the pictures of Bobby that appear in this chapter to see that he
does.
The reason why he does not take the starting position that I advocate is
because he does not thoroughly understand all the positions and the exact
order of movement of the various parts of the body that afford the correct
swing.
“Now just a moment! Are you implying that the greatest of all golfers doesn’t
know what he’s doing when he swings a club?”
Well, not exactly that. I have always found Bobby Jones’s statements
regarding the muscular feel of his own swing and the one he advocates for
others to be most accurate and thoroughly consistent. At times, though, his
statements regarding the positions and movements are not in absolute
accordance with the use of the proper muscles. However, due allowance must
be made; for, after all, an accurate and consistent treatment of the mechanics
of the golf swing is the work of an analyst. Bobby’s specialty has been to
operate the machine, to drive the car, not to take it apart.
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
Well, suppose we let Bobby answer it himself. Apparently he is under no
illusions regarding his ability as a golf analyst, for he wrote recently.
“Our knowledge of the series of movements which makes up the swing of an
expert player is as best indefinite, especially when one tries to apply and adapt
his general observations to his own game. Photography has made it possible
for us to see with sufficient exactness what actually takes place when an
expert hits a ball, but we are as much in the dark as ever when we try to
reproduce what we have observed.”
Now, Bobby Jones may be, as he says, “in the dark” with regard to the true
basis of a successful swing. But I know that in his own way he does strive to
make use of the particular set of muscles which I have said should dominate
the swing. This he has indicated many times in his writing on golf.
As a matter of fact, since I first began publishing in magazines and
newspapers, the results of my study of the successful swing, Bobby Jones has
been more willing, possibly, that any other golf writer to accept my
discoveries and to aid me is disseminating them by presenting them to his
readers. It is always a source of intense gratification to me when this great
player, whose name carries so much authority with the golfing public, not
only puts the seal of approval on some phase of golf technique which I have
advocated by urging his followers to adopt it, but pays me the additional
compliment of describing and explaining it in phraseology similar to that
which I myself use.
So I’ll let our most successful player tell you what he thinks is proper in the
golf swing.
First of all, about the swing as a whole, Bobby says” “When one thinks in
terms of swinging, the conception is of a smooth, flowing, uninterrupted
motion.”
Relative to the muscular action he says: “I think there can be no question that
the golf stroke ought to be dominated from first to last by the left arm. This
member is at the same time the guide and the controlling medium to apply the
force derived for the rest of the body.”
About the left side he says: “The more I play golf, the more thoroughly I
become convinced that the left hand must dominate in any sound swing. I am
aware of all the difficulties in reaching this happy result, but I nevertheless
have not the least doubt that it is the end toward which he must aim.”
On another occasion he writes: “I continually harp upon the importance of
using the left side, principally because the average player is naturally righthanded and therefore want to use his right hand too much.”
Continuing, he says: If there is one fault which the average players all have in
common, it is the inability to originate or sustain any motion with the left
side.”
All of this agrees so perfectly with my own frequently expressed ideas about
the swing that I have written it myself! What is more important to the reader,
it certainly demonstrates that golf’s greatest player holds the opinion that his
own swing and the swings of those he reaches through his golf articles should
conform to the standard I have set, to the extent anyway that they should be
put under the control of the muscles of the left side of the body; the same
muscles that for years I have tagged with the label of “proper.”
And Bobby concurs with me just as fully on other details of the swing.
Particularly does he string along with me on what he calls my “chin-back
idea,” a fact that any observant person who has seen him play golf or has seen
his golf movies will know. “I am convinced that it is sound,” he writes, “for it
places the head in a position where it will not tie up the rest of the body, either
on the backswing or in the act of hitting the ball.”
Bobby Jones and I have discussed golf may times. Not long ago I said to him:
“Bob, you don’t really go to work in your swing until you get the club well
back from the ball.”
Thinking that I was criticizing him, for laziness perhaps, he asked me to
explain.
“Your starting position,” I said, “doesn’t favor your left side as much as it
would if you kept the club closer in line between your left shoulder and the
ball, and if you put more weight on your left leg.”
Bobby’s reply gave me to understand that he considered the starting position I
advocated was rather extreme. Yet in one of his articles about the starting
position he says: “The most usual position of the ball is on a spot opposite the
left heel of the player. . . .It will be noted that the better players uniformly
address the ball so that the hands of the player are ahead of the ball and the
shaft of the club inclines backward to the head resting behind the ball. This is
a very important feature because, as Alex Morrison explains, the position of
the hands assists materially in keeping the clubface open. The left hand, being
the factor that opens or closes the face, should be placed on the club with the
back of the hand upward. This position can only be maintained if the hands
are advanced beyond the spot opposite the ball so that the club will slant
backward to its position on the ground.”
He goes on to say: “I find in my own play further evidence that Morrison’s
ideas concerning the function of the left hand are correct.”
And about the distribution of weight he says “. . . a preponderance of weight
must not be upon the right foot. . . .If either foot is to carry more, it should by
all means be the left foot. Regardless of what is said by those who like to talk
about swaying, it is necessary in order to swing easily and rhythmically that
there be an appreciable shift of weight successively backward to the right foot
in taking the club back, and forward to the left in striking the ball. This cannot
be done if too much weight rests upon the right foot at the start or if the ball is
placed too far back.”
“THE CORRECT ORDER OF MOVEMENT IN BOBBY JONES’S SWING
1. The starting position. The body weight, instead of being
supported mainly by the left leg is more evenly divided
between both legs
2. Starting the backswing. Since the weight was so evenly
divided between both feet at the start, very little side motion
is needed in place of it on the right leg.
.
3. The wind-up. The backward turning of the body takes
place on the right hip joint. The arms and the club move
backward in response to the body action.
4. The final stages of the wind-up. The full backward turn of
the hips is followed by a fuller turn of the shoulders. The
arms and hands continue their backward motion.
“THE CORRECT ORDER OF MOVEMENT IN BOBBY JONES’S SWING”
5. Starting the downswing. While the backward bending of
the wrists is completing the upswing, the downswing is
started by shifting the hips to the left.
6. Unwinding. As the hip action transfers the weight to the
left leg, the shoulders, arms, and hands respond to the body
action. The chin remains well behind the ball.
7. The moment of impact. The positions of the body, left arm,
and hand show that the “proper” muscles are propelling the
club. Note also that the club and the left arm form a straight
line between the left shoulder and the ball.
8. After impact. The “turnover of the wrists” takes place
after the ball has been hit. The chin remains “properly
painted” for considerable time after impact.
Obviously this statement and the view of his starting position shown in the
accompanying pictures of his swing indicate must plainly that Bobby favors
his left side in the positions of his body, arms and hands.
Obviously, too, it is Bobby’s intention to have the proper set of muscles
control the club during his swing but it is not until he gets past the initial stage
of the backswing that he really stresses their use. Once past this stage of the
action he carries out the exact positions and order of movement I have set
forth as correct. The only thing, in my opinion, that prevents his swing from
being absolutely perfect is his failure to stress the domination of the proper
muscles in his starting position.
Bobby Jones’s exceptional coordination, plus his conscious effort to use the
proper muscles once his swing is under way, have permitted him to develop
his remarkable playing skill despite his employment of a starting position that
makes possible the use of the wrong set of muscles. I don’t think any one but
a Jones could make such an indifferent use of the proper set of muscles. At the
start and still execute a successful swing.
The real danger in this is explained by the fact that every inclination and
tendency that seems “natural” to the player actually encourages the use of the
wrong muscles. If the golfer yields to these inclinations or tendencies he may
be sure that he is doing the wrong thing. Even Bobby Jones, with a mental and
physical equipment peculiarly adapted to the game, could not have attained
such golfing eminence if it had not been for his additional advantage of being
on the right track about the muscular action of his swing.
Bobby Jones has been so successful in golf that the whole world has come to
look on him as a genius, a conception that is undoubtedly warranted by his
amazing record in tournament play. Unless the next few years bring forth
another golfer similarly favored by nature, it is doubtful if his success will
ever be equaled. Competition in the future will be immensely more keen than
Jones ever met in the years of his triumphs; there will be a wider
understanding and larger application of the mechanics of the correct swing.
Consistency will be the rule of the golf course rather than the exception.
Golfers of unusual natural endowment will take up where Bobby Jones leaves
off, for they will have an advantage that Jones never enjoyed; that of learning
at the outset the correct positions and order of movement and enjoying
positive and efficient use of the proper set of muscles in their swings instead
of developing an unstable, uncertain, evanescent “game” by the present
system of trial and error.
I am not so rash as to predict that topped drives, missed putts and other little
devils that now lurk in unexpected places will disappear from the golf courses
of the future. As long as golf is played by human beings, there will be experts
and duffers and that great army in between that does the best it can. This,
though, I can prophesy; that when the correct principles are part of the stock
in trade of golf instructors generally and part of the playing equipment of the
average player, the percentage of anguish, exasperation and futile rainbow
chasing that now seems inherent in golf, will be reduced to a minimum.
It’s the ups and downs of the game that bedevil the typical player. Outside of
the call of “fore” and the less ingenious profane expressions, “I’m off my
game today” is the shibboleth of the golfing brethren.
Do you ever use this watchword? If you do, I will tell you–even at the risk of
offending you–that each time you say it the chances are roughly a million to
one that you are exactly wrong! Unless you play golf by the method I have
been explaining, or by such an approximation of it, as, say, Bobby Jones uses,
you are on your game only when you are playing badly. How can it be
otherwise when, in your regular game, you deliberately encourage the use of
the wrong set of muscles? On those red letter days of your golfing career
when ,quite by accident, you have used the proper set of muscles often enough
to bring your score down to the point at which you’d like to believe you play–
on those days actually you were off your game.
Why not play consistently well every day? The way is simple–learn the
correct swing by the method I have given you. Take my word for it, the
fluctuations in the results you will get, once you have properly learned this
swing, are so small that they will scarcely register on the score card.
My own experience has been that the correct swing, once made your own,
sticks with you, enabling you to triumph over even so severe a handicap as
lack of sufficient practice. In the last two years I have played less than thirty
full rounds of golf. Writing has kept me chained to a desk. I have not taken an
adequate amount of outdoor exercise and have even neglected to keep my
swing “oiled up” by occasional indoor practice. Yet, when I have played golf,
I have been never more than a few strokes off my regular game and such
lapses as I have been guilty of have been directly traceable to fatigue and poor
physical condition, not to any failure of the swing itself.
Last spring and summer, for example, I was on the golf course perhaps six
times. In August I journeyed from New York to Los Angeles and on the day
of my arrival my brother Fred, who last winter won golfdom’s richest
tournament, the Agua Caliente Open, casually invited me to play a round with
him over his home course.
Now, four days and five nights on a transcontinental train are not likely to
improve any one’s golf. Moreover, when I reached the course I discovered
that, instead of the friendly, impromptu foursome I had expected, Fred has
arranged for me to play an exhibition match with him against Olin Dutra and
Roland MacKenzie. And there was an exceptionally large gallery on hand
ready to see some real golf, and no fooling.
The fact that I more than held up my end in such select company is a real
tribute to the correct swing. Through having a lower score, on each hole, than
the best ball of Dutra and MacKenzie, I placed our side five up at the end of
the first nine holes. After establishing such a lead it was not difficult for my
brother Fred and me to win the match. Even though I took it easy on the last
nine, my score of 71 equaled par on that championship course.
Please believe me when I say that my method is not an experiment, not a
theory, but a demonstrated fact, founded on a scientific study of the successful
swing. Simple through it may seem, the treatment of the golf swing that I have
presented was not devised overnight. The business of learning the anatomy
and the mechanics of the proper swing and the job of reducing them to the
simple terms of the correct positions and order of movement took just as much
time, just as much application, and, I daresay, a great deal more patience to
complete than did even the development of the playing skill of a Bobby Jones.
In this book is presented a positive means of enjoying the mental and physical
relaxation you seek in golf. If you insist you play the game for other reasons,
then, let me say that I have offered you a sure way of acquiring the selfcontrol that is essential to good golf. You cannot be happy at anything that
breaks down your self-control, and bad golf does just that. I am not speaking
of a loss of self-control expressed violently through bad temper, profanity and
hurling your clubs away. On the contrary, you may play golf for years
apparently with perfect equanimity and yet lack the kind of self-control I
mean. What I am referring to is the mental confusion that prevents you
knowing what one half of your body is doing while you strain to control the
other half. Good golf–happy golf–golf that will benefit you mentally and
physically is possible only by means of an organized physical routine which
presupposes, of course, an organized state of mind,
Undoubtedly you have been successful in many activities that require a lot
more brains than does playing food golf. In your business, in your relaxations,
in your home life, you are able to cope with any eventuality because in these
relations you are a master of yourself.
The method that I have given you here is a simple mechanical means that will
enable you to master golf instead of having golf master you. You may deny
that golf has mastered you; you may repeat the old chestnut about not taking
golf seriously, playing it just for fun. I will say to you that as long as golf
remains a challenge to you that you cannot meet, as long as golf perplexes
you, as long as you approach a round of golf with doubt in your mind as to
your ability to play it to your satisfaction, golf is the master and you are the
slave.
I have given you here a positive, sure-fire, means of reversing those positions,
as absolutely certain way of establishing you ascendancy over golf.
It’s yours. Take it. Use it. By so doing you’ll play better golf and get more
real pleasure out of the game; particularly if you–KEEP YOUR CHIN BACK.