The Soul of Golf Part 16

Personally, I believe that Braid is wrong in speaking about the initiative in bringing down the club being taken by the left wrist. I believe that the left wrist has no more to do with it than the right wrist, and I do not believe that one practical golfer in a hundred could tell which wrist he uses, and the chances are that if he could tell he would not be a very good golfer, for these are things with which a golfer has no right to c.u.mber his mind. They are things which can quite well be left to Nature. It is an act of supreme folly for the ordinary man to think in the slightest degree of apportioning to either hand the share of its work in the drive. That absolutely must never be on his mind when beginning his stroke.

Braid here emphasises his idea that the wrists come into the golf drive at about two feet from the ball. In _Advanced Golf_ he says eighteen inches. In this matter I must unhesitatingly be with Harry Vardon, and if I had not Harry Vardon's support,--if I stood against the authority of the world of golfers--I should still be just as positive as I am with the important corroboration which Vardon gives me, for there can be no doubt that as a matter of practical golf, there is no portion of the stroke in golf wherein the wrists are more quiescent than in the impact. I must not be misunderstood when I say this. It is obvious that the wrists at the moment of impact will be braced to receive the shock of the blow, but the speed of the blow has been developed long before impact, and the wrists have approximately resumed their normal position as at the moment of address.

Although Harry Vardon is so positive in combating the notion of the wrists coming into the drive at the moment of impact, I find him at page 53 of _Great Golfers_ saying, when writing of the downward swing with the driver and bra.s.sy:

In commencing the downward swing I try to feel that both hands and wrists are still working together. The wrists start bringing the club down, and, at the same moment, the left knee commences to resume its original position. The head during this time has been kept quite still, the body alone pivoting from the hips. When the left knee has turned, I find I am standing firmly on both feet and the arms are in position as in the upward swing, before the left knee started to bend. From this point the speed of the wrists seems to increase, and the impact is thus made with the club head travelling at its highest velocity.

I would here draw attention to the fact that Harry Vardon says: "The wrists start bringing the club down." This, I consider, is very important. I have already referred to Braid's statement about the left wrist taking the initiative. It is of very great importance for the golfer or would-be golfer to know that the left wrist has not any right whatever to claim precedence of the right wrist at this critical moment in the development of the power in the drive.

The other point in this extract to which I desire to draw attention is that Vardon says, speaking of a point in the swing which he describes, and which is practically the same spot wherein Braid says the wrists exert their influence, that is to say, two feet from the ball: "From this point the speed of the wrists seems to increase, and the impact is thus made with the club travelling at its highest velocity." It is quite possible--in fact, it is nearly certain that the speed of the wrists will increase from that point, and that the impact will be made with the club travelling at its highest velocity, but in describing it in this manner Vardon is very nearly guilty of falling into the same error as James Braid has; for this reason, that he is directing the mind to the speed of the wrists at a critical portion of the stroke, whereas there is only one point whose speed has to be considered, and that is the point that does the business, which is the centre, if one may call it so, of the face of the golf club, and it stands to reason that if this is coming down at an ever-increasing speed, what Vardon says of this point would be as true of any other point in the downward swing, but it is bad golf to direct the attention of the student or the golfer to the speed of his connecting link instead of to the business end of the club, at any period during his swing. The golfer's mind must be centred on his ball and his club head.

Taylor, so far as I remember, does not fall into this very grave error, but he, in common with most of the great professionals, is under the impression that the wrists are largely used at the moment of impact to influence the stroke. This is one of the gravest errors in golf. Speaking of lofting a stymie Taylor says: "Then, exactly as the club strikes the ball, the wrists must be turned in an upward direction smartly. The result of this is that the ball is lofted over the other, and if hit properly it will run on and go out of sight as intended." It is a very curious thing that nearly every author or great golfer thinks that in lofting a stymie the best way is to turn the wrists upwards, whereas in fact, and in practical golf, absolutely the best and most certain way of lofting a stymie is to turn neither the wrists, nor, as naturally follows, the face of the club, upwards, at the moment of impact. That must always tend, in a stroke of very great delicacy, which is a natural characteristic of many stymies, to put too much power into propulsion instead of elevation. The best stymie stroke which can be played, is played without lifting the mashie or the niblick by so much as a fraction of an inch after the ball has been hit. I have ill.u.s.trated this stroke very fully, both by diagram and photograph in _Modern Golf_, and it is unquestionably superior in every way to the ordinary method of playing a stymie.

Let us now glance at the Badminton _Golf_ and see what Mr. Horace Hutchinson has to say with regard to this wrist action. At page 90 we read:

Now as the club comes near the ball, the wrists, which were turned upward when the club was raised, will need to be brought back, down again. It is a perfectly natural movement, but where many beginners go wrong with it is that they are too apt to make this wrist-turn too soon in the swing, and thereby lose its force altogether. The wrists should be turned again, just as the club is meeting the ball--otherwise the stroke, to all seeming perhaps a fairly hit one, will have very little power.

It is quite evident that Mr. Hutchinson is an adherent of the "whip-like snap" and the "flick" theory at the moment of impact, for he tells us that the wrists must be turned again just as the club is meeting the ball.

I need not deal fully with this statement, for I have already sufficiently a.n.a.lysed the same idea which is held by James Braid. The only difference is that Mr. Horace Hutchinson's is very much worse than Braid's, in that he thinks the turn-over of the wrists should be executed at the moment of impact, which of course would import into the golf stroke a very much greater risk of error than already does exist in it, and it is unnecessary for me to a.s.sure golfers that there is already quite sufficient chance of error without our endeavouring to add to it in any way whatever. But I should like to pause to raise one question.

Mr. Hutchinson, like nearly every other writer on golf, is a disciple of one of the most p.r.o.nounced fallacies in the game, viz.: "As you go up, so you come down," naturally, of course, all things being reversed. Let us then consider this point. We are informed by Mr.

Horace Hutchinson that the wrists should be turned again just as the club is meeting the ball. Following our h.o.a.ry fallacy of "As you go up, so you come down" I presume from this that immediately the club leaves the ball, the wrists begin to turn backwards. This would indeed give us a peculiar start for our drive.

From an anatomical point of view I think there is very little doubt whatever that the wrists have finished their distinctive function much earlier in the production of the golf stroke than is generally thought to be the case, and what is commonly miscalled wrist action is, in effect, merely the natural roll of the forearm, as it is, I believe, called, at any rate in the case of the left arm, its supination. There can be no doubt that in the majority of cases where writers refer to wrist action, they are confusing the natural turn of the forearms with wrist action.

Before closing this chapter I may perhaps be excused if I refer again to that remarkable volume _The Mystery of Golf_. At page 167 we are told:

At the bottom of the swing, therefore, the club head is, or should be, moving in a straight line. Probably it is when the greatest acceleration in the velocity of the club, and the strongest wrist action in the swing of the arms occur in this straight portion of the stroke, that the follow-through is most efficacious.

For one who essays to explain the mystery of golf, this is a very marvellous statement. Probably at no portion whatever of the golf stroke is the club head proceeding in a straight line. It may be taken for an absolutely settled fact that it is always proceeding in an arc.

Also it is quite clear that the author is making the sad mistake, which has been made by so many other people, of thinking that the wrist action is most in evidence immediately before and after the period of impact. Most of the leading golfers fall into the error of stating that cut is obtained by something which is done by the wrists at the moment of impact, but this is unquestionably an error. I have dealt with that already in other places so fully that I think that it will not be necessary for me to do more here than to state that in all good shots the cut is decided upon practically the moment the club begins its downward journey, for the amount of cut which is administered to any ball depends entirely upon the speed, and the angle at which the club head pa.s.ses across the intended line of flight of the ball, provided always, of course, that the club is properly applied.

CHAPTER X

THE FLIGHT OF THE GOLF BALL

The flight of the ball, and particularly of the golf ball, exercises a strange fascination for many people to whom the phenomena of flight exhibited by a spinning ball travelling through the air, are not of the slightest practical importance. That is to say, there is an immense number of people who take merely a scientific, and one might almost say an artistic interest in the effects produced by the combined influence of spin and propulsion. Scientific men have been for many years well aware of the causes which produce the swerve of a ball in the air. By swerve I mean, of course, a curve in the flight of the ball which is due to other causes than gravitation, and in the word swerve I do not include the drift of a ball which has been perfectly cleanly hit, but which, in the course of its carry, has been influenced by a cross wind. This does not legitimately come under the heading of swerve. It is more correctly described as drift, and will be dealt with in due course.

In the _Badminton Magazine_ of March 1896, the late Professor Tait published an article on "Long Driving." Professor Tait was a practical golfer and a very learned and scientific man. He proved most clearly that a golf ball could not be driven beyond a certain distance. He proved this absolutely and conclusively by mathematics, but, so the story runs, his son, the famous Freddie Tait, proved next day with his driver, that his father's calculations were entirely wrong, for he is alleged to have driven a golf ball over thirty yards farther than the limit which his learned parent had shown to be obtainable. Naturally, Professor Tait had to reconsider his statements, and he then arrived at the conclusion that there must have been in the drive of his son, which had upset his calculations, some force which he had not taken into consideration. He soon came to the conclusion that this was back-spin, and he dealt with this matter of back-spin, which is a matter of extreme importance to golf, in a most erudite article, which is much too advanced for the ordinary golfer, so I shall content myself here with referring to just a few of the most important points in connection with it. It is necessary that I should, in dealing with the flight of the ball, give those of my readers who are not already acquainted with the simple principles of swerve, some idea of what it is which causes the spinning ball to leave the line of flight that it would have taken if it had been driven practically without spin.

The explanation is very simple. If a ball is proceeding through the air, and spinning, the side which is spinning _towards the hole_ gets more friction than the other side which is spinning _away from the hole_. It is well known that a projectile seeks the line of least resistance in its pa.s.sage through the air. It follows that the greater friction on the _forward spinning_ half causes the ball to edge over towards the side which is spinning away from the hole. This, in a very few words, is the whole secret of swerve.

Professor Tait stated in his article that Newton was well aware of this fact some 230 years before the publication of the professor's article, and that he remarked when speaking of a spinning tennis ball with a circular as well as a progressive motion communicated to it by the stroke, "that the parts on that side where the motions conspire must press and beat the contiguous air more violently, and there excite a reluctancy and reaction of the air proportionately greater."

This really is an extremely simple matter and a very simple explanation. I have taken care to explain it so simply, for swerve is, by a very great number of people, looked upon as an abstruse problem--in fact, my book on _Swerve, or the Flight of the Ball_, is catalogued as a treatise on applied mathematics, instead of, as I intended it to be, simply a practical application of the ascertained facts to the behaviour of the ball in the air.

Professor Tait's article has enjoyed a wonderful vogue. Although it was published nearly twenty years ago it is quite frequently quoted at the present time. There are, however, in it some errors which one would not have expected to have found in such a scientific article.

Speaking of the golf ball shortly after it has left the club, Professor Tait said:

It has a definite speed, in a definite direction, and it _may_ have also a definite amount of rotation about some definite axis. The existence of rotation is manifested at once by the strange effects it produces on the curvature of the path so that the ball may skew to right or left; soar upwards as if in defiance of gravity, or plunge headlong downwards instead of slowly and reluctantly yielding to that steady and persistent pull.

There is, in this statement of Professor Tait's, a fundamental error in so far as regards the flight of the ball. He said: "The existence of rotation is manifested at once by the strange effects it produces on the curvature of the path." This is incorrect from a scientific point of view, and it is also badly stated. The existence of rotation is not manifested "at once"; in very many cases, practically in all, the ball proceeds for quite a long distance before the effect of rotation is seen. This is more particularly so when it is a matter of back-spin, but it is equally true of the pulled ball or the sliced ball. Both of these proceed for a considerable distance before the effect of spin is noticeable. In fact it is well known to all golfers that the spin begins to get to work as the velocity of the ball decreases. Also it seems as though it is incorrect to refer to the strange effects it (rotation) produces on the curvature of the path, for it is the rotation itself which produces the curvature.

Professor Tait then said:

The most cursory observation shows that a ball is hardly ever sent on its course without some spin, so that we may take the fact for granted, even if we cannot fully explain the mode of its production. And the main object of this article is to show that long carry essentially involves under-spin.

I shall deal with these two statements later on.

Professor Tait said:

To find that his magnificent carry was due merely to what is virtually a toeing operation--performed no doubt in a vertical and not in a horizontal plane, is too much for the self-exalting golfer!

The fact, however, is indisputable. When we fasten one end of a long untwisted tape to the ball and the other to the ground and then induce a good player to drive the ball (perpendicularly to the tape) into a stiff clay face a yard or two off, we find that the tape is _always_ twisted in such a way as to show under-spin; no doubt to different amounts by different players, but proving that the ball makes usually from about one to three turns in six feet, say from forty to a hundred and twenty turns per second, this is clearly a circ.u.mstance not to be overlooked.

It is wonderful how easily a scientific man, as Professor Tait was, can be led astray when he sets out to find the thing he has imagined.

Professor Tait, by a footnote to his article in the _Badminton Magazine_, to my mind entirely discounts the value of his experiments.

His footnote is so important that I must quote it fully. He says:

In my laboratory experiments, players could not be expected to do _full_ justice to their powers. They had to strike as nearly as possible in the centre, a ten-inch disc of clay, the ball being teed about six feet in front of it. Besides this pre-occupation, there was always more or less concern about the possible consequence of rebound, should the small target be altogether missed.

It will be apparent even to anyone who is not possessed of a scientific or a.n.a.lytical mind that Professor Tait _compelled_ his players to endeavour to play their strokes in such a manner that the ball had to travel down a line decided on by Professor Tait. I do not know at what height Professor Tait placed his clay disc from the earth, but it is evident that if he put it very low down it would involve the playing by the golfer of a stroke which would naturally produce back-spin, and in any case the trajectory was arbitrarily fixed. In experimenting with such a stroke as this, and in such a manner as this, it should be evident that there should have been no restriction whatever as to the player's trajectory. If it was decided that it was necessary to catch the ball in a clay disc, that disc should have been so large that it was impossible for the golfer's ball to escape it. It should not have been necessary for the golfer _to aim_ at the disc. The mere fact of his aiming at the disc and the ball being teed so near as six feet to the disc, all tended to produce the shot which would give the results which Professor Tait was looking for, but that does not prove that the ordinary stroke at golf is produced in a similar manner, and I do not for one moment believe that it is.

In speaking of _the stroke proper_ Professor Tait said:

The club and the ball practically share this scene between them; but the player's right hand, and the resistance of the air, take _some_ little part in it. It is a very brief one, lasting for an instant only, in the sense of something like one ten-thousandth of a second.

We may note here that Professor Tait said: "_The right hand and the resistance of the air_ take _some_ little part in it." One would be inclined to think from this that Professor Tait was, as indeed was probably the case, an adherent of the fetich of the left, for there can be no doubt that in "the stroke proper" the right hand does much more than take "_some_" little part in it.

I think that Professor Tait is wrong in his idea that under-spin, or, as I prefer to call it, back-spin, is essential to a long carry. I firmly believe that a ball which is. .h.i.t with practically no spin whatever, can have a very long carry. However, as the paper which I am now about to consider follows in many ways very closely on the lines of Professor Tait's article, I shall leave this matter for consideration when I am dealing with that paper.

The paper which I am now referring to is one which was read at the weekly evening meeting of the Royal Inst.i.tution of Great Britain on Friday, 18th March 1910, by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson, M.A., LL.D., D.S.C., F.R.S., M.R.I., O.M.; Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics, Cambridge; Professor of Physics, Royal Inst.i.tution, London; Professor of Natural Philosophy, Royal Inst.i.tution, and winner of the n.o.bel Prize for Physics, 1906. The t.i.tle of this paper was "The Dynamics of a Golf Ball." It will be observed that neither the Inst.i.tution under the auspices of which this lecture was delivered, nor the lecturer, is inconsiderable. Professor Thomson is, without doubt, a very distinguished physicist, and we must therefore receive anything he writes with a certain amount of respect. There are, however, in this paper, so many remarkable statements that it is necessary for me to deal with it quite fully.

Professor Thomson tells us very early in the lecture that Newton was well aware of the cause of swerve which I have already set out, some 250 years ago, and that he remarked that in a spinning tennis ball the "parts on that side where the motions conspire, must press and beat the contiguous air more violently, and there excite a reluctancy and reaction of the air proportionately greater."

Professor Thomson says at the beginning of his lecture:

There are so many dynamical problems connected with golf that a discussion of the whole of them would occupy far more time than is at my disposal this evening. I shall not attempt to deal with the many important questions which arise when we consider the impact of the club with the ball, but shall confine myself to the consideration of the flight of the ball after it has left the club.

I may say here that Professor Thomson, although he announces his intention of doing this, is later on in his paper, as we shall see, tempted into considering the questions of impact, and, in my opinion, making several grave errors therein. We may, however, in the meantime, pa.s.s this by.

Professor Thomson continues: