The Soul of Golf Part 19

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XII. GEORGE DUNCAN

A characteristic stroke, showing Duncan's perfect finish in the drive.]

This is a matter of such importance that I must quote Harry Vardon in support of my statement. He says at page 92 of _The Complete Golfer_:

Now, however, that this question is raised, I feel it desirable to say, without any hesitation, that the majority of golfers possess vastly exaggerated notions of the effect of strong cross winds on the flight of their ball. They greatly over-estimate the capabilities of a breeze. To judge by their observations on the tee, one concludes that a wind from the left is often sufficient to carry the ball away at an angle of 45 degrees, and indeed sometimes when it does take such an exasperating course and finishes on the journey some fifty yards away from the point from which it was desired to despatch it, there is an impatient exclamation from the disappointed golfer, "Confound this wind! Who on earth can play in a hurricane!" or words to that effect. Now I have quite satisfied myself that only a very strong wind indeed will carry a properly driven ball more than a very few yards out of its course, and in proof of this I may say that it is very seldom when I have to deal with a cross wind that I do anything but play straight at the hole without any pulling or slicing or making allowances in any way.

If golfers will only bring themselves to ignore the wind, then it, in turn, will almost entirely ignore their straight ball. When you find your ball at rest the afore-mentioned forty or fifty yards from the point which you desired to send it, make up your mind, however unpleasant it may be to do so, that the trouble is due to an unintentional pull or slice, and you may get what consolation you can from the fact that the slightest of these variations from the ordinary drive is seized upon with delight by any wind, and its features exaggerated to an enormous extent. It is quite possible therefore that a slice which would have taken the ball only twenty yards from the line when there was no wind, will take it forty yards away with the kind a.s.sistance of its friend and ally.

These are, unquestionably, words of wisdom. There can be no doubt whatever that the straight ball is the ball all the time in golf, and it is absolutely certain that what Vardon says about the effect of the wind on the golf ball is true. Wind has remarkably little effect on the golf ball which is driven without spin. I have had no doubt on this subject for at least seventeen years. I had my lesson in one ball during the course of a match played over my home links in New Zealand.

One of the holes was on top of a volcanic mountain at a place where New Zealand is only a few miles wide, and there was a howling gale raging from ocean to ocean right across the island. I can remember as if it were yesterday, the champion of New Zealand, as he was then, playing this hole. He drove a very high and perfectly straight ball from tee to green, and the ball travelled to all appearances as directly as if there had been no wind whatever, whereas had there been the least slice on the ball it would have been picked up by the wind and carried away into the crater which lay sixty or a hundred yards off the course.

Speaking of Mr. Low reminds me that he makes some extraordinary statements with regard to spin. At page 35 of _Concerning Golf_ he says: "I have said that a ball with left to right spin swings in the air towards the left in exactly the opposite direction from a sliced ball and from contrary causes." It is obvious that this is wrong, for the spin of the slice is from left to right, and of course, as every one knows, that spin makes the ball swerve towards the right, which is the swerve of the slice.

At page 32 Mr. Low makes the same error. He says there: "Now a pulled ball comes round to the left because the sphere is rotating from left to right, or in the direction contrary to the hands of a watch." This, of course, is a contradiction, for the hands of a watch as we look at them do rotate from left to right, but in any case Mr. Low's explanation is quite incorrect, because the spin of the ball is not in a direction contrary to the hands of a watch laid face upwards on the ground, as Mr. Low affirms.

Mr. Low says at page 31:

Every child nowadays seems to know how to slice a ball; you have only to ask the question and the answer will come quickly enough, "Oh, draw the hands in when you are hitting,"

or, in other words, spin the ball in the direction of the hands of a watch laid face upwards on the ground. The ball advancing with this spin finds it is resisted most strongly by the atmosphere on its left side, and therefore goes towards the right in the direction of least resistance. The converse is the case with a pulled ball in the sense of a ball which curves in the air from right to left.

We have already shown in dealing with Professor Thomson's article that this statement is quite incorrect. In pa.s.sing I may also refer to the fact that Mr. Low's idea of the production of the slice, viz. by drawing the hands in when one is. .h.i.tting, is also wrong. There is no drawing in of the hands at the moment of impact in the properly played slice. It is the drawing in, if we may use the term, of the head of the club in its travel across the intended line of flight, but not anything which is done intentionally during impact. However, that is by the way.

Mr. Low is evidently under the impression, as was Professor Thomson, that the spin of the ball in the slice is about a vertical axis. This is an error in itself, as we have shown, but it is not nearly so bad an error as it is to say that the pull is the converse of the slice in this respect, for, as we have seen, if the ball were merely spinning about a vertical axis it could not possibly have the running powers which it possesses, to say nothing of its low flight. Although Mr. Low has got somewhat mixed in describing his rotation, it is evident from his reference to the hands of the clock that his ideas are correct in so far as regards the general direction of spin, but where he is at fault is in stating the axis of rotation of his ball.

If we accept Mr. Low's statement about the axis of rotation we shall have the pulled ball, when it lands, striking the earth with a spin equivalent to a sleeping top, but that is not what we want in the pulled ball, for neither would it give us the low trajectory which we desire so much, nor would it give us, on landing, the running which we desire, if anything, still more. The spin which we desire to produce and which we must have in our minds to produce when we are playing the stroke, is such a spin as will give us, when the ball lands, approximately the spin of a disc top as it falls to earth when its spin is nearly exhausted. I am speaking now, of course, not of the question of degree, but of the plane of spin. We must have our ball spinning in such a plane that when it touches the earth it will behave in the same manner as the disc top does when its side comes into contact with the floor.

In dealing with "The Science of the Stroke," James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ goes into an a.n.a.lysis of the effect of spin on flight. He says early in the chapter:

At the present time most players know how they ought to be standing, and what the exact movements of their arms, wrists, and body should be in order to swing the club in the right way and make the ball travel as far as possible, but they do not all know, and in few cases one suspects have ever troubled to think, what is the process by which these movements, when properly executed, bring about the desired effect.

I do not know how Braid can truthfully say that at the present time most players know how they ought to be standing, when we are confronted with the fact that his own book, _Advanced Golf_, and practically every book which has been published on the game, tells the unfortunate golfer to stand as he ought not to be standing instead of giving him the simple truth and sound golf, and it is incomprehensible to me how Braid can say that they know "what the exact movements of their arms, wrists, and body should be in order to swing the club in the right way," when he himself has confessed in _Advanced Golf_ that, particularly with regard to the wrists, which unquestionably have a most important function to fulfil in the golf drive, he absolutely does not know where they come in. It is useless in a work on _Advanced Golf_ to a.s.sume on the part of one's readers a knowledge superior to that which the author of the book himself has given as his own limitations. Braid says:

They have the cause and also the effect, but they do not often see the connection between the two. Of course, the ball in a ball game moves always according to scientific laws, but it has seemed to those who have studied these matters that the scientific problems involved in the flight of the golf ball are more intricate, but at the same time more interesting, than in many other cases.

Of course this is quite stupid, because, as I have frequently explained, there is no special set of mechanical laws for golf--or the golf ball.

The golf ball follows in all respects exactly the same laws as those which govern the flight and run of any other ball. The only difference in connection with the golf ball is that it is probably the most unscientifically constructed ball in the world of sport. Braid continues:

The chief matter of this kind that it is desirable the golfer should understand is that concerning the character and effect of the spin that is given to the golf ball when it leaves the club. This spin is at the root of all the difficulties and all the delights of the game, and yet there are some players--one might even say many--who do not even know that their ball spins at all as they hit it from the tee.

I may pause here to note that James Braid says that spin is at the root of all the difficulties and all the delights of golf. This is in many respects quite an exaggeration, but I am giving it exactly as he says it, for the simple reason that it emphasises the fact which I have always insisted on, that a proper knowledge of the application of spin to the golf ball is essential for one who would attain to the greatest success or who would obtain the greatest enjoyment from the game.

Braid quotes the work of the late Professor Tait very extensively.

Referring to the most important subject of back-spin, he says:

It appears to be the proper regulation of the under-spin given to the ball when applying it from the tee and through the green, at all events when length is what is most required, that makes success, and it is in this way that players of inferior physical power must make up for their deficiency and drive long b.a.l.l.s.

I may say at once that any idea whatever of the proper regulation of back-spin in the drive is, from the point of view of practical golf, merely nonsense. In so far as regards obtaining extra distance by driving a low ball with back-spin, whose properties I have already fully described, there is nothing whatever to be done but to get back-spin and as much of it as one possibly can. The golfer has yet to be born who in driving can obtain too much back-spin. Braid says:

It is in the long drive that the principles of spin are most interesting and important, but it must be remembered also that they are very prominent in their action upon the flight of the ball in the case of many other shots, and the peculiarities of different trajectories can generally be traced to this cause after a very little thought by one who has a knowledge of the scientific side of the matter, as explained by Professor Tait. This is particularly the case with high lofted approach shots.

One may remark here, perhaps, that there is no more unsuitable stroke in which to study the peculiarity of the application of back-spin to the trajectory of the ball than in the high lofted approach shots, for it is in such shots as these practically an impossibility, if one may so express it, to locate the influence of the spin on the flight of the ball. It is quite a different thing in the wind-cheater cla.s.s of stroke where one sees the ball travelling low across the turf and can absolutely mark the place where the back-spin begins to get to work and give the ball its upward tendency towards the end of the drive, and, when the velocity of the ball has become sufficiently reduced, to allow the back-spin to exert its lifting power.

I now come to a matter which is of very great importance in the application of back-spin to the ball. It is quite evident to me that Braid is falling into the same error as that which was originally made by Professor Tait, and followed fifteen years later by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson. On page 226 he says:

Therefore the great authority concluded that good driving lies not merely in powerful hitting, but "in the proper apportionment of quite good hitting with such a knack as gives the right amount of under-spin to the ball"; and one of his calculations was to the effect that, in certain circ.u.mstances, a man who imparted under-spin to his ball when driving it might get a carry of about thirty yards more than that obtained by another man who hit as hard but made no under-spin. There would, of course, be a great difference in the comparative trajectories of the two b.a.l.l.s. In the case of the short one there is no resistance to gravity, and consequently, in order to get any sort of flight at all, the ball must be directed upwards when it is. .h.i.t from the tee, or, to use a scientific term, there must be "initial elevation." This may be only very slight, but it is quite distinguishable, and in fact a player, who is only at the beginning of his practice, and has little knowledge of the principles of the game, will generally be found trying to hit his ball in an upward direction, and by that means will make it travel farther than it would have done otherwise. On the other hand, the ball that is properly driven by a good player is not only not consciously aimed upwards, but, according to Professor Tait, is not hit upwards. For some distance after it has left the tee it follows a line nearly parallel with the ground, and eventually rises as the result of the under-spin which is forcing it upwards all the time.

We may pause here to consider a few of the statements in this remarkable pa.s.sage. I may say again that the idea of driving a ball with the "proper apportionment of quite good hitting with such a knack as gives the right amount of under-spin to the ball" is simply a wild guess at what takes place during the execution of a correct drive with back-spin. The proper playing of this stroke is a matter of very considerable difficulty, and it is practically a certainty that no golfer has ever lived or ever will live who could regulate his back-spin in the drive to any appreciable extent; all that he ever thinks of doing--all that he is ever likely to do--is to obtain his back-spin, _and as much of it as he can_.

It is, of course, quite wrong to say that in the ball hit without back-spin there is "no resistance to gravity," for if there were no resistance to gravity the ball would be on the earth. However, we know quite well what is meant, although, when we are dealing with a matter which is absolutely a matter of science, we do not expect such loose statements as these. I should probably have pa.s.sed this remark, but for the fact that it is emphasised by the statement that in order to get any sort of flight at all the ball must be directed upwards when it is. .h.i.t from the tee, which again, as a matter of practical golf, is what nine of ten golfers do, although we are told that "a player who is only at the beginning of his practice, and has little knowledge of the principles of the game, will generally be found trying to hit his ball in an upward direction."

It is astonishing how few players, even of quite a good cla.s.s, are content to leave the question of elevation entirely to the club. It probably would be no exaggeration to say that quite ninety per cent of the players make an attempt, however extremely slight it may be, to a.s.sist the club in lifting the ball from the earth. According to the best theory in golf, this is quite wrong, for the blow should be at least in a horizontal direction, which practically it never is, and preferably in the line of the arc formed by the club head in its travel through the air on its downward path. The latter case, of course, would produce back-spin, and a considerable amount of it. The former would probably produce slight back-spin, but a very slight amount. However, the very great majority of golfing hits are at the moment of impact proceeding upwardly, and it is this fact which puts any idea whatever of the unconscious application of back-spin by the ordinary golfer quite beyond serious consideration. The amount of back-spin which is unconsciously applied to the golf ball is practically negligible.

We see that, according to Professor Tait, the ball which is properly driven by a good player is not only not consciously aimed upwards, but that it is actually not hit upwards. Indeed we are told that for some distance after it has left the tee it follows a line nearly parallel with the ground and eventually rises as the result of the under-spin that is forcing it upwards all the time. This statement is not in accordance with the experience of practical golfers. It is evident that Professor Tait was under the impression, in which, as I have stated before and now emphasise, he has been followed by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson, that the beneficial back-spin in golf is obtained by the loft of the club. There can be no doubt whatever that if a golf ball were struck a blow by a golf club having any considerable degree of loft and proceeding at the moment of impact in a straight line, the result would be to impart some degree of back-spin, but this is not what happens in practical golf. At no portion of the travel of the head of the club in the golf drive is it proceeding in a horizontal direction, and in the vast majority of cases, at the moment of impact, even with the very best of stroke players, the club is going upward.

If this were not so it would be impossible for many of our greatest drivers to get the trajectories they do with the comparatively straight-faced clubs which they use.

Braid quotes an experiment which was made by Professor Tait in the course of his investigations with regard to the qualities of under-spin. It appears that the Professor laid a ball to the string of a crossbow, the string being just below the middle of the ball, so that when it was let go it would impart a certain amount of under-spin to it. When he shot the ball in this way he made it fly straight to a mark that was thirty yards distant; but when he shot it a second time, pulling the string to the same extent and laying it to the middle of the ball so that no under-spin would be given to it, the ball fell eight feet short of the same mark.

It is impossible to accept such a rough and crude experiment as this as evidence in any way whatever of the influence of back-spin in the drive; rather it would seem to show beyond a shadow of doubt that the extra carry was obtained because the power of propulsion was applied to the ball at a lower portion, and therefore tended to give it a greater trajectory. It should be obvious that this result would be obtained even disregarding the question of back-spin, which in such an extremely short flight as thirty yards would certainly not have any opportunity whatever to make such a difference in the length of carry as that suggested.

It is, however, when we come to deal with questions of practical golf that we find that the ideas of the late Professor Tait will not bear looking into.

Braid says:

However, it is well to bear in mind one thing that the Professor said, "The pace which the player can give the club head at the moment of impact depends to a very considerable extent on the relative motion of his two hands (to which is due the 'nip') during the immediately preceding two-hundredth of a second, while the amount of beneficial spin is seriously diminished by even a trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow."

Here we have plain evidence of the fact that Professor Tait is under the impression that there is some particular snap which he calls "nip"

imported into the stroke immediately before impact. We have already dealt fully with this matter. We remember what Vardon has said in condemning the idea, and we know that Braid himself has confessed that he knows nothing about the matter, so it will not seem disrespectful if we come to the conclusion that we can disregard this vague statement about the "nip" in the blow. We can then proceed to notice the really important remark made that "the amount of beneficial spin is seriously diminished by even a trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow." It seems to me that this last statement is absolutely accurate, and it is the thing which I have always contended for in dealing with the practical side of golf driving, as contradistinguished from the purely theoretical, which has been put before us by Professor Tait, and following him, by Professor Sir J. J. Thomson. It will be observed that Professor Tait said that the amount of beneficial spin is "seriously diminished by even a trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow."

Some of my readers may remember that when I was dealing with Professor Sir J. J. Thomson's lecture before the Royal Society in an article which appeared in _The English Review_ in February 1911, I stated that what actually did happen was that there took place in practically every drive at golf exactly this "trifling upward concavity of the path of the head during the ten-thousandth of a second occupied by the blow," and that therefore the amount of beneficial back-spin obtained from the loft of the club was practically negligible.

It is quite clear that Professor Tait was under the impression that back-spin was got from the loft of the club proceeding in a horizontal direction, but it is well known now to golfers who give the science of the game any attention whatever, that back-spin is not obtained in this manner, and that back-spin so obtained would be practically ineffectual as an aid to distance, for the loft of the driver and the bra.s.sy is not sufficient, even if the golf drive were played in the manner suggested, to produce any considerable amount of back-spin. As we have already seen, the beneficial back-spin in the golf drive is obtained by the club striking the ball _long before the beginning_ of the "upward concavity of the path of the head," that is to say, in its arc _as it is proceeding downwards_ to the lowest point in the swing from which it then starts that "upward concavity."

I have emphasised and re-emphasised this matter, for it is evident that when famous men like Professors Tait and Thomson start out with an absolutely erroneous idea, an idea which is _fundamentally_ wrong, it is quite natural for less gifted men to be led astray. Braid says, and it must be remembered that this is in _Advanced Golf_ (page 229): "So far as I know, it cannot be stated in accurate scientific terms and figures, and by lines drawn on paper, what is the proper scientific swing in order to get the best drive." This seems to me, especially in a book like this, to be a wonderful statement, particularly when we are dealing with the scientific results arrived at by men of the greatest eminence, results which I may say have been known for more than two hundred and fifty years.

There is no doubt whatever which is the best way to swing in order to get the best drive, and it can be explained in scientific language and shown by diagram and by figures, and in fact it has been so shown again and again.

Braid says:

What golfers have done, therefore, in the past has been to find out gradually which is the best way in which to hit the ball in order to make it travel far, and thus they have groped their way to the stances and swings which, if the truth were known, would probably be set out by science as the best possible ones for the purpose.

This very well expresses what has taken place. The golfers have "groped their way" to what they have found out, without a glimmering of the scientific reasons for doing it, and the consequence is that, as they got their practice first, and were not informed of what they were doing by that theory which is the best of all theory, the concentrated essence of the practice of experts, they have signally failed to impart their science to those who have come after them.

At page 229 Braid says:

However, there are certain things that the player should know about his drive when it is right, and which he should aim at producing, and they have been very well set forth by Professor Tait as the result of his investigations into the trajectories of golf b.a.l.l.s. .h.i.t under varying conditions of club-force, wind, and so forth. One of the first things to say, and this is really important in estimating their chances of making certain carries that are constantly set to them in the course of their play, is that some golfers have a delusion to the effect that the ball is at its highest point in the middle of its flight--that is to say, they think that just about half-way between the point from which it was. .h.i.t and the point at which it will touch the ground again, the ball is at its highest, and after that commences to fall again. In this belief when they have, say, a 140 yards' carry to make, they will reckon that their ball must then be coming down very fast towards the turf, having been at its highest, some 50 or 60 yards before. They may think in such circ.u.mstances that they ought to hit up a little more and try to hit harder to make up for doing so. They would be wrong entirely, and that because they did not know what the under-spin was that they gave to the ball, or what effect it had on its flight. Thus in the case just quoted, a.s.suming that the ball had a total carry of from 150 to 160 yards, it would be at its highest point when it had travelled about 130 yards, and there would be no occasion to hit up, unless the object to be carried were very high.