The Soul of Golf Part 23

Following Vardon's reasoning to its logical conclusion, we have very little difficulty in arriving at a decision that we could undoubtedly obtain better results if we struck the ball in a line with the shaft.

This seems at first glance a revolutionary idea, but, as a matter of fact, it is nothing new in the game of golf. The old St. Andrews putter, which had a p.r.o.nounced curve in its shaft, was so built that if the line of the upper half of the shaft were continued it would run practically on to the centre of the face of the club. The lower portion of the shaft curved very considerably. Sometimes, indeed, this curve was spread over almost the full length of the shaft. The object of this curve, which I may say is even now in the handle of all scientifically constructed wooden putters, is to bring the hands in a line with the point of impact at the moment of striking, but in this year of grace, 1912, we find the Royal and Ancient Golf Club barring on its own links, but, as it states now, _nowhere else_, such a well known and proved club as the Schenectady putter.

The Schenectady putter is not a centre shafted putter, and in my opinion is open to several grave objections, for it is made with a head shaped on the general principle of the wooden putter, which it resembles more than it does the ordinary metal putter. I have a rooted objection to any putter which has a broad sole, for it is simply importing into the stroke an unnecessary element of error. If the swing is untrue, there is much greater risk of soling with a broad-soled putter than there is when one is using one of the metal putters.

I have besides this two other objections to the Schenectady putter. It does not go far enough, in that it is not a centre shafted putter, and therefore the point of impact and the shaft are not in the same straight line; and thirdly, the shaft enters the head of the club some distance back from the face of the club.

Some years ago, when in America, I invented and patented the "Vaile"

clubs. These are centre shafted clubs and they are built exactly on the principle of the time-hallowed St. Andrews putter. For example, the only difference between the "Vaile" putter and the revered St.

Andrews putter in principle is that in my club, instead of spreading the curve over the full length of the handle, I have gathered it all at the neck, and instead of allowing the shaft to run into the head of the club, as in the Schenectady, some distance from the face of the club, I have turned the neck away in a curve to the heel of the club, so that the club is much more like the ordinary golf club than is a putter built on the lines of the Schenectady. The same principle is used in the wooden clubs.

Now it is absolutely incontestable that this principle is scientifically more accurate and will deliver a stronger blow than the golf clubs which are at present used. James Braid in 1901 said of this putter:

I consider this putter very good for direction, as, the shaft being practically centred, you get the effect of the driver headed putters with inserted shafts, without losing the advantages which the ordinary putter head possesses over the large headed clubs. The principle, from a scientific point of view, is certainly right, and I have no doubt that any player who suffers from bad direction will find this a valuable club.

In pa.s.sing, I may draw attention to the fact that James Braid himself considers that the ordinary putter possesses advantages over the large headed clubs, and I think myself that there is very little doubt that this is so for the vast majority of golfers. Arnaud Ma.s.sy, in his recent book _Le Golf_, says of my clubs: "Certes, au point de vue scientifique, cette theorie est inattaquable." Notwithstanding the opinion of three such men as Vardon, Braid, and Ma.s.sy on a matter of practical golf like this, the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St.

Andrews has declared that my clubs are illegal on their links, but in response to questions which they have been asked with regard to this matter they a.s.sert that the club is barred only on the links of the Royal and Ancient Club!

It seems a very great pity that this famous Club should have taken this action with the Schenectady and the Vaile, for it has undoubtedly led, as I pointed out in _The Contemporary Review_ for August 1910, would be the case, to the pa.s.sing of the great Club as a world power in golf. It is impossible for any club or body of persons to stand in the way of the progress of a great game such as golf, and anybody or any club endeavouring to do so must inevitably, as I clearly indicated at the time, pay the penalty for doing so.

I have very little doubt that in the future, and at a by no means distant date, golf will be played with clubs constructed on an infinitely more scientific principle than those which are now used.

It is quite plain to anyone who gives the matter a little thought that the longer the head of the club the greater must be the inaccuracy in the stroke. It stands to reason that the inertia at the toe of the club is greater than at the heel, and every fraction of an inch which one goes farther from the shaft must increase the inertia in the head of the club. It follows quite naturally that if one is using a whippy shaft, the tendency must be for the head of the club, especially if it is at all long, to exert a very considerable amount of torsional or twisting strain on the shaft of the club in the downward swing. It has been a.s.serted that this torsional strain, by reason of the recovery of the shaft at the moment of impact, adds something to the force of the drive in golf, but this is quite an error, as at the moment of impact the club is travelling at its fastest. It follows, therefore, that if there is any inertia in the toe of the club, it will be very apparent at the time when the club is travelling at its fastest, and the result is that the torsional strain, instead of providing any beneficial spring at the moment of impact, only tends to lay back the face of the club and contribute materially towards slicing. It will, therefore, be seen that it is very inadvisable to have a long head when one is using a whippy shaft.

I may, perhaps, ill.u.s.trate this question of keeping the impact in a line with the striking implement by instancing the sword cut. Most people have seen at military tournaments the compet.i.tion known as lemon-cutting. In this event a mounted man gallops past a certain number of lemons suspended on strings, and as he pa.s.ses he endeavours to sever them with his sword. It will be seen that at the moment when his sword enters the lemons his forearm and the sword are, in both cuts, in the same plane, and it seems so obvious as to need no emphasising that if the line of his blade were even an inch or two off the line of his forearm there would be introduced into his stroke a very great degree of inaccuracy, but although this may be so obvious, it is practically what we are doing every day in golf.

If the golf club were made in such a manner that the point of impact was absolutely in a line with the forearms at the moment of impact, tradition, instead of being outraged, would really be honoured. Not long ago a friend of mine came to me and showed me an old driver, saying, "I cannot understand how it is, but I can always get twenty or thirty yards farther with this driver than I can with any other." I took the club and ran my eye down the shaft. I noticed at once that it was warped considerably so that it threw the shaft inwards in such a manner that it resembled very much the shaft of an old St. Andrews putter--in other words, it put the golfer's hands and forearms in a line with the shaft of his club and the shaft of his club in a line with the point of impact at the moment the stroke was played. I pointed out to him that his club was, in effect, a centre-shafted club, and that this was the reason why he was getting a longer and, as he stated, a straighter ball with this club than with any other club he used.

While I am on this question of the construction of clubs, I may as well state that under the recent ruling of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club there is not a legal golf club in use in England to-day, for one of the essentials of a legal club now is that the head must be all on one side of the shaft of the club. Pa.s.sing by, as too technical an objection, the question as to whether a circular object may be said to have a side, we are confronted with the fact that many of the best-known clubs have the shaft inserted in the head. All the socketed clubs technically are illegal, because the head is certainly not all on one side of the shaft. Many cleeks are illegal because the shaft goes through the socket and right through the heel of the club to the sole thereof, so that a considerable portion of the head of the club is on the hither side of the shaft, and every ordinary golf club is so constructed that it is more correct to say that the head of the club, instead of being all on one side of the shaft, is either at the foot of the shaft, or at least that there is, without any doubt, a considerable portion of the head which goes beyond the one side of the club whereon the head is supposed to be.

It is a very great mistake indeed to attempt to introduce any standard golf club or to lay down any regulation whatever as to how the golf club shall be made. The good sense and sportsmanlike instincts of the golfer should be sufficient to govern the question of what may and what may not be used. It is an absolute certainty that if any man were to endeavour to use an implement which was not in accordance with the best spirit of the game, he would speedily provide his own punishment, but it is a wonderful thing to find the greatest Club in the world barring on its own links clubs which embody in their formation the well-recognised principles of the most revered implements of the game.

The principle which I have referred to of endeavouring to get the point of impact as near to the shaft as possible is being shown also in the hockey stick, which has not now anything like so great a curve in it as it originally had, and the striking-point has been brought much nearer to the shaft. The tennis racket, as distinct from the lawn-tennis racket, has stood for many years as a lob-sided instrument, but about eighteen months ago I was with a tennis player who ordered from Messrs. F. H. Ayres, Ltd., six straight tennis rackets, saying that he believed the soundness of the principle which I am now advocating to be absolutely incontestable and of universal application in ball games.

I mention this matter because I believe it is of historical interest, for I do not think that prior to the time mentioned by me, tennis rackets were ever made straight. We all know how, when aiming a stone, playing a billiard ball, firing a gun, shooting an arrow, or pulling a catapult, one instinctively tries to get one's eye into the line of flight of the object to be propelled. It is evident that one can aim better thus. This is denied one in golf, where the ball is practically the smallest played with, to a greater extent than in any other game.

It follows that a greater degree of mechanical accuracy is called for in golf than is required in other games. Very few golfers realise that they are deliberately handicapping themselves by playing with the clubs at present used. The weight and leverage of the head of the club is on one side of the shaft, and the angle of error is there. True, it is small, but a very slight initial error in the flight of a golf ball becomes in 200 yards serious, perhaps fatal. The golf club of the future will inevitably follow the march of scientific construction, and fall into line with the straight-handled implements wherewith the ball is struck in a line with the shaft.

It is clear that at the moment of impact with a golf club, as they are now constructed, there is a very great tendency for the club to turn in the hands. This is shown very clearly when one happens to hit with the toe of the club a little lower than it ought to be, so that the toe strikes the earth. This is absolutely fatal for the club will be turned in the hand, but it is otherwise if by chance one happens to strike the ground with the heel, for as the force of the club is transmitted in a straight line down the shaft, the blow is very frequently, particularly with iron clubs, not interfered with to any very great extent. It is clear that if the club is centre shafted, greater strength and accuracy are obtained, for the club has an equal weight on each side of the shaft. There is thus no torsional or twisting strain on the shaft as there is at present with every golf club, and, as I have already shown, this torsional strain cannot be considered as a negligible factor in a club. I must repeat, however, that it is an error to think that this torsional strain can, by its recovery, contribute anything to the length of the drive, for the recovery from the torsional strain does not take place until long after the impact has ceased and the ball has gone on its way. This, it seems to me, even from a theoretical point of view, is undoubted, but I have proved by practical experiment that one can obtain a longer ball with a centre-shafted club than one can with an ordinary golf club.

There is another matter in connection with the construction of clubs which should receive the attention of manufacturers. We know that the clubs are of varying lengths, descending from the driver to the putter according to the length of the shot which is required of them. The difference between a driver and a mashie is frequently as much as six inches. The difference between a mashie and a putter is roughly, say, three inches. It has always seemed to me that in proportion to the work demanded of it the putter does not continue in the decreasing scale of length as it should, particularly for short puts. Many very fine putters get quite low down to their put and grip the putter a long way down the shaft. It is undeniable that for short puts there is some advantage in this method, but it is open to the objection that it leaves too much of the shaft free above the hands, thus not only destroying the balance of the putter, but risking striking some portion of the player's body with the free end of the shaft.

I believe that the putter should, generally speaking, be made much shorter, but, if this is not done for approach puts, I am sure that it would be worth one's while to experiment with a short putter for short puts. I have had such a putter made for me, and I have no hesitation whatever in saying that it is a very valuable club and one that should be better known than it is. It is necessary, of course, to readjust the balance in such a club, but when that has been done, I firmly believe that one is very much more accurate with this club than with an ordinary putter when playing short puts. The putter which I am referring to is, if I remember, little, if any, more than twenty-six inches.

While I am on the question of the construction of putters, I may say that I am inclined to think that all these putters which are made with heads such as the Schenectady, the ordinary wooden putter, or those putters with aluminium heads, are a mistake. The sole of the club is too broad, and to use such clubs as these is simply providing a greater chance of error. There is nothing which can be done with one of these large-headed putters which cannot be done as well, or better, by an ordinary metal putter.

There are many fearful and wonderful putters on the market at the present time. Lately there has been produced a putter with a very shallow face, which is now being largely used because a man who has won the open championship frequently is using it. For ninety per cent of golfers a putter with a narrow face is a very great mistake, and I believe that in saying ninety per cent I am fixing the percentage low.

I do not think that any putter should be built whose face is so narrow that at the moment of striking the ball properly with the putter the top edge of the putter is below the top of the ball. I am firmly of opinion that a putter which is so built that it delivers the main portion of its force below the centre of the ball's ma.s.s is absolutely defective. I go even so far as to say that I believe that in a scientifically constructed putter the face should be made much broader than the face of the average putter, and that the weight, instead of being ma.s.sed at or near the bottom of the putter, should be reversed, and put, if anything, nearer the top. The whole essence of true putting is that the ball shall be rolled up to the hole, and not at any portion of its journey played with drag, or as one is sometimes told to do, slid along the green. Any attempt whatever to put with drag, or by tapping the ball, must cause inaccuracy.

I saw, a short time ago, one of the finest golfers in England, Mr. A.

Mitch.e.l.l, lose an important match on the putting-green, or, to be a little more accurate, on quite a number of putting-greens. He was then, and I believe still is, making the same mistake as James Braid made when he was such a bad putter, viz. tapping his puts, and finishing low down on the line after the ball. It is almost impossible for anyone to be a good putter with this stroke, and his chance of being a good putter is rendered remoter still if he attempts to do putting of this nature with a shallow-faced putter.

A putter should have very little loft indeed, if any. It is questionable, from a scientific point of view, if the putter should be lofted at all, but in practice a very slight degree of loft is generally used, and there may be something to be said in favour of this slight loft if one is playing the put as it should be played, as nearly as possible by the wrists, for if that is done it stands to reason that the putter with a very slight loft will tend, in, of course, an extremely small degree, but still to such a degree as to be perceptible, to deliver its blow upwardly through the ball's ma.s.s, and this naturally tends to give the ball a truer roll off the club than would be the case if the putter were perfectly vertical.

If one were using a putter with a vertical face, it seems fairly clear that at the moment of impact, when one is endeavouring to roll the ball forward, it is held simultaneously at two points. There must then, it seems, be some slight dragging on the face of the club and also on the green, but when the putter has some small loft on it and the blow is delivered, to a certain extent, upwardly, the ball will naturally get a truer roll from it, and for this reason perhaps the smallest degree of loft on a putter is advisable.

Shallow faces and broad soles in putters have nothing whatever to recommend them, and there is very little doubt that golfers will, in due course, find this out, and will use a putter so made that it will carry the weight where it is most wanted, and that certainly is not at the base of the ball, for, unnecessary as it may seem to mention the fact, the put is the one stroke in golf which we always desire to keep as close to the green as possible. We know quite well that in all other clubs, when we want to get the ball off the ground quickly, we take a club which has its weight thrown into the sole, but as we want exactly the opposite thing on the putting-green, it seems reasonable to think that we should alter the adjustment of our weight when constructing a putter which has any claim whatever to being considered a scientifically made club.

I have referred to the defect of the broad sole, and I have in a previous chapter of this book indicated that the perfect put should bear as close a resemblance to the swing of a pendulum as the player can give it. Let us now for a moment imagine that we have as the weight on the pendulum the head of an ordinary metal putter, and let us so adjust this metal head that in the swing of the pendulum it will barely clear a marble slab placed underneath it. Let us now remove the metal putter and subst.i.tute in its place such a club as one of the ordinary aluminium-headed clubs, or a Schenectady, and hang this club on the end of the pendulum so that when the pendulum is absolutely vertical the front edge of the sole of the club clears the slab by exactly the same s.p.a.ce as the metal putter did when at rest. We shall now find that this club will swing freely back in the same manner as the metal putter did, but we shall get a very striking exemplification of the fact that the breadth of the sole of this club will prevent it swinging forward at all, for the rear portion of the sole will foul the marble slab. This, of course, is sufficient to absolutely prevent a proper follow-through, for even when this happens on a good green the delicacy of the put is such that it is more than likely the stroke will be ruined.

This is an ill.u.s.tration of what I mean when I say that the golfer is importing into his game an unnecessary risk when he uses a broad-soled club. It will be seen from the example which I have given that there is an infinitely greater danger of soling with such a club than there is when one is playing with an ordinary metal putter.

The same error with regard to breadth of sole is very frequently seen in the mashie. Indeed, the sole of the mashie is so broad and taken back at such an unscientific angle that very frequently the player strikes with the back edge of the sole before the front. It stands to reason that when he does this he is c.o.c.king up the front edge of his club, and so robbing himself of a great portion of the loft of the club. Many players lay the face of the mashie back in order to increase the natural loft of the club. In nine cases of ten when they do this, instead of increasing the usefulness of their clubs they diminish it, for they insist then upon the front edge of the face of the mashie striking the ball higher up than would be the case if they played with the club in the ordinary way.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XV. J. SHERLOCK

Finish of iron-shot. Note carefully the upright finish following the swing back, and the position of the hands, a characteristic of the finish of this shot. Sherlock gets a lower ball than the ordinary iron-shot.]

Most mashies are constructed in a very unscientific manner. It is the function of the mashie to get as far underneath the ball as possible.

To do this a mashie should always have its front edge very clearly defined, and almost immediately the sole leaves the front edge it should begin to curve upwardly--in other words, a mashie should practically never have a sole. When the mashie is made like this it is astonishing how much easier and more accurate it makes one's work with the club. Not only does the curving sole to the mashie allow one to get more in underneath the ball and prevent any jar of a square edge behind the front edge of the sole, but if it is a question of taking turf, which involves cutting down behind the ball, one is able to do this with a mashie having the sharp edge and the curved sole such as I describe, much more easily than one could with the flat sole, for the simple reason that one is enabled to pa.s.s the ball on the downward stroke much more rapidly than one could possibly do with the broad-soled mashie. It is obvious that in playing a ball with heavy back cut, the essence of obtaining that cut must be the speed at which the mashie pa.s.ses down behind the ball, and it must be also equally apparent that if one is playing that shot with a club whose sole is as broad as is that of the ordinary mashie, that the pace of the blow must be arrested to a very great extent long before the club has had an opportunity of absolutely clearing the ball. This means that the club is hampered in the execution of its natural duty.

While I am on the subject of the construction of the mashie, and particularly with regard to the curving sole, I may mention that I have such a club. It was made for me in accordance with a specification which I furnished, but it did not in any way carry out what I wanted; in fact, my instructions were very much exaggerated, but the moment I saw that club I knew that it would be, for short approaches and for playing stymies, a wonderful club; and so it has proved. It would take a good deal more than its weight in silver to induce me to part with it, for that club led to the making of history in golf--in other words, its construction caused me to see the great advantage which could be got by using it in playing the stymie shot which I have described in a previous chapter, and it was while playing this particular stymie shot that I came to the conclusion that for the usual stymie shot at or about the hole the ordinary mashie is far too long, as in the case of the short putter, because when one tries to get down on the club as low as one really ought to do for playing a shot of the delicacy required in these strokes, one finds that one has too much free shaft above one's hands. If I had any doubt whatever as to the advisability of having a short putter for short puts, I have absolutely none with regard to the benefits which are to be obtained from having a short mashie for playing close stymies, and I may say that at the time of writing I have never handled such a club--I have never seen such a club, nor have I ever heard of such a club, but before this book is published I shall have one.

Stymies were once upon a time a perfect terror to me, but with the club which I have referred to, and whose construction was practically an accident, they are no trouble, and I firmly believe that nine stymies of ten would be no trouble to a golfer of ordinary skill if he had the proper club with which to play them, but it seems not unreasonable, when we consider the descending scale of the clubs which I have before referred to, to think that a club which we use frequently to get eighty yards with should not be the most suitable implement for playing a stroke of nine inches to a foot.

While I am on the subject of iron clubs, there is another matter which I should like to refer to, and that is that, in my opinion, the communion, if I may use the word, between the club and the ball is not as intimate as it should be. In the lawn-tennis ball and racket one gets a wonderfully firm grip, and it is astonishing with what accuracy one can place a lawn-tennis ball by means of cut, but the vast majority of iron clubs which are used are insufficiently and unscientifically marked. I can remember the time when iron clubs, generally speaking, were innocent of any indentation whatever on their faces. Marking is fairly general now on iron clubs, but it is done in an utterly unscientific manner. It is frequently done by great deep straight lines, and, particularly in the mashie, nearly always by lines which run from heel to toe. Now in the great majority of mashie shots when one is putting on cut one requires lines running in an exactly opposite direction. We do sometimes see, of course, lines on these iron clubs running at right angles to each other, but in nearly every case the marking is too large and too coa.r.s.e to be of the practical benefit which it ought to be.

Quite recently I saw a very skilful golfer playing with rusty clubs, and somebody who did not understand what it meant commented rather strongly on his untidiness. He did not understand until he was told that the idea of the man who was using these clubs in keeping them rusty was that he got a better grip on his ball, and there can be no doubt whatever that this is the case, but a scientific maker of iron clubs would not be satisfied to leave it to his customer to make up for his deficiency by allowing his clubs to become unsightly. He would produce a club marked as nearly as might be in a similar manner to a club which was heavily rusted.

I have experimented with various means for establishing a better grip between the club and the ball, and I have, I believe, found an almost perfect medium for establishing effective contact. Let us consider for a moment how little use the cue would be to us at billiards were it not for the medium of contact which is commonly used; to wit, the chalk. Now it is inconvenient, and, moreover, would be ineffective to a great extent, to chalk one's iron clubs in golf, but it is an absolute certainty that something which answers to the chalk should be on the face of every iron used in golf. What that is to be we must leave to the ingenuity of our scientific club makers, but it is an absolute certainty that we shall see a very great improvement in this particular matter within quite a short time.

CHAPTER XIII

THE LITERATURE OF GOLF

It will be readily understood by those who have followed me that I consider that golf has been badly served by those who have essayed to teach it by books. The main, if not indeed the whole, cause of the trouble is the manner in which writer after writer has allowed himself to be influenced by the work of those who have preceded him. This is neither amusing nor instructive. The essence of progress is research.

We cannot progress in anything by repeating parrot-like the fallacies of those who have preceded us.

I want to make it particularly plain that this book aims at absolutely dispelling the fog and mist, the obscurity and the falseness which now cl.u.s.ters about the game of golf. One dear old chap was explaining to me how he tries to drive. He said, "When I get to the top of the swing I have so many things to remember that I get all of a dither and mess it up hopelessly." Could anyone express it better?

About seventy-five per cent of the golfers who follow the usual tuition are "all of a dither." The whole trouble is that they are given too much to think of _during the stroke_. I am certain that the secret of success in golf is to eliminate the necessity for thinking _and theorising_ on the links. This, I contend, can be done by _knowing_, not merely by _reading_, the contents of this book.

So strongly do I feel in this matter that I consider that every beginner who desires to succeed at golf should know what is here set out, while every misguided golfer who has been jumping from his right leg to his left, and putting his left hand in command instead of his right, should lose no time in getting the truth and so revolutionising his game.

I have stated in my Preface that this book is a challenge. So, in effect, it is. It stands for truth and practical golf, instead of the nonsense which is generally published about one of the greatest and simplest of games.

I must here refer to a book ent.i.tled _Practical Golf_, published by Mr. Walter J. Travis, the Australian who perfected his golf in America and won the Amateur Championship of England.