The Soul of Golf Part 24

Mr. Travis' book is very interesting in many ways. He calls it _Practical Golf_, and it ought to be, coming from him, but Mr. Travis falls into nearly all the mistakes of those who have followed the time-worn fetiches of the people who handed down to us "the traditions of golf." I was much astonished at this, for Mr. Travis tells us himself that he worked out his own salvation, at the same time as he remarks that "as a general rule the average professional, while he may be a good player, lacks the faculty of imparting proper information to beginners."

This, unquestionably, is true, but one cannot expect too much theory from the professional, who is not, generally speaking, a very well educated man, but from a man in Mr. Travis' position one has a right to expect a fairly good grip of fundamental principles. He says that "All good players work practically on the same basic principles." This is, of course, right. The trouble is that most good golfers, like Mr.

Travis, work on the same correct basic principles, but advertise to their unfortunate readers and pupils those which are utterly opposed to their practice.

Mr. Travis absolutely subscribes to the fundamental but common error with regard to the distribution of weight. He says at page 30: "In the upward swing it will be noticed that the body has been turned very freely, with the natural transference of weight almost entirely to the right foot." At page 7 he says: "The ease and rapidity with which the weight of the body and arms is transferred from the left leg to the right and back again, joined to wrist action--concerning which reference will later be made--are largely, if not wholly, responsible for long driving."

It is obvious from this that Mr. Travis thinks that one's weight ought to be on one's right leg at the top of the swing. It is also obvious that he thinks he throws his weight about from one leg to another when he is playing. It is, notwithstanding this, certain that he tells us, as does every man who writes a book about golf, that the head must be immovable during the operation of driving. We must wait for Mr. Travis to tell us how this conundrum can be solved, as none of the famous golfers of the world have yet been able to do it. If the stance has once been taken with the weight equally distributed between the legs, it is impossible, if the head be kept still, as Mr. Travis and everybody else says it should be, to get the weight on to the right leg at the top of the swing, but it is not impossible to get it on to the left leg, where it should be, and where, indeed, it goes quite naturally.

In speaking about the palm grip Mr. Travis says: "This style is more affected by cricketers and base ballers, but it is open to the objection that it introduces a tendency to hit the ball with tautened muscles, and discourages the proper follow-through."

Personally, I cannot see that there is any objection whatever to hitting the ball with tautened muscles--in fact, it absolutely must be done in that way, and in no other, or the result will be dire failure.

James Braid himself says that at the moment of impact the muscles are in a state of supreme tension, and as a matter of practical golf there can be no doubt whatever that this is so. Mr. Travis also comes into line with the general body of golfing opinion with regard to the fetich of the left. He says on page 14: "As a general rule the left hand should grip somewhat more firmly than the right." I may say that Vardon and Taylor do not agree with Mr. Travis, and the mere idea of putting the left to exert a firmer hold on the shaft is a reversion to primeval fables.

Mr. Travis tells us, speaking about the waggle: "Do not on any account in this preliminary address _lift_ the club up. Lifting the club pre-supposes stiffness and rigidity of muscles and the resultant stroke cannot be thoroughly satisfactory."

It will be obvious that as the club is at the lowest portion of its arc it is necessary to lift the club. This is done by an easy action of the wrists, and the waggle, of course, then becomes a swing worked almost entirely from the wrists, but it is absolutely essential to lift the club for the ordinary waggle.

At page 19 Mr. Travis says: "When the top of the swing is reached, without pausing, bring the arms and body around as swiftly as possible and _swish_ the ball away." We see here that Mr. Travis is also an adherent of the fetich of the sweep, but we must in his case call it the fetich of the "swish." In golf it is now realised that the golf drive is a hit of the very finest order.

Mr. Travis says at the same page "Do not seek to artificially raise the left foot on the toe. Strive rather to keep it rooted--the natural turn of the shoulders and body rotating to the right will bring it up and around. Keep the right leg as stiff and as straight as possible.

And whatever you do, do not move the head." If one is going to pivot on the left toe in any way whatever, it is fatal to the rhythm of the swing to wait until the arms pull the left heel off the earth. The left heel should leave the earth almost simultaneously with the club leaving the ball. If this is not done it will be impossible to maintain the rhythm of the swing. Mr. Travis shows himself in nearly every case pivoted on the _point_ of his left toe at the top of the swing. This is now universally admitted to be bad form, as one should put the weight on the ball of the toe, and forward from that at the side of the shoe.

It is, of course, possible to play the drive practically flat-footed, in which case one's swing will naturally be much flatter than the ordinary swing, but this is not generally done. For those who pivot on the left toe, Mr. Travis' advice to wait for the arms to pull the heel up is, I think, absolutely bad. His advice to keep the right leg stiff and straight is quite good, and, of course, there can be no doubt of the correctness of his advice when he says "do not move the head," but will he tell us how, with a perfectly stiff and straight right leg, and no movement whatever of the head, he is going to transfer his weight to his right leg? for, as he truly says on page 20, "If the head is kept still, no swaying of the body can be indulged in."

There is a very remarkable statement on page 20. Mr. Travis says: "Any doubt as to whether the head is moved may easily be satisfied by the player a.s.suming a position with the sun immediately at the back of him, and watching the shadow of the head during the swing. If the head is shown to move, the swing should be persistently practised until this fault is remedied." If I were not now writing practical golf myself, I might suggest putting in a peg on the ground to watch whether one's shadow impinged on this peg or not, but as a matter of practical golf if I considered anything of this nature necessary, I should prefer a string stretched across by my right ear so that swaying would be bound to make me touch it, but as a matter of _intensely practical golf_ neither of these expedients is in the least degree necessary if the player will only get it firmly rooted in his mind that his weight must be on his left leg at the top of his swing, and he will then find that he has no temptation whatever to sway.

On page 23 Mr. Travis says: "It is not really the length alone of the downward swing that contributes distance so much as the rapidity with which the club head is moving at, and just after the moment of impact." It is almost unnecessary to draw attention to the fact that what happens "just after the moment of impact" does not much matter to the ball. It is what happens during the impact which is of importance, although it stands to reason that if the speed during impact has been sufficient, just after impact it will still be the same, minus the force expended on the golf ball.

Mr. Travis makes a terrible error in _Practical Golf_ when he says, speaking of the downward swing: "Let him resolve to centralise the power of the stroke immediately the ball is reached."

This is an idea fatal to good golf. As I have frequently pointed out, and as James Braid in _How to Play Golf_ also emphasises, the meeting between the ball and the club should be _merely an incident_. Any attempt to try to do anything during impact in the drive is futile.

Mr. Travis at page 24 makes the same error with regard to the speed of the club after the ball has been hit. He says: "A great deal more depends upon the maintenance of speed after the ball is struck than is commonly supposed. This part of the stroke is known as the follow-through, and plays a very important part in the length of the drive as in straightness." Mr. Travis evidently does not perfectly realise that the follow-through is of no importance whatever except as the natural result of the correctly played first part of the stroke, and the maintenance of speed after the ball has been struck is of no importance provided that the first portion of the stroke has been properly executed and at a sufficient pace. The only importance of the maintenance of speed in any way whatever is that this indicates that the first half has been correctly performed.

Mr. Travis seems to be very hazy as to the causes of slicing and pulling. A ball being hit slightly to the right of its centre would not necessarily produce a slice, although it would probably deflect it from its intended line of flight. A slice is produced by the amount of rotation which is imparted to the ball by the glancing blow. He says: "With a pulled ball it is just the opposite--the ball is. .h.i.t to the left of its centre, that is, nearer the player, producing a spin from right to left." This is not in any way necessary. The ball may be hit absolutely at the point farthest from the hole, and with the club at a perfect right angle to the intended line of flight, but the point which Mr. Travis does not mention is that the club is travelling upward across the intended line of flight and outward from the player.

This it is which produces the beneficial spin of the ball in the pull.

At page 31, Mr. Travis says: "Every golfing stroke describes a circle, or a segment of a circle." This is an egregious error, for the golf stroke, quite naturally from the method of its production, bears a far greater likeness to an oval than to a circle. Anyone endeavouring to produce the golf stroke as a circle would certainly not get either a very graceful or a very accurate result. Mr. Travis falls into the astonishing error for a man who plays golf so well as he does, of thinking that it is possible to juggle with the golf ball by means of a golf club during impact. Speaking of bra.s.sy play, he says: "The lofted face, joined to the slight whipping up of the hands at the proper time--that is after the club meets the ball--will produce the desired result. Don't on any account seek to bring the hands up too quickly, otherwise a top will a.s.suredly result."

Mr. Travis here falls into the common error with regard to using the wrists during impact. It will be observed that he avoided it in dealing with the follow-through, but in this matter he makes the usual error. This turning up of the wrists which he refers to comes long after the ball has been hit, and is the natural turn up which follows any slice or any cut played to raise a ball suddenly.

At page 41 he makes the same error, for he says: "By striking the ball slightly towards the heel of the club, and immediately after bringing the arms somewhat in and finishing well out, a slight spin is imparted to the ball which causes it to rise more quickly." Here it is clear that he thinks that one may, after impact, do something with the hands to affect the manner in which the ball leaves the club. There could not possibly be any greater fallacy in golf than this. That this is a rooted fallacy of Mr. Travis I shall show later on when I deal with his remarks about bunker play.

Mr. Travis says at page 49: "Hitting with the heel of the club meeting the ground after the ball is struck will cause the ball to rise more, and, joined to the spin imparted by drawing in the arms and turning the wrists upward, will produce a very dead ball with hardly any run.

The science of the stroke consists in hitting very sharply, and turning the wrists upward immediately after the ball is struck."

Here we see the same delusion. The essence of this stroke is purely a matter of practical golf which I have not seen mentioned in any book or essay on golf. When one plays a ball off the heel of one's mashie, it stands to reason that one gets the ball on the very narrowest portion of the blade, and that therefore one hits the ball as far beneath the centre of the ball's ma.s.s as it is possible to do--so much so, in fact, that a very considerable portion of the ball overlaps the top of the face of the club. This puts a tremendous amount of undercut or stop on the ball. This is the practical golf of the shot which Mr.

Travis is attempting to describe, but his idea of putting cut on it by juggling with it during impact is fatal.

In speaking of approach puts, Mr. Travis gives some wonderful advice.

He says: "You should aim to hit the ball as if it were your intention to drive it into the ground.... This will cause the ball to jump, due to its contact with the ground immediately after being struck." This is practical golf of a nature which we may very well pa.s.s without discussion. I think that there are very few golfers who will desire to bounce the ball off the earth when they can play it off the face of the club.

This is Mr. Travis' advice as to how to cut the put. At page 65 he says: "Put cut on the ball by drawing the arms in a trifle just at the moment of striking." The drawing of the arms across the ball is not to be done at the moment of striking. It starts at the beginning of the swing and finishes at the end thereof. This is how cut is put on a put by practical golf. Mr. Travis advises for putting that people should select "a particular blade of gra.s.s" on the line to the hole. He then says: "Take your stance and square the face of the putter at perfect right angles to the blade of gra.s.s you have picked out." As a matter of practical golf I may remark that blades of gra.s.s have a remarkable family likeness.

Mr. Travis says: "Close observation of all missed puts discloses the interesting fact that by far the large majority go to the left of the hole, thereby indicating the presence of the pull, due to the arms being slightly drawn in just after striking." This is what is called a sliced put in England, but again as a matter of practical golf I may say that many of these puts are simply misdirected, such misdirection being due to the turning over of the wrists _too soon_ in the action of striking the ball. Unless one determinedly follows through well down the line the natural tendency is to hook one's put across the line, but this does not indicate any pull. It merely indicates, if of frequent occurrence, ignorance or carelessness.

Speaking of stymies, Mr. Travis says: "Occasionally you will be confronted with an absolutely dead stymie by having your opponent's ball just on the edge of the cup, your own being so close, say seven inches to a foot away, that it is impossible to negotiate the stroke by either curling around or lofting. In such extremity there is only one way of getting your ball in the hole unaccompanied by your opponent's, and that is by what is technically known in billiards as the follow shot." As a matter of practical golf the stymie stroke introduced by me is far more likely to prove successful in this case than the follow shot, for we are dealing with very tricky things when we try to play billiards with golf b.a.l.l.s covered with numerous excrescences or dimples. If the stymie described by Mr. Travis is played by my stroke, it should be got five times out of six, and I very much doubt if Mr. Travis or anybody else could get anything like this with the run through stroke.

Writing of "Playing out of hazards," Mr. Travis says: "Then bring it down again on the same line with all the force you can controllably command, consistent with accuracy. As it sinks into the sand its course may then, but not until then, be slightly directed towards the ball."

Coming from a practical golfer this is an absolutely amazing statement. The idea of attempting to deflect one's niblick from the line originally mapped out for it as it enters the sand is too amazing and too utterly unsound to merit any further comment or notice, except to say that it would be impossible to deflect the club head from the line of travel mapped out for it at this moment without materially reducing the force of the blow, and when one is. .h.i.tting into heavy sand, to get underneath the ball and in many cases to get it out of the bunker without even touching it with the club, every pound of force that can be put into the club is necessary.

There is another thing which Mr. Travis tells us that certainly is not practical golf, and it does not seem to me to be practical carpentry, but he says at page 126, speaking of the bra.s.sy: "The screws which hold the blade sometimes work loose. This trouble may easily be remedied by putting glue in the holes before inserting the screws."

One is never too old to learn, and I think that in any future efforts I may make at amateur carpentry, I shall glue my nails!

Mr. Travis makes a very remarkable statement at page 139, speaking of the guttie ball as opposed to the Haskell: "The latter, by reason of its greater comparative resiliency does not remain in contact with the club head quite so long, and therefore does not receive the full benefit of the greater velocity of the stroke in the same proportion as the less resilient guttie"; but surely the greater the resiliency of the ball the longer it will remain in contact with the club. It should be obvious that one of the reasons for the greater swerve in the sliced or pulled rubber-cored ball as compared with the guttie, is that on account of the longer period of impact the ball acquires a greater amount of spin.

Speaking of the waggle, Mr. Travis is delightfully indefinite. He says "With the club gripped pretty firmly with both hands in the manner already described, it is well to see that the whole machinery is in good working order by waggling the club a few times over the ball, allowing the wrists to turn freely, without, however, relaxing the grip. The waggle should be entirely free from any stiffness, which simply means that the wrists should be brought into active play."

This is certainly delightfully vague, and is not, I am afraid, of much use to anyone as a matter of practical golf. The waggle is unquestionably of importance in the game of golf, otherwise it is quite improbable that we should see it employed by so many of the famous players. The curious thing about this waggle is that it seems to be confined to games wherein one plays a stationary ball. The same operation is gone through at billiards with the cue, but is there known as cueing at the ball. With a very great number of players the waggle may be described as moral cowardice--an excuse for putting off the evil moment. Many players convert the waggle into a performance which is both tedious and stupid, and which instead of giving them a better chance of hitting the ball, has a very great chance of absolutely putting them off their stroke.

I do not know that I have ever seen the necessity for the waggle explained, nor have I seen the waggle of any of the famous players ill.u.s.trated. There can, however, be very little question that in the majority of cases the address and waggle is unnecessarily exaggerated and prolonged.

In _Modern Golf_ I have ill.u.s.trated George Duncan's waggle. So far as I am aware, this is the only time that such a thing has been done.

Duncan is probably the quickest player living, so that it will not be necessary for us to a.s.sume that every one will be satisfied with so little preliminary work as Duncan puts in before hitting the ball. His method of playing is to take his line to the hole as much as he can as he approaches the ball. He then marches straight up to it and takes his stance, at the same time swinging his club head out so that it is roughly on a level with his waist and pointing towards the hole, but being at the same time almost above the line of flight to the hole. He then brings his club back to the ball, and addresses it in the usual way, soling his club close behind the ball. Now he lifts the club practically straight up for six or nine inches and carries it forward of the ball in a gentle curve for about six inches. From here he carries the club head back along the plane of flight produced through the ball as far as it will go without turning his wrists over. The club then is swung easily and naturally back to the ball almost in the same manner as it would come to it in the drive, until it arrives close behind the ball, but about two inches from the turf, when it sinks to rest by dropping straight down behind the ball. It is now soled again as in the original address.

This sounds like a somewhat lengthy process, but as a matter of fact it is probably the shortest waggle used by any golf player who is in the front rank. In fact, so rapid is Duncan in his play, that very frequently spectators who are not accustomed to his methods, do not see him play the ball, as they allow for the more deliberate style generally followed by the other leading professionals. In Duncan we have a player who in my opinion is as good a golfer as anyone in the world. We see clearly that he wastes very little time in addressing his ball, either through the green or on the putting-green. On the other hand, we see some men of greater fame than Duncan whose deliberation is tedious in the extreme, although it must be admitted that in so far as regards the waggle in the drive, the great players do not overdo this nearly so much as do amateurs of an inferior cla.s.s.

I am not aware that anybody has yet explained the reason for the waggle. It seems that it is a natural movement, or in some cases a very unnatural movement, which players fall into in endeavouring to readjust their distance from the ball and their position with regard to the line of flight. Very many players who waggle, produce most remarkable flourishes with their club. The club is made to describe curves in the air which it could not possibly do in any other operation at golf than the waggle. The whole object of the waggle seems to be to allow the player to get his eye in, as it is commonly called, at the ball, to loosen his joints, and, which is a point that I have not seen previously made, in a measure to produce in antic.i.p.ation the motions of his wrists and club immediately before, at, and after impact with the ball.

If this view of the object of the waggle be accepted as correct, it is obvious that in nine cases of ten the attempted waggle is force hopelessly wasted--in fact, worse than wasted, for it has been occupied in describing weird geometrical figures in the air, figures which can have no possible reference whatever to the work which the club is expected to do. In Duncan's waggle it will be observed that firstly he swings his club head out down the line towards the hole, and secondly that he carries it back for a considerable distance from the ball in the plane of flight produced through the ball. It will be seen from this that to a great extent he produces in the waggle the same motions as his forearms and wrists go through immediately before, at, and after impact with the ball. On examining the photographs of Duncan's hands in the drive, we find that for the s.p.a.ce of nearly two feet before he reaches the ball, and probably for quite that distance after the ball has been struck and he has continued the follow-through, there is no turning over of the wrists--that during this s.p.a.ce of roughly three feet, the s.p.a.ce wherein James Braid says that the wrists _have it all their own way_, Duncan's wrists are practically quiescent, and that during the whole of this time the club is travelling at almost its maximum speed, but the arms and wrists are doing very little more to it than to withstand the centrifugal force developed in the earlier part of the swing and to keep themselves braced to withstand the shock of impact.

These are merely a few instances taken haphazard from a book called _Practical Golf_ by one who is, undoubtedly, in so far as regards his own play, a practical golfer. This does not, however, prevent him from furnishing another and a very striking example of the curious fact that nearly all good golfers teach the game in a manner entirely different from that in which they play it, and that their tuition, if followed out, must result in their followers learning to play in very bad form, and probably also learning much which has to be painfully unlearnt later on when they have discovered the truth.

AFTERWORD

It would be very easy for me now to begin to explain in the ordinary manner of golf books how the game is played, but to do so would be going outside the scope of this work, and interfering either with the proper functions of the professional, or the proper practice of the intelligent golfer.

I have, in this book, taken my readers through all those matters which are of the most vital importance to the game, and practically everything which is contained between the covers of this book may be better studied and digested by the golfer, be he a champion or a beginner, in his arm-chair than on the links. He who wishes to know golf to the core, must know what is in this book, all of which he can thoroughly understand without taking a club in his hands.

The whole fault of the false doctrine which has been so plentifully published about golf in the past, is that it has given the unfortunate people who have taken notice of it an incalculable number of things to think about. The truest and best tuition in golf is that which advances by a process of elimination and so proceeds that it gives the learner a minimum number of separate circ.u.mstances to think about during his game; in fact, if the tuition has been properly carried out the golfer will have astonishingly little to think of at the moment when he is making his stroke. This is the ideal condition of mind.

The remark which the puzzled golfer made to me that when he started on his downward swing he had so many things to think of that he was "all of a dither" expresses marvellously accurately the condition of mind of about ninety per cent of golfers who think they have studied golf.

The golfer who studies this book soundly and intelligently will learn what he will learn from no other book on golf, and that is what a vast number of things there are in connection with the golf stroke which it is expedient to forget at the moment one is making it.