CHAPTER IV

THE FALLACIES OF GOLF

The fallacies of golf, as it has been written, are so numerous and so grave that it would be impossible to deal with them fully in a chapter, so I must here content myself with dealing generally with them, and specifically with a few of the minor mistakes which are so assiduously circulated by authors of works on golf. I shall take them as they come, in their natural order. We shall thus have to deal with them as follows: slow back, the distribution of weight, the sweep, the power of the left hand and arm, the gradually increasing pace of the sweep, the action of the wrists, and the follow-through.

We have then to consider, in the first place, the oft-repeated and much-abused instruction to go "slow back." The rhythm of many a swing is utterly spoilt by this advice, for the simple reason that, generally speaking, it is tremendously overdone. Anyone who has ever seen George Duncan's swing could surely be excused for thinking that slow back must be a delusion. It is not, however, given to everybody to be able to swing with the rapidity and accuracy which characterise Duncan's wonderful drive. In fact, the most that can be said in favour of going slowly back is that all that is necessary in the way of slowness is that the player shall not take his club up to the top of his swing at such a rate that in his recovery at the top of the swing he will have any unnecessary force to overcome before he begins his downward stroke.

It stands to reason that there must be at the top of the swing a moment wherein the club is absolutely stationary. The whole object of slow back is to ensure that at this moment, which is undoubtedly a critical portion of the swing, there shall be no undue conflict of the force which brought the club head up to the top of the swing and that force which the golfer then exerts to start the club on its downward journey. When this has been said, practically all that need be said about slow back has been said.

It is almost a certainty that slow back, as one of what Vardon calls the parrot cries of the links, has done more to unsettle the drives of those who follow it, and the tempers of those who follow them, than any other of the blindly followed fetiches of golf. Let it be understood then, once and for all, that undue slowness is almost as great a vice as undue quickness. What the player must, in every case, strive after is the happy medium. It is an absolute impossibility to preserve the rhythm of a swing that goes up with the painful slowness and studied deliberation which we so frequently see as the precursor of a tremendous foozle.

Incorporated in this overdone injunction, "slow back," we have the idea of swinging the club away from the ball. In various places we are told plainly that the club is not to be lifted away from the ball, but that it must be swung back, whereas, of course, there can be no doubt whatever that the club is lifted back, and is started on its journey by the wrists.

It is obvious that no swing can be started from the lowest point in an arc. If, for example, we take the pendulum of a clock which is hanging motionless, it will be impossible to swing it one way or the other without lifting it. Equally obvious is it that the golf club must be lifted away from the ball.

"As you go up, so you come down" is another revered fallacy. We are clearly, and probably rightly, instructed, when driving, to take the club away from the ball in the line to the hole produced through the ball.

We do this going back comparatively slowly until we are compelled to leave the line, or rather the plane, of the ball's flight. So at the moment of making our first divergence from the straight swing back, we import into our arc a sudden and pronounced curve. On the return journey, the downward swing, we travel all the way at express speed. He would indeed be credulous and unanalytical who could believe that the arc of the downward swing coincides with that of the upward, when the upward swing is carried out according to the generally published theory, which, of course, it generally is not. The theory is only good in so far as it goes to inculcate the idea of remaining in the line to the hole both before and after impact as long as possible.

The next fallacy which we have to deal with is the matter of the distribution of weight in the drive. Practically every book that has been published misinforms the golfer on this point, which is a matter of fundamental importance in the game; in fact, it is of such great importance that I shall not deal with it fully here, but shall reserve it for my next chapter wherein I shall give the views of the leading exponents of the game on this all-important subject, and shall then show wherein I differ from them.

Let us consider that we have now arrived at the top of the swing. Every author of a golf book insists upon the fact that the drive at golf is a sweep and not a hit. James Braid, in chapter viii. of _How to Play Golf_, writing of "The Downward Swing," says:

The chief thing to bear in mind is that there must be, in the case of play with the driver and the brassie, no attempt to _hit_ the ball, which must be simply swept from the tee and carried forward in the even and rapid swing of the club. The drive in golf differs from almost every other stroke in every game in which the propulsion of a ball is the object. In the ordinary sense of the word, implying a sudden and sharp impact, it is not a "hit" when it is properly done.

The impact in the golf drive has been measured by one of our most eminent physicists to occupy one ten-thousandth of a second. I think we may take this as "implying a sudden and sharp impact." Braid goes on to say, "when the ball is so 'hit' and the club stops very soon afterwards, the result is that very little length, comparatively, will be obtained, and that, moreover, there will be a very small amount of control over the direction of the ball."

This might be right, but it seems almost unnecessary to point out that when a ball has been struck at the amazing speed which such a brief contact indicates, there is extremely little probability that the club will stop "very soon afterwards"--in fact, it would be almost a matter of impossibility to induce a club which had been used for delivering a blow at the rate which this brief time indicates, to stop very shortly afterwards. The head of a golf club at the moment of impact with the golf ball is travelling so rapidly that a camera timed to take photographs at the rate of one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second's exposure, gets for the club head and shaft merely a vague swish of light, while the ball itself, if it is caught at all, appears merely to be a section of a sperm candle, so rapid is its motion. I am speaking now of a photograph taken at this extremely rapid rate when the photographer is facing the golfer who is making the stroke, but so rapid is the departure of the ball from the club that even when the photographer is standing in a straight line directly behind the player, the ball still presents the appearance of a white bar.

It should then be sufficiently obvious to anyone that so far as regards the stroke "implying a sudden and sharp impact," the golf stroke, probably of all strokes played in athletics, is, at the moment of impact, incomparably the most rapid. It has, therefore, always seemed to me a matter for wonder to read that this stroke is a sweep and not a hit.

Braid here says one thing which is of outstanding importance as exploding another well-known fallacy. It is as follows:

While it is, of course, in the highest degree necessary that the ball should be taken in exactly the right place on the club and in the right manner, this will have to be done by the proper regulation of all the other parts of the swing, and any effort to direct the club on to it in a particular manner just as the ball is being reached, cannot be attended by success.

This is so important that I must pause here to emphasise it, because we are frequently told, and even Braid himself, as I shall show later on, has made the same mistake, that certain things are done during impact, by the intention of the player during that brief period, in order to influence the flight of the ball. There can be no greater fallacy in golf than this. No human being is capable of thinking of anything which he can do in this minute fraction of time, nor even if he could think of what he wished to do, would it be possible for his muscles to respond to the command issued by his mind.

To emphasise this, I must quote from the same book and the same page again. Braid says:

If the ball is taken by the toe or heel of the club, or is topped, or if the club gets too much under it, the remedy for these faults is not to be found in a more deliberate directing of the club on to the ball just as the two are about to come into contact, but in the better and more exact regulation of the swing the whole way through up to this point.

That is the important part in connection with this statement of Braid's. Many a person ruins a stroke, as, for instance, in endeavouring to turn over the face of the putter during the moment of impact, through following, in complete ignorance, the teaching of those who should know better, and they then blame themselves for their want of timing in trying to execute an impossibility, whereas the remedy is, as Braid says, not in trying to do anything during the moment of impact "but in the better and more exact regulation of the swing the whole way through up to this point."

Braid is here speaking of the drive, but what applies to the drive applies to every stroke in the game, with practically equal force. He continues:

The object of these remarks is merely to emphasise again, in the best place, that the despatching of the ball from the tee by the driver, in the downward swing, is merely an incident of the whole business.

"Merely an incident of the whole business." It is impossible to emphasise this point too much. The speed of the drive at golf is so great that the path of the club's head has been predetermined long before it reaches the ball, so that, as I have frequently pointed out in the same words which Braid uses in this book, the contact between the head of the club and the ball may be looked upon as merely an incident in the travel of the club in that arc which it describes.

The outstanding truth of this statement will be more apparent when we come to deal with the master strokes of the game. Braid's remarks here are so interesting that I must quote him again:

The player, in making the down movement, must not be so particular to see while doing it that he hits the ball properly, as that he makes the swing properly and finishes it well, for--and this signifies the truth of what I have been saying--the success of the drive is not only made by what has gone before, but it is also due largely to the course taken by the club after the ball has been hit.

In this paragraph Braid is making a fallacious statement. It will be quite obvious to a very mean understanding that nothing which the club does after it has hit the ball and sent it on its way, can have any possible effect upon the ball, and, therefore, that the success of the drive cannot possibly in any way be "due largely to the course taken by the club after the ball has been hit." The success of the stroke must, of course, be due entirely to the course taken by the club head prior to and at the moment of impact. What Braid would mean to express, no doubt, is that if the stroke has been perfectly played, it is practically a certainty that what takes place after the ball has gone, will be executed in good form.

I have frequently seen misguided players practising their follow-through without swinging properly, whereas it is, of course, obvious that a follow-through is of no earthly importance whatever except as the natural result of a well-played stroke; and provided that the first half of the stroke was properly produced, it is as certain as anything can be that the second half will be almost equally good, but it is certain that nothing which the club does after contact with the ball has ceased can possibly influence the flight or run of the ball. It is, for instance, obvious that if a man has played a good straight drive clean down the middle of the fair-way, his follow-through cannot be the follow-through of a slice, because the pace at which he struck that ball must make his club head go out down the line after the ball. Similarly, if a man has played a sliced stroke, it stands to reason that after the ball had left his club, his club head could not, by any possible stretch of imagination, follow down a straight line to the hole.

These things are so obvious to anyone who is acquainted with the simplest principles of mechanics that it is strange to see them stated in the fallacious manner in which Braid puts them forth. Braid here says:

The initiative in bringing down the club is taken by the left wrist, and the club is then brought forward rapidly and with an even acceleration of pace until the club head is about a couple of feet from the ball.

Now here we see that Braid subscribes to the idea of "the even acceleration of pace," but it will be remembered that in a previous