VIII
There are many other incontrovertible and very interesting conclusions arrived at as the result of the reckoning of this distinguished scientist which one would like to discuss if there were room for it. It is enough to say at the finish that while these reflections will serve to give the golfer a more intelligent view of the scientific aspect of the game and its mysteries, and very likely even tend to a change in his policy in some departments, he will not be led towards any disbelief in the standard methods of good driving or to any deliberate seeking or regulation of under-spin, the fact being that more than a century of play and groping about in unscientific darkness brought the player to the discovery of the way in which the longest ball could be obtained, i.e. to the way in which translatory force and rotation were blended to the best effect. The stance and the swing, when properly performed with a proper driver, bring about that blend, though generally the player has been blissfully unconscious of the part they have played in conveying rotation to the ball. A pregnant paragraph by the scientist may be quoted at the end: “The pace which the player can give the clubhead 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. It is mainly in apparently trivial matters like these, which are placidly spoken of by the mass of golfers under the general title of knack, that lie the very great differences in drives effected under precisely similar external conditions by players equal in strength, agility, and (except to an extremely well-trained and critical eye) even in style.”
I should explain that all these things were told by Professor Tait, not in simple language to an assembly of golfers, but in complicated terms to a learned body of scientists, and I have thus endeavoured to explain his meaning in a manner that all can understand, and in some cases—as in that of the question of the proper centering of the rubber-cored ball to carry it forward to its application to the new conditions of play that have been introduced since his life and studies came to an end.
IX
What is the longest possible drive by our best driver under the best conditions? That is a question which it is impossible to answer, simply because the best conditions cannot be defined. In practical golf they are an impossible ideal, and one never knows how far in certain existing circumstances that ideal is approached. This brings us to see the futility of comparing one drive with another, or even of regarding any particular drive as the best on record, in the sense that it was the best that had ever been accomplished, just because it was the longest that had been measured. The very slightest difference in the conditions, or in the circumstances of the run of the ball, may cause one drive to be what some people would call a record, and another, equally good in execution and strength, to be comparatively poor. For example, think of what enormous importance is the nature of the place on which the ball gets its first pitch. Let it pitch against an incline ever so slight, or against a knob in the ground no bigger than a pigeon’s egg, and the sting of the shot is plucked. As in the case of so many other arguments, this one as to the overwhelming influence of conditions in long driving, and record driving, is best set forth by the reductio ad absurdum, and it is sufficient to point out that if a child tapped a ball off a tee on to a tolerably steep and smooth incline, the ball would run to the edge of the world unless stopped by a change in the conditions.
It is more to the point—but not much more—to consider how far a ball might be driven under conditions which might be described an nearly ideal, but strictly fair in the sense that the force of gravity by means of an incline, or wind, should not assist in the propulsion of the ball, while on the other hand neither wind nor slope should be adverse to it. To create such nearly ideal conditions, under which we would solve this question as to the longest possible drive, we would need to enclose a long shed or gallery, down which the ball was to travel, so that it should be entirely protected from wind influence, and then we should have to lay a special fairway of some smooth, hard substance that would afford the least imaginable resistance and friction to the ball when running. Asphalte would be good for this purpose, but polished marble or granite would be better, and if some millionaire enthusiast desired to solve this longest-possible-drive question these are the conditions that I would recommend to him. Now, then, how long would that gallery need to be? How far could that ball be driven? In the open, on perfectly level and on smooth slippery turf, which after wind and warmth is at its fastest, such as one gets often at St. Andrews, a drive that approached 320 yards would at the same time be approaching very near record for fair conditions. We have this to work on. How many yards should we have to put on for the perfect pitch and the perfectly level, hard, smooth, and frictionless floor in our driving gallery? When you come to think it over in this way, it is rather a pretty problem. Of course, in the absence of the millionaire and the gallery, there is no satisfactory answer, though Professor Tait would have made a close estimate possibly. But put the question to the next party of golfers among whom you happen to be included, and see what widely varying answers you will get. In the meantime one may suggest 500 yards.