The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

This, it seems to me, is a very bad presentment of the case. Although we admit that the impact is merely an incident in the travel of the club head, it is the most important incident, and it is on that incident that the mind should be concentrated, so that the idea of cumbering one's mind with any thought of the follow-through is very bad golf. The only portion of the stroke which should be on the player's mind at all is that which leads up to impact, for it is obvious that if that has been correctly performed, one need not trouble much about the follow-through, as that will come quite naturally. Also we will observe that Braid says here "control being exercised over each." This, of course, includes the follow-through over which Braid now speaks of exercising control, but it will be fresh in our minds that in describing the moment of impact, he says "Crack! everything is let go," and that really is what should happen after impact has taken place. There should be no thought whatever of the follow-through. That should produce itself, if one may so express it, and the player who encumbers his mind by any thought whatever as to how his club is going to end is simply adding another anxiety to his game.

PLATE XIII.

J. SHERLOCK
This plate shows Sherlock's stance and address in his favourite iron-shot. He addresses the ball so that it is nearly opposite his right heel.

Braid explained most graphically how the follow-through should be allowed to take care of itself, so that I cannot understand why he should now endeavour to split his pupils' mental idea of the golf stroke into halves with the golf ball in between. This is surely a bad conception of the stroke, and one which is likely to lead the pupil into grave error, for it shifts his mind forward on to the finish of the stroke, whereas it has no business to be anywhere else but on the ball.

Before concluding this chapter I must refer to what Braid has to say with regard to a topped stroke. At page 238 he says:

A final thing to remember in connection with this question of the rotation of the ball is, that when the ball is what we call topped, the stroke is applied in such a way that a motion exactly the reverse of under-spin is applied to it, that is to say, the front part of the ball is made to move in a downward direction. On the principle already explained, there is then an extra air-pressure upon that ball from the top, pressing it down, so that even if the ball that is topped is somehow got up into the air from the tee, as happens, it cannot stay there long, but comes down very suddenly—"ducks," as it is called. However, a ball that ducks for this reason nevertheless gets some benefit from this over-spin when it does come down, for the spin acts in just the same way as "top" does in the case of a billiard stroke, that is to say, it makes the ball run more. If there were no rough grass and no bunkers between the tee and the hole this over-spin might be an exceedingly useful thing, and the principles upon which the game of golf is played might be entirely different from what they are; but as there is rough in front of the tee, and generally a bunker at no great distance from it, topping and over-spin are more frequently fatal than not, the ball coming to grief either in the rough or the bunker.

This quotation makes it quite evident, I think, that James Braid is not very well acquainted with the principles which govern the flight and run of the golf ball. If this were his "knowledge" which we are considering, I should be more loath to deal with it so plainly as I am doing, but as he expressly states that he is indebted to another for much of his "knowledge" on this subject I have no hesitation whatever in criticising it and showing that it is absolutely impracticable from a golfing point of view.

It is not too much to say that top-spin has absolutely no place in golf, for it is there utterly useless, and would be so were golf links like billiard tables, for no ball with top on it can travel any appreciable distance through the air, and to speak of a ball being driven with top is simply to show one's utter ignorance of the game, for even if there were no rough grass and no bunkers between the tee and the hole, this over-spin could never be "an exceedingly useful thing," nor could it ever, by the greatest stretch of one's imagination, alter the principles upon which the game of golf is played, for no stroke in golf could ever supplant the drive with back-spin.