The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

I have referred elsewhere to Harry Vardon's remark about not attempting to regulate the flight of the ball in a cross wind, or indeed, for the matter of that, in any other wind by applying spin to it. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's experiment put this matter beyond a shadow of doubt, so that we may be absolutely certain that the idea of trying to slice against a wind to get a straight ball, or to pull into a wind to get an extra run, is for ninety-five per cent of players not practical golf. Sir Ralph found that with a fresh side wind from the left, all the balls, except the guttie, landed from eight to twelve yards to the right of the mark at a range of 130 yards. He states emphatically that in this case it was clearly shown that the more roughly marked balls consistently showed the greatest deviation from the correct line of flight. We have, however, gained a very strong argument in favour of the ball with the less pronounced marking.

Sir Ralph also discovered another thing which is of very great importance indeed to the practical golfer, but a thing which is not considered in the slightest degree by one golfer in ten thousand, and that is that the balls which were most untrue in regard to their centre of gravity, not only always dropped the farthest to the right, that is, were most affected by the cross wind, but that they also ran at a more acute angle in the same direction after contact with the ground. Thus we see that in 130 yards the most roughly-marked ball in a cross wind is deflected twelve yards. We see also that this ball was the one which was most incorrect as regards its centre of gravity. We therefore have a specimen of the worst ball which could be used for this purpose being carried twelve yards off its line, and we may reasonably take this to be the extreme of error for that distance.

It is easy to understand when we consider such an illustration as this what a tremendous handicap the golfer is suffering from when he uses the ball which allows the wind to get such a grip of it as the bramble-marked ball does, and moreover one with a centre of gravity which is so bad that it assists the work of the wind in carrying the ball away as it does, and not only assists the wind to this extent, but even carries its vices to the extent of still further fighting against the player by exaggerating its error when it lands by running away from the line.

These are all bad enough, but we must remember that there is also to be considered the error which is unquestionably a matter to be reckoned with, which inevitably takes place when the ball marked by excrescences is struck by a club.

I had sent Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey the ball which I had had made for experimental purposes with very slight marking, and he was good enough to experiment with this for me. He says of it: "This ball was quite smooth, as smooth indeed as a billiard ball, the idea being that having no markings on its outside it would not present so frictional a surface to the air in its flight, as a ball with markings, and that being without this it would also be very accurate from the putter. I tried this smooth ball from the engine, and it 'ducked' every time in an extraordinary manner, its length of carry being seldom more than eighty yards."

Sir Ralph is most accurate, generally speaking, but he is in error by stating that this ball is as smooth as a billiard ball. The ball which I sent Sir Ralph was called by me "The Ruff," merely as a distinctive name, for it was the nearest approach to a perfectly smooth ball that I could make. It is evident from Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's description of it that it is, as compared with the golf balls now in use, very smooth, but it is pitted all over with remarkably small indentations so that it appears to be chased, but, as I explained, the paint to a certain extent covered up the interstices so as to prevent the ball giving me the test which I expected to get from it. It is, however, not accurate to say that this ball is perfectly smooth.

It is obvious that from this I was trying to work to the mean which I felt perfectly certain existed between the old golf ball, whose erratic flight was well known, and the modern golf ball with its exaggerated marking.

Sir Ralph thought that the form of this ball might not, for some unknown reason, suit a projectile engine. He continues:

... and as I could not drive it further than about eighty yards with a golf club, I engaged the well-known professional, Edward Ray, to play a round of the green with this ball at Ganton. As Ray is an exceptionally long and accurate player with driver and cleek I felt the ball would have a fair chance of going, if it could go. From the first tee the ball did not carry a hundred yards, though, to all appearances, struck clean and hard. I thought that for once in a way Ray had missed his drive, but as the same thing occurred from every tee and through the green for the next six holes, there was no disputing that a smooth ball was quite useless for golf.

I then proceeded to nick the ball slightly with the point of a knife, spacing the small raised nicks about one-third of an inch apart, the ball being still a very smooth one in comparison to any of the usual kinds. After this slight alteration the ball flew splendidly, whether off wood or iron clubs, neither too high nor too low, but quite straight, and with the very slight rise towards the end of its carry that is the essence of perfect flight in a golf ball, some of the carries when measured from the tee being well over two hundred yards.

Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey continues that when he returned home he shot this ball from the small engine, and it then several times out-distanced the best records made by any of the balls previously tested. After this he chipped up many more little raised nicks on the same smooth ball as a further experiment, but he then found that this not only reduced its length of flight by several yards, but also caused it to soar too much upwards when projected against a head wind as is the case with the ordinary rough-marked golf ball.