The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

Probably this is meant to be satirical, but it is merely a libel on the great body of golfers. It is not the "human golfing soul" which "invents for itself multiform and manifold ifs and ans for not achieving it." He who invents these ifs and ans is the author of the ordinary golf book on golf, written ostensibly by some great player, and the "ifs and ans" most assuredly, if they do not "move the laughter of the gods," are sufficient to provoke the derision and contempt of the golfer who feels that nobody has a right to publish statements about a game which must act in a detrimental manner upon those who attempt to follow them.

It is not the "human golfing soul" or the human golfing body which is so prone to error. Those who make the errors are those who essay to teach, and the time has now come for them to vindicate themselves or to stand back, to stand out of the way of the spread of truth; for one may be able to fool all the golfers some of the time and some of the golfers all the time, but it is a sheer impossibility to fool all the golfers all the time; and if the teaching which has obtained credence in the past were to be left unassailed, the result would be untold misery and discomfort to millions of golfers.

It is for this reason that I am dealing in an early chapter with the alleged mystery of golf, for I want to make it particularly clear that in the vast majority of cases those who attempt to explain the mystery of golf proceed very much on the lines of the octopus and obscure themselves behind clouds of inky fluid which are generally as shapeless in their form and meaning as the matter given off by the uncanny sea-dweller. In fact, the ordinary attempt to explain the mystery of golf generally resolves itself into the writer setting up his own Aunt Sally, and even then exposing how painfully bad his aim is.

Nearly every one who writes about golf claims for it that above all games it is the truest test of character, and in a degree unknown in any other game reveals the nature of the man who is playing it, and they proceed on this assumption to weave some of the most remarkable romances in connection with the simple and fundamental principles of the game. In the book under notice we are asked

... and yet why, why does a badly-played game so upset a sane and rational man? You may lose at bridge, you may be defeated in chess, you may recall lost chances in football or polo; you may remember stupid things you did in tennis or squash racquets; you may regret undue haste in trying to secure an extra run or runs in cricket, but the mental depression caused by these is temporary and evanescent. Why do foozles in golf affect the whole man? Humph! It is no use blinking matters—say what the scoffers may—to foozle at golf, to take your eye off your ball, cuts down to the very deeps of the human soul. It does; there is no controverting that.... Perhaps this is why golf is worth writing about.

It certainly is mysterious that any "sane and rational man" can write such stuff about golf. This is a fair sample of the kind of thing one gets from those who attempt to treat of golf from the physiological or psychological standpoint. I can hardly say too often that there is no such thing as the mystery of golf, any more than there is, in reality, such a thing as the soul of golf, but the mystery of golf is a meaningless and misleading term. The soul of golf means, in effect, the heart of golf—a true and loving understanding of the very core of the game.

It would be bad enough if the persons essaying to explain the alleged mystery of golf knew the game thoroughly themselves, but, generally speaking, they do not—in the case under consideration, the writer himself admits that he is "a duffer." Now taking him at his own valuation, it does indeed seem strange that one whose knowledge of the game is admittedly insufficient, should attempt to explain to players the super-refinements of a game at which he himself is admittedly incompetent. It may seem somewhat cruel to press this point, but in a matter such as this we have to consider the greatest good of the greatest number, and we must not allow false sentiment to weigh with us in dealing with the work of anyone who publishes matter which may prejudicially affect the game of an immense body of people.

The attempts to deal with the psychology and the physiology of golf are a mass of confused thought and illogical reasoning, but it is when the author proceeds to deal in any way with the practical side of golf that he shows clearly that his estimate of himself, at least in so far as regards his knowledge of the game, is not inaccurate. Let us take, for instance, the following passage. He says that William Park, Junior, has informed us that

... pressing, really, is putting in the power at the right time. You can hit as hard as you like if you hit accurately and at the right time, but the man who presses is the man who puts in the power too soon. He is in too great a hurry. He begins to hit before the club head has come anywhere near the ball.

This quotation, I may say, is not from William Park's book, but is taken from the volume I am quoting, and the last sentence—"He begins to hit before the club head has come anywhere near the ball"—shows clearly that the author has no idea whatever of even a mechanical analysis of the golf stroke, for it is impossible to begin the hit too soon. The main portion of the power of the drive in golf is developed (as indeed anyone with very little consideration might know) near the beginning of the downward swing. This is so simple, so natural, so apparent to any one who knows the game of golf that I feel it is almost unnecessary to support the statement; but there are so many people who follow the game of golf, and are willing to accept as gospel any remarkable statement with regard to the game, that I may as well refer doubters to James Braid's book on Advanced Golf wherein he shows clearly that anyone desiring to produce a proper drive at golf must be hard at it from the very beginning of the stroke. The author continues: