The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

Mr. Travis makes a terrible error in Practical Golf when he says, speaking of the downward swing: "Let him resolve to centralise the power of the stroke immediately the ball is reached."

This is an idea fatal to good golf. As I have frequently pointed out, and as James Braid in How to Play Golf also emphasises, the meeting between the ball and the club should be merely an incident. Any attempt to try to do anything during impact in the drive is futile.

Mr. Travis at page 24 makes the same error with regard to the speed of the club after the ball has been hit. He says: "A great deal more depends upon the maintenance of speed after the ball is struck than is commonly supposed. This part of the stroke is known as the follow-through, and plays a very important part in the length of the drive as in straightness." Mr. Travis evidently does not perfectly realise that the follow-through is of no importance whatever except as the natural result of the correctly played first part of the stroke, and the maintenance of speed after the ball has been struck is of no importance provided that the first portion of the stroke has been properly executed and at a sufficient pace. The only importance of the maintenance of speed in any way whatever is that this indicates that the first half has been correctly performed.

Mr. Travis seems to be very hazy as to the causes of slicing and pulling. A ball being hit slightly to the right of its centre would not necessarily produce a slice, although it would probably deflect it from its intended line of flight. A slice is produced by the amount of rotation which is imparted to the ball by the glancing blow. He says: "With a pulled ball it is just the opposite—the ball is hit to the left of its centre, that is, nearer the player, producing a spin from right to left." This is not in any way necessary. The ball may be hit absolutely at the point farthest from the hole, and with the club at a perfect right angle to the intended line of flight, but the point which Mr. Travis does not mention is that the club is travelling upward across the intended line of flight and outward from the player. This it is which produces the beneficial spin of the ball in the pull.

At page 31, Mr. Travis says: "Every golfing stroke describes a circle, or a segment of a circle." This is an egregious error, for the golf stroke, quite naturally from the method of its production, bears a far greater likeness to an oval than to a circle. Anyone endeavouring to produce the golf stroke as a circle would certainly not get either a very graceful or a very accurate result. Mr. Travis falls into the astonishing error for a man who plays golf so well as he does, of thinking that it is possible to juggle with the golf ball by means of a golf club during impact. Speaking of brassy play, he says: "The lofted face, joined to the slight whipping up of the hands at the proper time—that is after the club meets the ball—will produce the desired result. Don't on any account seek to bring the hands up too quickly, otherwise a top will assuredly result."

Mr. Travis here falls into the common error with regard to using the wrists during impact. It will be observed that he avoided it in dealing with the follow-through, but in this matter he makes the usual error. This turning up of the wrists which he refers to comes long after the ball has been hit, and is the natural turn up which follows any slice or any cut played to raise a ball suddenly.

At page 41 he makes the same error, for he says: "By striking the ball slightly towards the heel of the club, and immediately after bringing the arms somewhat in and finishing well out, a slight spin is imparted to the ball which causes it to rise more quickly." Here it is clear that he thinks that one may, after impact, do something with the hands to affect the manner in which the ball leaves the club. There could not possibly be any greater fallacy in golf than this. That this is a rooted fallacy of Mr. Travis I shall show later on when I deal with his remarks about bunker play.

Mr. Travis says at page 49: "Hitting with the heel of the club meeting the ground after the ball is struck will cause the ball to rise more, and, joined to the spin imparted by drawing in the arms and turning the wrists upward, will produce a very dead ball with hardly any run. The science of the stroke consists in hitting very sharply, and turning the wrists upward immediately after the ball is struck."

Here we see the same delusion. The essence of this stroke is purely a matter of practical golf which I have not seen mentioned in any book or essay on golf. When one plays a ball off the heel of one's mashie, it stands to reason that one gets the ball on the very narrowest portion of the blade, and that therefore one hits the ball as far beneath the centre of the ball's mass as it is possible to do—so much so, in fact, that a very considerable portion of the ball overlaps the top of the face of the club. This puts a tremendous amount of undercut or stop on the ball. This is the practical golf of the shot which Mr. Travis is attempting to describe, but his idea of putting cut on it by juggling with it during impact is fatal.

In speaking of approach puts, Mr. Travis gives some wonderful advice. He says: "You should aim to hit the ball as if it were your intention to drive it into the ground.... This will cause the ball to jump, due to its contact with the ground immediately after being struck." This is practical golf of a nature which we may very well pass without discussion. I think that there are very few golfers who will desire to bounce the ball off the earth when they can play it off the face of the club.