The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

This is Mr. Travis' advice as to how to cut the put. At page 65 he says: "Put cut on the ball by drawing the arms in a trifle just at the moment of striking." The drawing of the arms across the ball is not to be done at the moment of striking. It starts at the beginning of the swing and finishes at the end thereof. This is how cut is put on a put by practical golf. Mr. Travis advises for putting that people should select "a particular blade of grass" on the line to the hole. He then says: "Take your stance and square the face of the putter at perfect right angles to the blade of grass you have picked out." As a matter of practical golf I may remark that blades of grass have a remarkable family likeness.

Mr. Travis says: "Close observation of all missed puts discloses the interesting fact that by far the large majority go to the left of the hole, thereby indicating the presence of the pull, due to the arms being slightly drawn in just after striking." This is what is called a sliced put in England, but again as a matter of practical golf I may say that many of these puts are simply misdirected, such misdirection being due to the turning over of the wrists too soon in the action of striking the ball. Unless one determinedly follows through well down the line the natural tendency is to hook one's put across the line, but this does not indicate any pull. It merely indicates, if of frequent occurrence, ignorance or carelessness.

Speaking of stymies, Mr. Travis says: "Occasionally you will be confronted with an absolutely dead stymie by having your opponent's ball just on the edge of the cup, your own being so close, say seven inches to a foot away, that it is impossible to negotiate the stroke by either curling around or lofting. In such extremity there is only one way of getting your ball in the hole unaccompanied by your opponent's, and that is by what is technically known in billiards as the follow shot." As a matter of practical golf the stymie stroke introduced by me is far more likely to prove successful in this case than the follow shot, for we are dealing with very tricky things when we try to play billiards with golf balls covered with numerous excrescences or dimples. If the stymie described by Mr. Travis is played by my stroke, it should be got five times out of six, and I very much doubt if Mr. Travis or anybody else could get anything like this with the run through stroke.

Writing of "Playing out of hazards," Mr. Travis says: "Then bring it down again on the same line with all the force you can controllably command, consistent with accuracy. As it sinks into the sand its course may then, but not until then, be slightly directed towards the ball."

Coming from a practical golfer this is an absolutely amazing statement. The idea of attempting to deflect one's niblick from the line originally mapped out for it as it enters the sand is too amazing and too utterly unsound to merit any further comment or notice, except to say that it would be impossible to deflect the club head from the line of travel mapped out for it at this moment without materially reducing the force of the blow, and when one is hitting into heavy sand, to get underneath the ball and in many cases to get it out of the bunker without even touching it with the club, every pound of force that can be put into the club is necessary.

There is another thing which Mr. Travis tells us that certainly is not practical golf, and it does not seem to me to be practical carpentry, but he says at page 126, speaking of the brassy: "The screws which hold the blade sometimes work loose. This trouble may easily be remedied by putting glue in the holes before inserting the screws." One is never too old to learn, and I think that in any future efforts I may make at amateur carpentry, I shall glue my nails!

Mr. Travis makes a very remarkable statement at page 139, speaking of the guttie ball as opposed to the Haskell: "The latter, by reason of its greater comparative resiliency does not remain in contact with the club head quite so long, and therefore does not receive the full benefit of the greater velocity of the stroke in the same proportion as the less resilient guttie"; but surely the greater the resiliency of the ball the longer it will remain in contact with the club. It should be obvious that one of the reasons for the greater swerve in the sliced or pulled rubber-cored ball as compared with the guttie, is that on account of the longer period of impact the ball acquires a greater amount of spin.

Speaking of the waggle, Mr. Travis is delightfully indefinite. He says "With the club gripped pretty firmly with both hands in the manner already described, it is well to see that the whole machinery is in good working order by waggling the club a few times over the ball, allowing the wrists to turn freely, without, however, relaxing the grip. The waggle should be entirely free from any stiffness, which simply means that the wrists should be brought into active play."

This is certainly delightfully vague, and is not, I am afraid, of much use to anyone as a matter of practical golf. The waggle is unquestionably of importance in the game of golf, otherwise it is quite improbable that we should see it employed by so many of the famous players. The curious thing about this waggle is that it seems to be confined to games wherein one plays a stationary ball. The same operation is gone through at billiards with the cue, but is there known as cueing at the ball. With a very great number of players the waggle may be described as moral cowardice—an excuse for putting off the evil moment. Many players convert the waggle into a performance which is both tedious and stupid, and which instead of giving them a better chance of hitting the ball, has a very great chance of absolutely putting them off their stroke.

I do not know that I have ever seen the necessity for the waggle explained, nor have I seen the waggle of any of the famous players illustrated. There can, however, be very little question that in the majority of cases the address and waggle is unnecessarily exaggerated and prolonged.