In Modern Golf I have illustrated George Duncan's waggle. So far as I am aware, this is the only time that such a thing has been done. Duncan is probably the quickest player living, so that it will not be necessary for us to assume that every one will be satisfied with so little preliminary work as Duncan puts in before hitting the ball. His method of playing is to take his line to the hole as much as he can as he approaches the ball. He then marches straight up to it and takes his stance, at the same time swinging his club head out so that it is roughly on a level with his waist and pointing towards the hole, but being at the same time almost above the line of flight to the hole. He then brings his club back to the ball, and addresses it in the usual way, soling his club close behind the ball. Now he lifts the club practically straight up for six or nine inches and carries it forward of the ball in a gentle curve for about six inches. From here he carries the club head back along the plane of flight produced through the ball as far as it will go without turning his wrists over. The club then is swung easily and naturally back to the ball almost in the same manner as it would come to it in the drive, until it arrives close behind the ball, but about two inches from the turf, when it sinks to rest by dropping straight down behind the ball. It is now soled again as in the original address.
This sounds like a somewhat lengthy process, but as a matter of fact it is probably the shortest waggle used by any golf player who is in the front rank. In fact, so rapid is Duncan in his play, that very frequently spectators who are not accustomed to his methods, do not see him play the ball, as they allow for the more deliberate style generally followed by the other leading professionals. In Duncan we have a player who in my opinion is as good a golfer as anyone in the world. We see clearly that he wastes very little time in addressing his ball, either through the green or on the putting-green. On the other hand, we see some men of greater fame than Duncan whose deliberation is tedious in the extreme, although it must be admitted that in so far as regards the waggle in the drive, the great players do not overdo this nearly so much as do amateurs of an inferior class.
I am not aware that anybody has yet explained the reason for the waggle. It seems that it is a natural movement, or in some cases a very unnatural movement, which players fall into in endeavouring to readjust their distance from the ball and their position with regard to the line of flight. Very many players who waggle, produce most remarkable flourishes with their club. The club is made to describe curves in the air which it could not possibly do in any other operation at golf than the waggle. The whole object of the waggle seems to be to allow the player to get his eye in, as it is commonly called, at the ball, to loosen his joints, and, which is a point that I have not seen previously made, in a measure to produce in anticipation the motions of his wrists and club immediately before, at, and after impact with the ball.
If this view of the object of the waggle be accepted as correct, it is obvious that in nine cases of ten the attempted waggle is force hopelessly wasted—in fact, worse than wasted, for it has been occupied in describing weird geometrical figures in the air, figures which can have no possible reference whatever to the work which the club is expected to do. In Duncan's waggle it will be observed that firstly he swings his club head out down the line towards the hole, and secondly that he carries it back for a considerable distance from the ball in the plane of flight produced through the ball. It will be seen from this that to a great extent he produces in the waggle the same motions as his forearms and wrists go through immediately before, at, and after impact with the ball. On examining the photographs of Duncan's hands in the drive, we find that for the space of nearly two feet before he reaches the ball, and probably for quite that distance after the ball has been struck and he has continued the follow-through, there is no turning over of the wrists—that during this space of roughly three feet, the space wherein James Braid says that the wrists have it all their own way, Duncan's wrists are practically quiescent, and that during the whole of this time the club is travelling at almost its maximum speed, but the arms and wrists are doing very little more to it than to withstand the centrifugal force developed in the earlier part of the swing and to keep themselves braced to withstand the shock of impact.
These are merely a few instances taken haphazard from a book called Practical Golf by one who is, undoubtedly, in so far as regards his own play, a practical golfer. This does not, however, prevent him from furnishing another and a very striking example of the curious fact that nearly all good golfers teach the game in a manner entirely different from that in which they play it, and that their tuition, if followed out, must result in their followers learning to play in very bad form, and probably also learning much which has to be painfully unlearnt later on when they have discovered the truth.
AFTERWORD
It would be very easy for me now to begin to explain in the ordinary manner of golf books how the game is played, but to do so would be going outside the scope of this work, and interfering either with the proper functions of the professional, or the proper practice of the intelligent golfer.
I have, in this book, taken my readers through all those matters which are of the most vital importance to the game, and practically everything which is contained between the covers of this book may be better studied and digested by the golfer, be he a champion or a beginner, in his arm-chair than on the links. He who wishes to know golf to the core, must know what is in this book, all of which he can thoroughly understand without taking a club in his hands.