The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

Everybody has heard the phrase "a vacant stare." Well, there actually is such a thing as a vacant stare. When one's thoughts are absorbed in something other than the object looked at, the eyes lose their convergence—that is to say, instead of the two eyeballs being turned inwards and focussed on the thing, they look straight outwards into space, with the result, of course, that the thing looked at is seen indistinctly. I am convinced that this happens to many a grown-up golfer. He thinks he is looking at his ball, but as a matter of fact he is thinking about looking at his ball (a very different affair), or about how he is going to hit it, or any one of a hundred other things; and, his mind being taken off that supreme duty of doing nothing but look, the muscles of the eye are relaxed, the eyeballs resume their natural position and stare vacantly into space.

It will probably not be news to most of us that there is such a thing as "a vacant stare." We probably remember many occasions when, "lost in thought," our eyes have lost their convergence, but it will indeed be news to most of us that it is the supreme duty of the eyes to do nothing but look.

We are now face to face with this fact according to this analysis. The author quotes the great psychologist, Höffding, as saying, "We must will to see, in order to see aright." We now, by a natural and logical process of reasoning, have the golfer settled at his ball, his address duly taken, his eye fixed on the ball, and he is in the act of "willing" to see as hard as he can. So far so good. Let us presume that he is seeing. Now we are told that to think when he ought to play is the madness of mania. We must presume that it will now be impossible to proceed with his stroke unless he "wills" to move. How will he "will to move" without thinking? If anybody can explain to me how a golfer can play a stroke without willing to hit as well as to look, I shall indeed consider that he has explained at least one mystery in golf.

We are told that

... if during that minute interval of time which elapses between the commencement of the upward swing of the club and its impact with the ball, the golfer allows any one single sensation, or idea to divert his attention—consciously or unconsciously—from the little round image on his retina, he does not properly "perceive" that ball; and of course, by consequence, does not properly hit it.

Notwithstanding this statement, we see that the author tries to implant in the mind of the golfer the idea that during his downward stroke arms and hands are receiving innumerable orders "at intervals probably of tens of thousandths of a second," and that at the moment of impact with the ball the mind has to become suddenly concentrated and the muscles suddenly contracted. He surely will allow that in this advice he is trying to impart at least one single sensation or idea which is sufficient to ensure that he will "not properly perceive that ball, and of course, by consequence, that he will not properly hit it."

Here is another paragraph worthy of consideration: "But if one tautens any of the muscles necessary for the stroke, the stroke is spoiled." I think I have already quoted James Braid on the subject of tension in the drive, to show that this statement is utterly fallacious, and that without very considerable tautening of the muscles it would be impossible to produce a golf drive worthy of the name.

The strangest portions of this alleged explanation of the mystery of golf are always when it comes to the question of practical golf. Let us consider briefly such a statement as the following:—

Both sets of stimuli must be intimately and intricately combined throughout the whole course of the swing; the wrists must ease off at the top and tauten at the end. The left knee must be loose at the beginning, and firm at the finish, and the change from one to the other must be as deftly and gently, yet swiftly wrought, as a crescendo passage from pianissimo to fortissimo on a fiddle.

We have already seen what James Braid says about the golf stroke—that from the top of it right to the impact the muscles must be in a state of the fullest tension; while it is of course well known now that the left knee is never at any time in the stroke what is described as loose, for from the moment that a properly executed golf drive begins, the weight proceeds towards the left foot and leg, and therefore it would be impossible to play a proper drive with the left knee "loose." I deal fully with this subject in my chapter on "The Distribution of Weight."