The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

Although James Braid has remodelled his putting with such success, he still, to a certain extent, clings to his own idea of putting with drag. On page 154 of Advanced Golf he says:

For general use I am a strong believer in a putter having just a little loft. I know that some players like one with a perfectly straight face which does not impart the slightest drag to the ball, their theory being that such putters are capable of more delicate work than others, and that the ball answers more readily to the most delicate tap from them. There may be considerable truth in this, though, obviously, great skill and confidence on the part of the player are taken for granted.

And again he says:

The strength of long putts can generally be more accurately regulated with a lofted putter than with a straight-faced one.

He continues:

This is the kind of putter that I might recommend for what might be called a medium or average green, if there can be said to be such a thing; but I wish to point out that the putter that is the best suited to such a green is not so well suited to either a very fast green or a very slow one, and that in each of the latter cases the club best adapted to the circumstances is one with considerably more loft on it.

On page 56 he says:

Now in both these cases, when the greens are very slow and when they are extremely fast, the best putter for them is one with very considerable loft on the face, and it will often be found that there is nothing better than a fairly straight-faced iron, or an ordinary cleek, if it is big enough in the face to suit the player. With this club and its great dragging power, the effect seems to be practically to reduce the distance between the ball and the hole. Such is the drag that the ball is simply pushed over a considerable part of the way, and it is only when it is quite near to the hole that it begins, as it were, to run in the usual way. The fact is that for the first part of the journey the ball does not revolve regularly upon its axis, as it does when approaching the hole, but simply skates over the turf, and it will be found that with a little practice the point at which it will stop skating can be determined with very considerable exactness. When it does so stop there is still so much drag on it that it is very quickly brought to a standstill. Thus in both cases, of the very fast and the very slow green, the ball can be played without fear right up to the hole when the putter is so well lofted as I have recommended.

Here we are told that the ball "simply skates over the turf." As I have shown before, this is one of the greatest fallacies in golf. It is impossible to obtain any results by drag in a long put, which are not better obtained by simply rolling the ball up. Braid says that "with a little practice the point at which it will stop skating can be determined with very considerable exactness," and he goes on to say that "when it does so stop there is still so much drag on it that it is very quickly brought to a standstill."

This is obviously nonsense. It is the drag on the ball which makes it do any skating which may take place. It is obvious that when the skating has ceased the drag has stopped exerting its influence. How, then, is it going to stop the ball from rolling in a natural manner?