The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

It is almost a certainty that slow back, as one of what Vardon calls the parrot cries of the links, has done more to unsettle the drives of those who follow it, and the tempers of those who follow them, than any other of the blindly followed fetiches of golf. Let it be understood then, once and for all, that undue slowness is almost as great a vice as undue quickness. What the player must, in every case, strive after is the happy medium. It is an absolute impossibility to preserve the rhythm of a swing that goes up with the painful slowness and studied deliberation which we so frequently see as the precursor of a tremendous foozle.

Incorporated in this overdone injunction, "slow back," we have the idea of swinging the club away from the ball. In various places we are told plainly that the club is not to be lifted away from the ball, but that it must be swung back, whereas, of course, there can be no doubt whatever that the club is lifted back, and is started on its journey by the wrists.

It is obvious that no swing can be started from the lowest point in an arc. If, for example, we take the pendulum of a clock which is hanging motionless, it will be impossible to swing it one way or the other without lifting it. Equally obvious is it that the golf club must be lifted away from the ball.

"As you go up, so you come down" is another revered fallacy. We are clearly, and probably rightly, instructed, when driving, to take the club away from the ball in the line to the hole produced through the ball.

We do this going back comparatively slowly until we are compelled to leave the line, or rather the plane, of the ball's flight. So at the moment of making our first divergence from the straight swing back, we import into our arc a sudden and pronounced curve. On the return journey, the downward swing, we travel all the way at express speed. He would indeed be credulous and unanalytical who could believe that the arc of the downward swing coincides with that of the upward, when the upward swing is carried out according to the generally published theory, which, of course, it generally is not. The theory is only good in so far as it goes to inculcate the idea of remaining in the line to the hole both before and after impact as long as possible.

The next fallacy which we have to deal with is the matter of the distribution of weight in the drive. Practically every book that has been published misinforms the golfer on this point, which is a matter of fundamental importance in the game; in fact, it is of such great importance that I shall not deal with it fully here, but shall reserve it for my next chapter wherein I shall give the views of the leading exponents of the game on this all-important subject, and shall then show wherein I differ from them.

Let us consider that we have now arrived at the top of the swing. Every author of a golf book insists upon the fact that the drive at golf is a sweep and not a hit. James Braid, in chapter viii. of How to Play Golf, writing of "The Downward Swing," says:

The chief thing to bear in mind is that there must be, in the case of play with the driver and the brassie, no attempt to hit the ball, which must be simply swept from the tee and carried forward in the even and rapid swing of the club. The drive in golf differs from almost every other stroke in every game in which the propulsion of a ball is the object. In the ordinary sense of the word, implying a sudden and sharp impact, it is not a "hit" when it is properly done.

The impact in the golf drive has been measured by one of our most eminent physicists to occupy one ten-thousandth of a second. I think we may take this as "implying a sudden and sharp impact." Braid goes on to say, "when the ball is so 'hit' and the club stops very soon afterwards, the result is that very little length, comparatively, will be obtained, and that, moreover, there will be a very small amount of control over the direction of the ball."

This might be right, but it seems almost unnecessary to point out that when a ball has been struck at the amazing speed which such a brief contact indicates, there is extremely little probability that the club will stop "very soon afterwards"—in fact, it would be almost a matter of impossibility to induce a club which had been used for delivering a blow at the rate which this brief time indicates, to stop very shortly afterwards. The head of a golf club at the moment of impact with the golf ball is travelling so rapidly that a camera timed to take photographs at the rate of one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second's exposure, gets for the club head and shaft merely a vague swish of light, while the ball itself, if it is caught at all, appears merely to be a section of a sperm candle, so rapid is its motion. I am speaking now of a photograph taken at this extremely rapid rate when the photographer is facing the golfer who is making the stroke, but so rapid is the departure of the ball from the club that even when the photographer is standing in a straight line directly behind the player, the ball still presents the appearance of a white bar.