Taylor also subscribes to the fetich of the sweep. At page 186 of Taylor on Golf he says:
In making a stroke in golf the beginner must feel sure that the correct method of playing is not the making of a hit—as such a performance is understood—but the effort of making a sweep. This is an all-important thing, and unless a player thoroughly understands that he must play in this style I cannot say I think the chance of his ultimate success is a very great one; it is an absolute necessity this sweep, and I cannot lay too much stress upon it.
He continues:
As a more practical illustration of my meaning, I will suppose that the player is preparing to drive. His position is correct, he is at the exact distance from the ball. All that is then necessary is that with a swinging stroke he should sweep the ball off the tee. But, if in place of accomplishing this sweep, the ball is hit off the tee—well, that may be a game, but it certainly does not come under the heading of golf.
Now we have already seen that James Braid in Advanced Golf, which was published after How to Play Golf, has abandoned the idea that the golf drive is a sweep. Taylor is wonderfully emphatic about the sweep, but I think it will not require much to convert any golfer, who is in doubt about the matter, to my views, for the comparative results obtained will speak for themselves. Moreover, if there is any one man more than another who is a living refutation of the sweep notion that man is J. H. Taylor. It is impossible to watch him driving, and to know the power which he gets from his magnificent forearm hit, without being absolutely convinced that the true nature of the golf drive is a hit and not a sweep.
I do not find that Vardon subscribes to this idea of the sweep so definitely as does Taylor, and as did Braid in How to Play Golf, but he does unquestionably subscribe to the notion of the club gradually gathering speed in its downward course, for he says at page 69 of The Complete Golfer:
The club should gradually gain in speed from the moment of the turn until it is in contact with the ball, so that at the moment of impact its head is travelling at its fastest pace.
This, of course, in itself is correct, but there should be no conscious effort of gradually increasing the pace. As Braid says, "one must be 'hard at it' right from the beginning." The gradual and even acceleration of pace must unquestionably be left to take care of itself, and it has no more right to cumber the golfer's mind than has the idea when he is throwing a stone that his hand should be moving at its fastest when the stone leaves it.
PLATE V.
