The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

In commencing the downward swing, I try to feel that both hands and wrists are still working together. The wrists start bringing the club down, and at the same moment, the left knee commences to resume its original position. The head during this time has been kept quite still, the body alone pivoting from the hips.

It is obvious that if the pivoting is done at the hips it will be impossible to get the weight on the right leg at the top of the swing without some contortion of the body, yet we read at page 70 of The Complete Golfer that "the weight is being gradually moved back again from the right leg to the left." Thus is the old fatal idea persisted in to the undoing of thousands of golfers.

I have already referred to the wonderful spine-jumping and rotating which is described in The Mystery of Golf. Many might not understand the jargon of anatomical terms used in this fearful and wonderful idea, so I shall add here the author's corroboration of my interpretation of his notion.

At page 167 he says: "The pivot upon which the spinal column rotates is shifted from the head of the right thigh-bone to that of the left."

I have always been under the impression that the spinal column is very firmly embedded on the os sacrum—that, in fact, the latter is practically a portion of the spinal column, and that it is fixed into the pelvic region in a manner which renders it highly inconvenient for it to attempt any saltatory or rotatory pranks.

We are, however, told that the pivot on which the spinal column rotates "shifts from the right leg to the left leg." If the spine were "rotating," which of course it cannot do in the golf stroke, on any "pivot," which, equally of course, it does not, that "pivot" must be the immovable os sacrum. What then does all this nonsense mean?

James Braid, at page 56 of Advanced Golf, says:

At the top of the swing, although nearly all the weight will be on the right foot, the player must feel a distinct pressure on the left one, that is to say, it must still be doing a small share in the work of supporting the body.