The right hand is naturally the stronger of the two—much more powerful in the average man than the left—and the learner is just as naturally prone to use it. But in the game of golf he must keep in front of him at all times the fact that the left hand should fill the position of guide, and it must have the predominating influence over the stroke.
That this is rather unnatural I am perfectly willing to admit. Its being unnatural is the basis of its great difficulty, but it is a difficulty that must needs be grappled with and overcome by any man who desires to play the game as it should be played.
But Taylor will not give in to this idea himself! Is not this wonderful?
Harry Vardon says of the grip that one should "remember that the grip with both hands should be firm. That with the right hand should not be slack as one is so often told." This is valuable corroboration, for it must be remembered that Vardon only subscribes to the fetich of the left by implication. Nowhere, I think, can we convict him of actually preaching it.
Now let us turn to the volume on Golf in the Badminton Library contributed by Mr. Horace G. Hutchinson. At page 85 Mr. Hutchinson says:
Since, as will be shown later on, the club has to turn in the right hand at a certain point in the swing, it should be held lightly in the fingers, rather than in the palm, with that hand. In the left hand it should be held well home in the palm, and it is not to stir from this position throughout the swing. It is the left hand, mainly, that communicates the power of the swing; the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction.
At page 87 Mr. Hutchinson continues:
So much, then, for the grip. Now, when the club, in the course of its swing away from the ball, is beginning to rise from the ground, and is reaching the horizontal with its head pointing to the player's left, it should be allowed to turn naturally in the right hand until it is resting upon the web between the forefinger and the thumb.
We see here that this distinguished amateur is an out and out adherent of the fallacy of the left. He tells us distinctly that it is the "left hand, mainly, that communicates the power of the swing, and that the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction," but notwithstanding the fact that "the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction," we see that at the top of the stroke it turns loosely in the hand until it is "resting upon the web between the forefinger and the thumb."