The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

HARRY VARDON
The finish of the drive—a little later than in Plate VI., showing the weight completely on the left foot.

Of course, in the circumstances, it will be very hard indeed for us to follow out James Braid's idea of everything at this point being in supreme tension, but it is interesting to see what Mr. Hutchinson thinks about the matter.

We have here the opinions of the three most distinguished professionals in the world, backed by that of one of the distinguished amateurs in the game, a man who has distinguished himself both by his play and his writing. In the face of this weight of authority it may seem rash to venture to state plainly and explicitly that as a matter of practical golf the right hand and arm is the dominant partner, and that it is the duty of every normal golfer to have this idea firmly implanted in his mind when he settles down to his address.

As the right is the dominant partner in the golf drive, so must the predominance of the right be the dominant idea in one's mind, but the domination of the right must not be abused, as we shall show later on.

It is, of course, proper for a golfer to have clearly fixed in his mind the fact that the right is the more important member of the two, but when he has once got that fact carefully and well stowed away in his mind, it will be no more trouble to him than it is at present to every normal person to use his knife in his right hand with which to cut his meat, for it is an absolutely natural proceeding. The trouble with the fetich of the left is that not only is it a perfectly unnatural proceeding, but it is also, on that account, something extra for the golfer to cumber his mind with during his swing. If he plays his stroke naturally and without any thought of the mismade maxims of unpractical persons, he will inevitably let the right hand and arm take charge of the stroke, but the right will not at any time endeavour to do more than its proper share, and therefore the left will be given every chance to do a fair amount of the work. It is the interference with Nature by putting the left forward into a place which it has no right to occupy, which ruins so many golf strokes.

Let us now turn to The Complete Golfer. Here, at page 60, Harry Vardon says:

We must now consider the degree of tightness of the grip by either hand, for this is an important matter. Some teachers of golf, and various books of instruction, inform us that we should grasp the club firmly with the left hand and only lightly with the right, leaving the former to do the bulk of the work and the other merely to guide the operations.

It is astonishing with what persistency this error has been repeated, for error I truly believe it is. Ask any really first-class player with what comparative tightness he holds the club in his right and left hands, and I am confident that in nearly every case he will declare that he holds it, nearly, if not quite, as tightly with the right hand as with the left. Personally, I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as with the other one. When the other way is adopted—the left hand being tight and the right hand simply watching it, as it were—there is an irresistible tendency for the latter to tighten up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief.

If we sum up the advice of Vardon and Taylor, and of Braid as shown in his latest work Advanced Golf, we see clearly that although they subscribe to the idea of the predominance of the power of the left hand and arm, they do not themselves carry it out in practice. Taylor says that his grip with both hands is very firm, yet he should hesitate before recommending other people to follow his methods. I think we may take it for granted that a method which has resulted in four open championships may be considered good enough to follow.

Vardon, as we have seen, only subscribes to this notion inferentially, and nobody could be more emphatic than he is with regard to the distribution of force in the grip. His words "Ask any really first-class player with what comparative tightness he holds the club in his right and left hands, and I am confident that in nearly every case he will declare that he holds it, nearly, if not quite, as tightly with the right hand as with the left," present the case exactly. Any man who plays golf properly will find it impossible to tell you how he distributes the force of his grip on his club, and what proportion of power the grip of the left bears to the right. As a matter of fact, the man who plays golf properly has no time to think of such nonsense as this. This is a matter which is regulated for him by common sense and nature.