The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

In the old days, when Vardon and all the other champions used the two-handed grip, it would have been rank folly for any person other than Vardon to have asserted that it was better to get the grip of the right hand off the club, as the overlapping grip does to a very great extent, but this grip was tried by Vardon, and it very soon became almost universal. However, I think we are justified in asking if this grip is undoubtedly the best that it is possible for us to get. Before the overlapping grip became fashionable both hands had their full grip on the shaft of the club, and in those days men played great golf, and there are many of them who still play great golf with the same hold, which they have refused to alter.

At page 194 of Taylor on Golf, speaking of the grip, Taylor says:

To sum up the matter, I should describe the orthodox manner of gripping with the right in the following words: The fingers must close around the club in such a way that provision is made for the thumb to cover and cross the shaft, the first joints of the fingers, providing this is done, being just in sight. Nothing more or nothing less. This is the grip generally accepted as being orthodox, and the one generally favoured by the majority of those who decide to follow up the game properly. But, as is the case with everything which is favoured by any considerable number of enthusiasts, there are those who, untrammelled by tradition, break away and hold the club differently, with one hand at least.

Take, as for instance, the case of Mr. John Ball, jun. This gentleman—one of the leading golfers of the day—holds the club firmly, not to say tightly, in the palm of his right hand. Well, he has discovered that this does not detrimentally affect his play, so I presume that may be taken as a satisfactory proof that the orthodox way may sometimes be departed from. Then, after Mr. Ball, I might mention the name of Mr. Edward Blackwell. He is almost certainly the most consistently good long driver we possess now, and his unorthodox method of grip with the right hand has not affected his play.

Taylor, of course, uses the overlapping grip, which is to-day the orthodox grip.

Taylor speaks here of "those who, untrammelled by tradition, break away and hold the club differently, with one hand at least," but it seems to me that the two golfers quoted are not those who are breaking away from the traditional hold. Rather does it seem to me that it is we of the orthodox grip of to-day who have broken away from the best traditions of golf, and taking best and best of those who have adopted the modern grip and those who have maintained the old grip, there is practically "nothing in it." Looking at the grip of men like Mr. H. H. Hilton, Mr. John Ball, and Mr. Edward Blackwell, it would, I think, to-day, require a person almost bereft of intelligence to imagine for one moment that the power of the stroke in the play of these golfers is obtained from their left arms and hands, and I do not suppose for a single moment that any one of these players would dream of asserting that he gets his length or direction from the left arm.

We are now confronted with the fact that one at least of these players with the two-handed grip is at practically no disadvantage against the best golfers in the world, and we must take it for granted in the face of what we have said, that his power of stroke and his command thereof is obtained from his right hand and arm. Now that being so, let us say for the sake of argument that he desires to improve his play by bringing the action of his wrists into greater harmony by adopting the overlapping grip. Surely one is confronted with this question—should one overlap the left hand with the right, or should one overlap the right with the left. In the present overlap the left hand takes the first grip of the club, and the right hand overlaps it, and in so doing is taken, to a very great extent, off the shaft of the club.

The question now arises, Should not one first take one's grip with the right hand, the dominant hand, the guiding hand, and the hand which is operated by the stronger arm, and having got this grip, proceed to overlap with the left, always allowing, of course, for the necessary insertion of the thumb of the left between the shaft and the palm of the right hand?

This may sound revolutionary, but I assure my readers that it is not one half so revolutionary as the change from the old two-handed grip to the present overlapping grip, for in that change the right hand was, to a very great extent, deprived of its pride of place. I think there is very little doubt that a player who became accustomed to the right-handed grip with the left overlap, would find that he produced a better game than he was able to do with the present overlapping grip. The fact is that we are inclined to take a much too complimentary and optimistic view of our exploits. Golf has now come to such a pass that it is played almost perfectly by a few of the best players, so that we have come to consider a five by a leading player as a serious lapse; but we must not judge the great body of golfers by the perfect players. These men would probably play very well under any conditions which could exist in the game. We have to consider the greatest good of the greatest number—in other words, the object of our search is to ascertain and understand perfectly what is the best way, and although I am stating this proposition with regard to the golf grip quite tentatively, and am laying it down as a subject for argument, I have very little doubt indeed that it will be found in the future that the right-handed grip is the best grip for playing golf.

I think there is very little doubt that the most important change in the next decade will be in the right hand and arm coming into their kingdom. It need not be thought that this will happen in a day, or a month, or a year. For very many years the great game of golf was played, and was well and truly played by men who never dreamed of putting part of one hand beneath the other—who would have scouted the overlapping grip and the levering of the right hand off the shaft as sacrilege—but some one introduced the idea, because it brought the wrists closer together so that they worked more in harmony than with the old grip. Harry Vardon tried it and found it good, and it went into the game of golf and the history thereof.

And to see Vardon use it, one might well say, "What more can you want?"; but that is not argument. Probably the one who asked that question would have asked the same question had he seen Vardon playing when he was using the old grip, when one wrist was fighting the other; so we must not be deterred from our speculation, from peering into the future. Of course, the essence of the overlapping grip is that it reduces the conflict of the wrists, and so conduces to greater accuracy and to less interference with the rhythm of the swing. It stands to reason that in the old days of the two-handed grip this conflict was worse than it would be now, for then the fetich of the left had not been weakened, and it was a distressful thing to have a hefty left in possession of the end of one's shaft and interfering with the proper functions of the right in an unwarrantable manner.