The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

Here we see that what Harry Vardon regards as the master strokes of the game, are looked upon by Taylor as faults.

I may say at the outset that I am not inclined to agree with Vardon at all in this matter of the master stroke in golf. If there is one stroke which stands out above and beyond all others in its demand for accuracy, and a perfect knowledge of the method of applying spin, also a supreme ability perfectly to apply that knowledge, it is the stroke which is commonly called a "wind-cheater"; that is to say a long low ball which flies very close to the earth for the greater portion of its journey, and rises towards the end of its flight to its greatest height.

Although this ball is called the wind-cheater, it is just as effective and just as useful on a perfectly still day as it is against a howling gale, for this stroke is, in my opinion, without any doubt whatever, the master stroke in golf, and if a man has this stroke he should be very willing to allow anybody else to have all the pulls and slices in golf. The supreme importance of this stroke is so pronounced that I have always wondered at the comparatively unimportant position which has been given to it in every book on golf, with the exception of my own works. Pulling and slicing, as golfing shots, may be said to be practically unnecessary if a man has full command of the plain drive without back-spin and the wind-cheater.

Very frequently when a man is called upon to pull or to slice, it is to remedy a previous error, and there can be no doubt that with the pull and the slice it is an utter impossibility to keep on the line in the same manner as can one who uses back-spin in the drive. The secret of the greatest golf of the future lies, in my opinion, in the proper application of back-spin in the drive.

I do not intend here to go fully into the effect of spin on the flight of the ball, as I shall do that at length in my chapter on "The Flight of the Golf Ball." Suffice it to say that the tremendous advantage of the ball with back-spin is, that being hit as the club is descending, and the hands at the time of impact with the ball being a little in front of the ball, the loft of the club is, to a certain extent, minimised, so that the ball is, in effect, struck with a club which has much less loft than would be the case if it were driven in the ordinary manner. This means that for the first part of the carry, the flight of the ball is very low, and as the club was not at the lowest portion of the swing when it struck the ball, the wind-cheater acquires a large amount of back-spin which asserts itself later on, and causes the ball to reach the highest point in its trajectory towards the end of its flight.

One of the greatest of the many merits of this ball is that the method of producing it almost commands a follow-through down the intended line of flight. This in itself tends to give better direction than any of the ordinary golf strokes. The pull and the slice, as is well known, curve very much in their flight, and especially in a wind. It is utterly impossible for the best golfer in the world to say within twenty yards as regards direction, and that, of course, means much more than twenty yards—in fact, practically double that—where the ball will come to rest; but this is not so with the wind-cheater, for although the ball has been sent on its way with a very heavy back-spin, so much of it has been exhausted in lifting the ball at the end of its flight, that by the time the ball strikes the earth there is little, if any, retarding power in the back-spin, so that the ball is frequently a very good runner. I must, however, devote a little attention here to the method of production of the pull and the slice.

There is a wonderful amount of misconception about these strokes, even in the minds of the greatest golfers. Let me, before I proceed to examine what Harry Vardon has to say about the production of the pull, state the general principles upon which the production of all spin is produced. Spin is imparted to a golf ball, as we shall see more clearly later on, merely by the fact that the face of the club, instead of following through after the ball in the intended line of flight, crosses the line of flight at a more or less acute angle; for the slice the club head comes from the far side of the line of flight across towards the player's side of the line of flight; for the pull the process is reversed, and the club head, coming from the player's side, swings right out across the line of flight; in the wind-cheater the club passes downwards along the intended line of flight. There is, of course, no such thing in practical golf as top-spin, so we need not consider that.

There is one other important point which I must mention here. At the moment of impact the face of the club must be, to all intents and purposes, at a right angle to the intended line of flight. For instance, in a slice, any attempt to produce the slice by laying back the toe of the club, or any tricks of this nature, must result in disaster. It is impossible for the person playing the stroke to time anything to be done by him during impact, and it stands to reason that nothing will affect the ball except what takes place during impact. This, then, resolves the stroke into the fact that the contact between the ball and the club is, as I have frequently insisted, and, as we have seen, James Braid declares, merely an incident in the travel of the club's head in the arc which it is describing.

Although I have said that the face of the club must be at a right angle to the line of flight of the ball, this is not exactly correct, although it is so for all purposes of practical golf. The reason I say that it is not correct, is that practically every well played slice starts off on the line to the hole a little to the left of the true line of flight, so that it is probable that at the moment of impact the face of the club is not at a dead right angle to the initial portion of the flight of the ball. However, it is unquestionably necessary that the face of the club should be as nearly as possible at a right angle to the intended line of flight at the moment that the impact takes place. If this point is not attended to as carefully in the pull and the slice as it is in other strokes, the result must be inaccuracy of direction, and very pronounced inaccuracy too.

Let us now turn to Harry Vardon's directions as to how to play the pull. He says: