The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

This is, mechanically, a marvellous statement. I do not profess to be a great authority on the subject of corkscrews, bottles—or their contents, but even in this respect I may confess to being a trifle more than theoretical, and I may say that I have inserted many a corkscrew into many a cork, but I have never yet used a corkscrew wherein I turned my wrist over as the right wrist turns over in the downward swing of the golf club. As a matter of fact, I never inserted a corkscrew into a cork where I did not turn my wrist from left to right. All the tension in putting a corkscrew into a cork is on the backward journey, or that which corresponds to the upward swing in golf. There is no tension whatever on the return, or that portion of the screwing process which corresponds to the downward swing in golf, whereas in golf the main portion of tension is in the downward swing; but I believe Braid is a teetotaller, so we may forgive him if in this respect his theory is unsound, and I think we can say that although he may be entirely theoretical in this, his theory is, in this instance, not more unsound than it is in regard to what he professes to describe as the wrist action in the golf drive.

Braid says that "unless the wrists are in their proper place, as described, at the top of the swing, it is impossible to get them to do this work when the time comes. There is nowhere for them to spring back from." This is correct and absolutely sound; the wrists must, unquestionably, be in their right place at the top of the swing, the right place being, as I have already indicated, and as indeed practically every respectable book on golf, with the exception of the Badminton volume, shows, underneath the shaft of the club at the top of the swing, but it is quite wrong to speak of any such thing as there being no place "for them to spring back from."

There must be no "spring." It is more a question of swinging than springing, although, as my readers know, I am opposed even to the idea of a swing in the golfing stroke. The stroke in golf is one of the finest hits in the whole realm of athletics, and I object entirely to it being called a swing or a sweep, or anything but that which it is legitimately entitled to be called.

Braid says at page 62: "After impact and the release of all tension, body and arms are allowed to swing forward in the direction of the flight of the ball." This sentence gives us pause. We have seen, according to Braid, that for the space of a yard, that is for eighteen inches before and after impact in the drive, the wrists come into the swing and do something with a "whip-like snap"—something that is a sort of a "flick." We see that this "whip-like snap," and this "sort of a flick," are kept up for eighteen inches after impact, but we are told a little farther on that at the moment of impact "everything is let loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is struck."

How is it possible to imagine this kind of thing taking place within a swing of perfect rhythm? It is evident that Braid has a very rooted notion about this wrist movement. I must quote again from him, this time from How to Play Golf. On page 54 he says:

The initiative in bringing down the club is taken by the left wrist, and the club is then brought forward rapidly and with an even acceleration of pace until the club head is about a couple of feet from the ball. So far the movement will largely have been an arm movement, but at this point there should be some tightening-up of the wrists, and the club will be gripped a little more tightly. This will probably come about naturally, and though some authorities have expressed different opinions, I am certainly one of those who believe that the work done by the wrists at this point has a lot to do with the making of the drive.

Personally, I believe that Braid is wrong in speaking about the initiative in bringing down the club being taken by the left wrist. I believe that the left wrist has no more to do with it than the right wrist, and I do not believe that one practical golfer in a hundred could tell which wrist he uses, and the chances are that if he could tell he would not be a very good golfer, for these are things with which a golfer has no right to cumber his mind. They are things which can quite well be left to Nature. It is an act of supreme folly for the ordinary man to think in the slightest degree of apportioning to either hand the share of its work in the drive. That absolutely must never be on his mind when beginning his stroke.

Braid here emphasises his idea that the wrists come into the golf drive at about two feet from the ball. In Advanced Golf he says eighteen inches. In this matter I must unhesitatingly be with Harry Vardon, and if I had not Harry Vardon's support,—if I stood against the authority of the world of golfers—I should still be just as positive as I am with the important corroboration which Vardon gives me, for there can be no doubt that as a matter of practical golf, there is no portion of the stroke in golf wherein the wrists are more quiescent than in the impact. I must not be misunderstood when I say this. It is obvious that the wrists at the moment of impact will be braced to receive the shock of the blow, but the speed of the blow has been developed long before impact, and the wrists have approximately resumed their normal position as at the moment of address.

Although Harry Vardon is so positive in combating the notion of the wrists coming into the drive at the moment of impact, I find him at page 53 of Great Golfers saying, when writing of the downward swing with the driver and brassy:

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. When the left knee has turned, I find I am standing firmly on both feet and the arms are in position as in the upward swing, before the left knee started to bend. From this point the speed of the wrists seems to increase, and the impact is thus made with the club head travelling at its highest velocity.