The Soul of Golf

by P. A. Vaile

It will be obvious to my readers that this description is scientifically extremely inaccurate, for if we take a line through the ball from the point of contact with the club to the point on the ball farthest in front, which Professor Thomson calls its nose, we shall find that the flight of that ball will always be in that same line produced, whereas in the spinning ball it is nothing of the sort. The whole trouble here is that Professor Thomson wants to have the "nose," as he calls it, of the ball, both a fixed and a moving point. This, obviously, is most unscientific. If the nose of the ball is the point that is farthest in front, I cannot say too emphatically that it stands to reason that the ball in flight will go straight out after that point, but the fact is that the point in front is continually changing; moreover, the fact that the ball goes the way it is spinning is not explained by any tendency of the ball to wander that way on account of the spin irrespective of the friction of the air.

It will thus be seen that Professor Thomson's explanation in this matter is incorrect and misleading. This is about the most unscientific explanation which could be given of this matter, and it is one which is calculated to mislead people who would otherwise understand the matter quite clearly, so we shall drop Professor Thomson's idea of giving the ball a "nose" which is always in the front of it, but which is also supposed to be continually travelling sideways. It is obvious that Professor Thomson cannot have it both ways.

It is very clear indeed that Professor Thomson is not well acquainted with the method of applying spin to balls which are used in playing games. He says:

A lawn-tennis player avails himself of the effect of spin when he puts "top-spin" on his drives, i.e. hits the ball on the top so as to make it spin about a horizontal axis, the nose of the ball travelling downwards as in figure 4; this makes the ball fall more quickly than it otherwise would, and thus tends to prevent it going out of the court.

I have played lawn-tennis for more than twenty years, and I am the author of three books on the game, one of which is supposed to be the standard work on the subject, and I can assure Professor Thomson that no lawn-tennis player would dream of doing anything so silly as to hit a lawn-tennis ball "on the top" in an attempt to obtain "top-spin."

The scientific method of obtaining top-spin is to hit the lawn-tennis ball on what Professor Thomson, if he were driving the ball over the net to me, would call its nose—that is to say, I should hit the ball on the spot which was farthest from Professor Thomson. I should hit it there with a racket whose face was practically vertical, but I should hit it an upward, forwardly glancing blow which would impart, as Professor Thomson expresses it, "spin about a horizontal axis to the ball."

Professor Thomson goes so far as to show by diagram the travel of a ball which has been hit so as to impart top-spin to it, but even in this diagram he is absolutely wrong, for he shows that immediately the ball has been hit with top-spin it begins to fall, but this is not so. In lawn-tennis the ball travels for a long distance before the spin begins to assert itself, and to overcome the force of the blow which set up the spin.

Professor Tait makes this same error in his article on "Long Driving," and it is quite evident to me that Professor Thomson is following, in many respects, the errors of his eminent predecessor.

Professor Thomson also says:

Excellent examples of the effect of spin on the flight of a ball in the air are afforded in the game of base-ball. An expert pitcher, by putting on the proper spin, can make the ball curve either to the right or the left, upwards or downwards; for the side-way curves the spin must be about a vertical axis; for the upward or downward ones, about a horizontal axis.