~ CHAPTER 3. ~

Elementary Hints.

Certainly the golfing tiro of to-day is not likely to suffer from any dearth of instructors. His difficulty is rather liable to lie in the selection of his counsellors where there are so many, and their wisdom sometimes so various. This divergence, however, is rather more apparent than real. It could not be real because, in point of fact, the ultimate source is one—namely, St. Andrews and the swing set in fashion there by the late “Young Tom” Morris. The divergences are in details, rather than in essentials; and even if those are not many. And further there is to be deprecated a certain way, much in vogue, of testing the instructions of various counsellors. This way consists in taking a certain piece of advice—say the advice to grip tightly with the left hand and loosely with the right—and asking some noted player whether this is actually his own practice.  Very likely he will say “No,” and the tiro forthwith deems his teacher discredited. But it does not follow, even though the noted professional may grip equally tight with both hands (though in point of fact very few do; as you may see by looking at the callosities on their hands, which are nearly always more salient on the left hand than the right)—but even if he does make a practice of the equal grip, his counsel to the tiro might not be on the lines of his own practice, for he will have learned golf as a boy--almost as a baby—while the tiro will probably be beginning some while after he has ceased to be a boy.

To have any right understanding of the essentials of the swing (taking the full driving swing into first and chief consideration) it is necessary to begin with certain principles, and the first of these is that you must keep the club-head travelling as long as you reasonably can in the direction in which you wish the ball to go. “Reasonably,” in this connection, means that the direction must be combined with reasonable speed of travel on the part of the club-head.

DISTANCE OF PLAYER FROM BALL.

The distance you should stand from the ball will naturally be more or less determined by the length of the club. It is the fashion of the day to use short clubs, but in any case we may say that the ball should be at about such distance from your left foot that if you put the heel of the club to the ball the end of the shaft will reach to your knee when you stand upright. Of course, when you begin seriously to address yourself to the ball, the center of the face of the club must be put to the ball, and not the heel; but in that attitude your knees will be a little bent, so that you will not find the ball too far from you.

To fix the right position further I would ask you to imagine the direction in which you wish the ball to go, and to draw an imaginary line from the ball at right angles to that direction towards himself. That line should pass about six inches to the right of your left foot.  

This fixes the position of the ball relatively to your left foot, which should point, if anything, a little outwards. The right foot will also point a little outwards, and the distance of the feet apart may be indicated by saying the from toe to toe should be about half the length of the short drivers of to-day. Relatively to the ball, the position of the right foot may be fixed as follows.  Imagine a line to be drawn towards your own right, from the point of your left toes, parallel with the direction in which you wish the ball to go—the point of the right toe should be an inch or two in rear of this line.

A MUCH-DISPUTED POINT.

This, I am very well aware, is a much-disputed dictum. The relative advantages of standing with the right foot advanced and with the right foot drawn back have been discussed even ad nauseam. The majority of fine players stand with their right foot a little advanced. On the other hand, two of our very longest drivers—Rolland and Toogood—stand according to the fashion here recommended. But the fashions of the champions are not quite to the point in arguments about the best instruction for tiros.  The right-foot-drawn-back position is that which is advocated in the “Badminton” book, and the writer sees no reason for withdrawing from it.  For the man who is past his first youth when he takes up golf it will be found that this position enables him most easily to let his right shoulder come down and follow on the stroke. 

We have now, then, got ball and two feet in their right relative positions. You are standing right to the ball, and will find that, slightly bending forward, and with knees slightly bent, you will be able to put the center of the face of the club—where the maker’s name is stamped across it—opposite to the ball. In all your postures try to be easy and comfortable, not exaggerating a particular feature, not bending the knees nor stooping excessively, not yet bracing your back and legs stiffly, as if they were jointless. Try to fall into a natural attitude.  It is best to square the left elbow a little and to let the right elbow lie fairly close to the body.  For the grip of the hands, the left should grasp the club more firmly than the right; and to this end it is best to hold the club well in the palm of the left hand, but rather in the fingers of the right.

THE FULL GOLFING SWING.

With the club thus held, lay its face to the ball.  Then lifting the club-head an inch or two from the ground, pass it once or twice over the ball, in order to see that your muscular adjustments are in correct working order; and make the club describe in these movements a small portion of the arc that it will describe in the actual swing.  This kind of trial trip in miniature will help you to get the direction of the swing right when you begin it in earnest.  The direction of that swing has already been indicated by saying that the club-head should move as far as possible along the line of the ball’s intended flight.  Another way of indicating it is to say that, throughout the swing, the club-head should be kept at as great a distance from the body of the player as his arms will comfortably allow.  To this end it is well to keep the arms straight as long as is reasonably possible, while the club is being raised, and similarly, to straighten them again as soon as possible in the course of the club’s descent.  For it is obvious that there comes a point in the swing when, if the club is to be allowed to come up, and round over the shoulder, the arms must bend, until the right hand is close up against, though rather above, the right shoulder.  And, to aid the swing—that is to say the progress of the club-head over and round the shoulders—the left shoulder must be allowed to come down and the right to come up, as the hands rise with the upward sing, and reversely to let the right shoulder come well down and follow on the stroke as the club-head descends and meets the ball.  The shoulders should work as if they were two spokes of a wheel of which the backbone is the axle.  For though the shoulders go round in this way, the backbone, between them, should hardly change its position at all.  In this manner may be effected that keeping of the eye on the ball which is one of the primary maxims of the whole business.  The head is a fixed point in the whole movement; and from the moment the club is lifted from the ball, until the latter is swept away from its position, the eyes should never be taken from the ball.  And if the head and upper backbone are kept still throughout the swing, there is no fear of that swaying of the body which is one of the most common faults of beginners at golf, and one of the most fatal. 

Observing a fine driver you will see that as the club comes up his left heel leaves the ground and he rises, with a slight turn, on the ball and toes of that foot; similarly, that as the club comes through, after meeting the ball, he rises in the same manner on the ball and toes of the right foot. Now you should make it your study, not so much to imitate his movements of the foot, as to imitate his swing so that your feet shall almost involuntarily be lifted from the ground in the course of the swing, even as his feet seem to be lifted unconsciously.  These movements should follow the swing, rather than be forced into its service.

LENGTH AND PACE OF THE SWING.

And this swing, of which we have now indicated roughly the direction—namely, that it should describe as large a circle or ellipse as possible—has now been spoken of with regard to its length.  You, as a grown and possibly middle-aged beginner, will have taken it quite far enough back if the club comes to the horizontal behind your back.  What though some young players bring it a deal further, never mind; this is good enough for you.  But, after hitting the ball, in finishing out the stroke it is practically impossible that you can carry it too far.  Follow through as far as you like and can: the farther the better. 

The next, and final, hint is as to its pace.  The up swing must be a slower swing than the down swing: this is of the essence of the whole.  But because it must be relatively slower, it does not follow that it need be slow.  There must be a relation, a harmony, between the two, so that all may seem parts of one whole.  It should be a rhythmical performance, a kind of gradual gathering up of the greatest force or speed for the moment at which the club-head meets the ball.  Nevertheless it is very certain that the tendency of erring human nature is to hurry the upward swing unduly: therefore the maxim of “slow up” is a good one to bear constantly in mind. 

“Don’t press” is another maxim of the essential wisdom of the sages, and this too has often been roughly interpreted to mean that you are not to hit hard, not to swing quick: you are to swing quickly upon the ball; the proper sense of this maxim is that you are not to hit with greather force, not to swing with greather speed, than you can control.

OTHER HINTS.

This account in the brief space allotted is as much as can be given of the full golfing swing, and contains all its chief features.  It remains to speak of the shorter strokes, of the brassey, the iron clubs, and the putting.  Of the brassey it is enough to say that the tiro will do well if he can use it in the manner suggested for the driving stroke, and similarly in all full shots played with all clubs.  It will be found well, however, as the club grows shorter, to bring the ball nearer the right foot, and to advance that foot a little to meet it, so that, in playing a full iron shot, that foot will have its toes over, rather than in the rear of, that imaginary line that we have traced from the point of the left toe parallel with the intended line of flight of the ball. 

It is not possible to enter into any detail regarding the methods of playing the half shots and short approaches.  By way of hints it may be noticed that a shortened grip of the club will be a help to accuracy, that the hands should be brought well forward, opposite the left hip, in playing these strokes, and that the heel of the iron or mashie should be kept well down to the ground.  These points borne in mind, and the left elbow rather squared towards the front, this shot, which is the most difficult, as, when accomplished, the most satisfactory of all in the golfer’s repertory, should be played with fair success.  At first be content with playing the stroke in a quiet, straightforward way, not allowing yourself to be seduced by the fascinations of putting cut on the ball, to make it fall dead. These subtleties will be for your study at a more advanced stage.

Thus is is to be hoped that you have reached the putting green, and in putting even more than in other parts of the game, the veriest tiro may please himself all to his position and his mode of striking. Here, too, as in the drive, it will be found well to study out for yourself the position, no matter what it may be, in which your putter seems most kindly to travel along the line in which you wish the ball to go.  This is a problem that you may work out for yourself at home, along a line of the carpet, even better than on the links. A firm grip with the left hand and a slight squaring of the left elbow are useful helps to accuracy here as in the longer game.  For the longer putts there is but one golden rule—the ancient one—“Be up!”

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