GOLF 



3592 



Jjj 



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Golf. Clubs used in playing the game. 1, driver; 

 2, brassie, similar to driver, but with brass sole and 

 face more laid back; 3, baffy or spoon, with larger 

 and more sloping face than brassie; 4, cleek; 5, mid- 

 iron; 6, mashie; 7, jigger; 8, niblick; 9, cleek putter; 

 10, wooden putter with lead face 



each other, the rubber-core wins on 

 balance. Its greater length of 

 travel, especially off the iron clubs, 

 outweighs the greater difficulties 

 which it introduces into the short 

 game. Quite recent legislation has 

 standardised size and weight of 

 balls in order to prevent inordinate 

 length of driving, but the little 

 experiment already made with the 

 standard balls induces some scep- 

 ticism as to whether much has 

 been effected by it. 



Considering how large a change 

 has been made by these compara- 

 tively modern balls, it is singular 

 how slight the change has been in 

 clubs, in the mode of their use, and 

 in the best men using them. Even 

 when Herd won the first champion- 

 ship played with the new ball in 

 1902, the three best golfers in the 

 world were Braid, Taylor, and 

 Vardon. They remained but very 

 little, if at all, behind best in 1920. 

 There has been a variety of fashions 

 in clubs "fishing-rod" drivers, 

 "dreadnoughts," and what not 

 but finally a happy medium seems 

 to have been established. Experi- 

 ment and innovation have, how- 

 ever, not ceased, for American 

 golfers have proposed for use a 

 new fashion of putter and a ribbed- 

 faced mashie. The latter appears 

 to have a distinct advantage in 

 that it makes a rubber-cored ball 

 stop on the green in the way in 

 which the gutty ball stops dead. 

 The Clubs Used 



Speaking generally, the clubs 

 which constitute the ordinary 

 golfer's full equipment are : driver, 

 brassie, driving mashie, cleek or 

 driving iron (one or other of the 

 last three should be enough for the 



reasonable man, 

 though many golf- 

 ers carry an un- 

 reasonable super- 

 fluity), mid-iron, 

 lofting mashie, 

 and putter. The 

 lastmay be of iron, 

 wood, or alumin- 

 ium. The beginner 

 may be advised to 

 limit his set to a 

 brassie, iron, 

 in ashie and putter. 

 It is noteworthy 

 tli at the great pro- 

 fessionals f re- 

 qucntly make ex- 

 cellent use of clubs 

 which can only 

 be described as 

 mongrels. 



I n addressing 

 himself to the full 

 driving shot, the 

 player should 

 stand, roughly 

 speaking, square 

 to the ball, i.e. so that a line drawn 

 from the toes of one foot to the 

 toss of the other shall be parallel 

 with the intended line of the ball's 

 flight. The driver is the longest of 

 the clubs, and is designed for the 

 longest strokes, and the clubs de- 

 crease progressively in length of 

 shaft as the strokes for which 

 they are intended are shorter. And 

 increasingly, as the golfer takes in 

 hand a shorter club, will he tend 

 to advance his right foot and 

 withdraw the left in making his 

 address to the ball. This is true of all 

 the clubs and of all the strokes, 

 progressively, down to the putter. 

 With the putter there are so many 

 different modes of address to the 

 ball that it is useless to suggest any 

 classic style for this humble but 

 most important part of the game. 

 With the lofting mashie this ad- 

 vance of the right foot and with- 

 drawal of the left reaches its ex- 

 treme, and the player is then said 

 to be standing " open " pre- 

 sumably because he is, thus, more 

 full-faced towards the line of the 

 ball's flight. 



This is virtually the universal 

 rule for all good golfers : that they 

 stand more and more open as they 

 play with the shorter clubs and as 

 they make the shorter strokes ; 

 but, besides this, there is a great 

 individual difference, even among 

 the best golfers, in regard to the 

 stance, whether " square " or more 

 or less " open," for the full drive. 

 This is strildngly illustrated by the 

 example of the three great Brit- 

 ish golfers, Braid, Vardon, and 

 Taylor, named here in this order 

 of deliberate design, because Braid 

 often drives with the left foot even 



a little advanced, relatively to the 

 right, so as to stand even more than 

 square, so to say, to the ball ; 

 Vardon, on the other hand, stands 

 nearly square, but slightly open, 

 and Taylor so extremely open, even 

 for the full drive, that he appears 

 to vary his stance remarkably 

 little for the shorter strokes. 



A hint of practical value may be 

 got from noticing these differences, 

 because they seem to be the nat- 

 ural outcome of the marked differ- 

 ence in build of these three great 

 golfers. Braid is tall and loosely 

 built ; Taylor very thick-set and 

 " cobby " ; Vardon is the medium 

 between them, a very finely made 

 athlete indeed. Each presumably 

 has evolved the style best suited to 

 his particular build, and, that 

 being so, it seems that the learner 

 who is tall and rather loosely 

 jointed, as Braid appears to be, 

 would do best to take that fine 

 example for his model, to adopt 

 the square, if not the ultra-square, 

 address for the drive. 



Build and Stance 



The Taylor-built man, on the 

 other hand, would probably find 

 his advantage in standing as 

 Taylor does, very open, and the 

 medium-made man in following 

 Vardon, with his stance just a little 

 less open than square. The sugges- 

 tion is only offered as likely to be 

 of value, for there are many ex- 

 ceptions to the rule of the cobby- 

 built golfer standing open, and 

 vice versa. One of the most open 

 stances was that of Jack Graham, 

 killed in action, who certainly was 

 of the loose-jointed make. 



Golf. The Vardon overlapping 



grip, illustrated by a direct plaster 



cast from Harry Vardon's hands 



Reproduced from lite original at South Herts 

 Golf Club, by courtesy of the Committee 



The ball will be farthest from the 

 player as he addresses it for the 

 longest shots ; nearest him for the 

 shortest. That almost follows from 

 the different lengths of the clubs. 

 But for the shorter shots, the hands 



