GOLF 



are kept closer into the body than 

 in the longer ; so this also has the 

 effect of bringing the player and 

 the ball nearer together. In the 

 case of a square stance it should be 

 about equidistant from both feet. 

 When standing open it will be 

 much nearer the right. 



The' modern golfer has much re- 

 duced what is called the length of 

 the swing from the full measure 

 which used to be admired. The old 

 ideal was a swing which brought 

 the club at its farthest almost to 

 the perpendicular behind the 

 player's back. An illustration of it 

 is to be found in the swing of Hugh 

 Kirkaldy as immortalised on the 

 back of the Badminton Library 

 Golf volume. Nowadays, if a man 

 has the club at the horizontal be- 

 hind his back he is deemed to have 

 gone far enough, and any more to 

 be a superfluity. No doubt this 

 makes for finer accuracy, and, be- 

 sides, the modern mode of gripping 

 the club doe? not lend itself to any 

 extreme length of swing. 



The Modern Grip 



Details of the modern grip are 

 intricate. Much is heard of the 

 " interlocking " and the " over- 

 lapping." In the former a finger 

 or two of the one hand is crooked 

 within a finger or two of the other 

 there are several modifications ; 

 in the latter a finger or two of the 

 one hand merely over-lies, without 

 crooking round, a finger or two of 

 the other ; but the essence of the 

 grip and its purpose is in both in- 

 stances the same. It is always a 

 difficulty in the golfing stroke to 

 get the two hands working per- 

 fectly together, not to have the one 

 tuning a little againstthe otherand 

 so disturbing the perfection of its 

 directing influence at the critical 

 moment. The idea is to " get the 

 two hands working as one," and 

 in no way can this be contrived 

 better than by making virtually 

 one hand of the two by means of 

 this " Vardon grip," or one of its 

 varieties. 



The essential of the golfing 

 stroke is, generally speaking, that 

 the club head shall be travelling, at 

 its moment of impact with the ball, 

 in the proposed direction of the 

 ball's flight. It is obvious that only 

 thus can the ball be struck the 

 most direct and forcible blow pos- 

 sible. Thus, too, is it struck 

 straight, and none of that cut is 

 put on it which has the result of 

 making it deviate to the right or 

 left of the desired line with " pull " 

 or " slice." Cut, of course, may be 

 put on the ball purposely, in order 

 to make it bite into the ground on 

 alighting, and thus not to travel 

 far but to " pitch dead," as it is 

 called, but this is a different matter. 



3594 



In order to achieve this true 

 travel of the club-head in the line 

 of the ball's flight, either the two 

 hands must work as one, or the one 

 hand must be decidedly the master 

 hand. It was always the left hand 

 with which the golfing pupil used 

 to be taught to grip tight, the 

 right hand doing a little of the 

 more forceful work of the drive ; 

 and doubtless it is the left which 

 has to be the master hand still, 

 although the golfer of to-day puts 

 more power in with his right than 

 his ancestors used to. But that is a 

 maxim for the longer strokes and 

 for the squarer stances mainly. As 

 the strokes grow shorter, as the 

 ball is brought nearer to the right 

 foot, and as the stance becomes 

 more open, so the right hand tends 

 to do more of the work, and the left 

 ceases, more and more, to be the 

 master. 



The golfer of old used to let the 

 club handle fall back, at the top of 

 the swing, on to the web between 

 the first finger and thumb of the 

 right hand, but the modern golfer 

 is taught never to shift the grip of 

 either hand throughout the swing, 

 and many have both thumbs 

 straight down the handle of the 

 club throughout the stroke. With 

 this grip the length of what was 

 once extolled as " the St. Andrews 

 swing " would surely be impossible, 

 even if it were desired. 



The Follow-through 



It was one of the first maxims 

 among the old school of golfers 

 that the stroke should be well 

 "followed through," which meant, 

 if analysed, that the club head 

 should travel on well along the line 

 of the ball's flight. It is a good 

 maxim still, for the purpose of 

 teaching the learner to strike the 

 ball correctly, but in the dynamics 

 of the stroke it has not all its old 

 importance, because the rubber- 

 cored balls start away more 

 quickly than the solid " gutty," 

 and do not remain so long in con- 

 tact with the club. Certainly, 

 modern golfers do not follow 

 through the stroke as their fore- 

 fathers did; and one does not see 

 that they lose anything. 



The time-honoured dicta of 

 " Slow back," " Don't press," and 

 " Keep your eye on the ball," are 

 still to be reverenced as profitable 

 texts. The modern tendency is un- 

 doubtedly to make the stroke less 

 of a swing and more of a hit than it 

 used to be ; but still, as ever of old, 

 the besetting sin of all golfing flesh 

 is to hurry the club away from the 

 ball unduly fast in the back swing, 

 to hit too soon, too hard, and with- 

 out perfect timing and control ; 

 and still, as ever, it is better that 

 you should look at the ball when 



GOLF 



you hit rather than yield to the 

 perpetual temptation to cast your 

 gaze forward to where you hope to 

 see the ball cleaving the heavens. 



Another evil temptation is to let 

 the body sway away as the club is 

 swung upward. The body must be 

 allowed to turn freely on the hips, 

 and this turn is assisted by letting 

 the heel of the left foot come away 

 off the ground, by giving a turn on 

 the toes of this foot and by bend- 

 ing, in and towards the right, the 

 left knee. The movement will be 

 far more easily realized if at- 

 tempted with a club, or even a 

 walking stick in the hand, and if a 

 trial swing be made with it. But 

 though the body thus turns, the 

 hips and the shoulders going round 

 as though on the vertebrae for their 

 axis, it should not be carried far- 

 ther away from the ball at any one 

 moment of the swing than at any 

 other, and this keeping at the same 

 distance throughout is best accom- 

 plished by remembering to keep 

 the head steady, not to let the head 

 take any part in the turning move- 

 ment. If this be borne in mind, any 

 tendency to sway the body away 

 ought to be naturally corrected. 

 Driving High and Low Balls 



Sometimes it is better to drive a 

 high ball, especially when the wind 

 is behind, so as to take full advan- 

 tage of it ; and to get this extra 

 height the " first aid," so to say, is 

 to tee the ball high, to set it well 

 up on a good pile of sand so as to 

 let the club-head get well under it. 

 That is the first aid to elevation, 

 and the second is to stand with the 

 ball rather more towards the 

 player's left than for a stroke in 

 which there is no need for special 

 height of trajectory. The mechani- 

 cal reason why this position tends 

 to put the ball high into the air is 

 that the club-head has begun to rise 

 a little by the time it meets the ball. 



Conversely, when the wind is 

 against the direction in which the 

 ball has to travel, the ball should 

 be kept low, skimming at slight 

 elevation above the ground, so 

 that the full force of the wind 

 should not meet it. This is accom- 

 plished by teeing low, and by stand- 

 ing so that the ball is more towards 

 the player's right than when he is 

 addressing it for a stroke which is 

 designed to give it the normal 

 trajectory. 



In the play with the wooden 

 clubs, whether from the tee or 

 from a fair lie through the green. 

 it is the aim of the player to strike 

 the ball clearly away without any 

 abrasion of the turf : but, at their 

 iron club shots, good players 

 almost invariably cut out and send 

 flying a larger or smaller slice of 

 turf. This slice of turf is called, in 



