In his chapter on "Special Strokes with Wooden Clubs" Vardon discusses the question of the master stroke in golf. At page 86 of The Complete Golfer he says:
Which, then, is the master stroke? I say that it is the ball struck by any club to which a big pull or slice is intentionally applied for the accomplishment of a specific purpose which could not be achieved in any other way, and nothing more exemplifies the curious waywardness of this game of ours than the fact that the stroke which is the confounding and torture of the beginner who does it constantly, he knows not why, but always to his detriment, should later on at times be the most coveted shot of all and should then be the most difficult of accomplishment. I call it the master shot, because to accomplish it with any certainty and perfection, it is so difficult, even to the experienced golfer, because it calls for the most absolute command over the club and every nerve and sinew of the body, and the courageous heart of the true sportsman whom no difficulty may daunt, and because, when properly done, it is a splendid thing to see, and for a certainty results in material gain to the man who played it.
Here we have a very definite statement by one of the greatest stroke players in the world, that the master stroke at golf is "the ball struck by any club to which a big pull or slice is intentionally applied for the accomplishment of a specific purpose which could not be achieved in any other way."
It is to me a most extraordinary thing to find a golfer of the ability of Harry Vardon classing the pull and the slice as practically equal in order of merit. Anyone who is acquainted with golf must know that the pull is an infinitely more difficult stroke to play correctly than the slice. The slice is a stroke which is comparatively easy, but no one can truthfully say the same thing of the pull.
Before we proceed to a consideration of the question of the master stroke, it will be interesting to quote what Taylor has to say on the subject. At page 88 of Taylor on Golf he says:
Still it is not advisable, neither do I look upon it as being golf in the truest sense of the word, for the knack of pulling or slicing to be cultivated, as I am afraid it is by a great many players. No compromise should be made with a fault.
Here we see that what Harry Vardon regards as the master strokes of the game, are looked upon by Taylor as faults.
I may say at the outset that I am not inclined to agree with Vardon at all in this matter of the master stroke in golf. If there is one stroke which stands out above and beyond all others in its demand for accuracy, and a perfect knowledge of the method of applying spin, also a supreme ability perfectly to apply that knowledge, it is the stroke which is commonly called a "wind-cheater"; that is to say a long low ball which flies very close to the earth for the greater portion of its journey, and rises towards the end of its flight to its greatest height.
Although this ball is called the wind-cheater, it is just as effective and just as useful on a perfectly still day as it is against a howling gale, for this stroke is, in my opinion, without any doubt whatever, the master stroke in golf, and if a man has this stroke he should be very willing to allow anybody else to have all the pulls and slices in golf. The supreme importance of this stroke is so pronounced that I have always wondered at the comparatively unimportant position which has been given to it in every book on golf, with the exception of my own works. Pulling and slicing, as golfing shots, may be said to be practically unnecessary if a man has full command of the plain drive without back-spin and the wind-cheater.
Very frequently when a man is called upon to pull or to slice, it is to remedy a previous error, and there can be no doubt that with the pull and the slice it is an utter impossibility to keep on the line in the same manner as can one who uses back-spin in the drive. The secret of the greatest golf of the future lies, in my opinion, in the proper application of back-spin in the drive.
I do not intend here to go fully into the effect of spin on the flight of the ball, as I shall do that at length in my chapter on "The Flight of the Golf Ball." Suffice it to say that the tremendous advantage of the ball with back-spin is, that being hit as the club is descending, and the hands at the time of impact with the ball being a little in front of the ball, the loft of the club is, to a certain extent, minimised, so that the ball is, in effect, struck with a club which has much less loft than would be the case if it were driven in the ordinary manner. This means that for the first part of the carry, the flight of the ball is very low, and as the club was not at the lowest portion of the swing when it struck the ball, the wind-cheater acquires a large amount of back-spin which asserts itself later on, and causes the ball to reach the highest point in its trajectory towards the end of its flight.
One of the greatest of the many merits of this ball is that the method of producing it almost commands a follow-through down the intended line of flight. This in itself tends to give better direction than any of the ordinary golf strokes. The pull and the slice, as is well known, curve very much in their flight, and especially in a wind. It is utterly impossible for the best golfer in the world to say within twenty yards as regards direction, and that, of course, means much more than twenty yards—in fact, practically double that—where the ball will come to rest; but this is not so with the wind-cheater, for although the ball has been sent on its way with a very heavy back-spin, so much of it has been exhausted in lifting the ball at the end of its flight, that by the time the ball strikes the earth there is little, if any, retarding power in the back-spin, so that the ball is frequently a very good runner. I must, however, devote a little attention here to the method of production of the pull and the slice.
There is a wonderful amount of misconception about these strokes, even in the minds of the greatest golfers. Let me, before I proceed to examine what Harry Vardon has to say about the production of the pull, state the general principles upon which the production of all spin is produced. Spin is imparted to a golf ball, as we shall see more clearly later on, merely by the fact that the face of the club, instead of following through after the ball in the intended line of flight, crosses the line of flight at a more or less acute angle; for the slice the club head comes from the far side of the line of flight across towards the player's side of the line of flight; for the pull the process is reversed, and the club head, coming from the player's side, swings right out across the line of flight; in the wind-cheater the club passes downwards along the intended line of flight. There is, of course, no such thing in practical golf as top-spin, so we need not consider that.
There is one other important point which I must mention here. At the moment of impact the face of the club must be, to all intents and purposes, at a right angle to the intended line of flight. For instance, in a slice, any attempt to produce the slice by laying back the toe of the club, or any tricks of this nature, must result in disaster. It is impossible for the person playing the stroke to time anything to be done by him during impact, and it stands to reason that nothing will affect the ball except what takes place during impact. This, then, resolves the stroke into the fact that the contact between the ball and the club is, as I have frequently insisted, and, as we have seen, James Braid declares, merely an incident in the travel of the club's head in the arc which it is describing.
Although I have said that the face of the club must be at a right angle to the line of flight of the ball, this is not exactly correct, although it is so for all purposes of practical golf. The reason I say that it is not correct, is that practically every well played slice starts off on the line to the hole a little to the left of the true line of flight, so that it is probable that at the moment of impact the face of the club is not at a dead right angle to the initial portion of the flight of the ball. However, it is unquestionably necessary that the face of the club should be as nearly as possible at a right angle to the intended line of flight at the moment that the impact takes place. If this point is not attended to as carefully in the pull and the slice as it is in other strokes, the result must be inaccuracy of direction, and very pronounced inaccuracy too.
Let us now turn to Harry Vardon's directions as to how to play the pull. He says:
Now there is the pulled ball to consider, for surely there are times when the making of such a shot is eminently desirable. Resort to a slice may be unsatisfactory, or it may be entirely impossible, and one important factor in this question is that the pulled ball is always much longer than the other—in fact, it has always so much length in it that many players in driving in the ordinary way from the tee, and desiring only to go straight down the course, systematically play for a pull and make allowances for it in their direction.
He then gives instructions for the stance, and proceeds:
The obvious result of this stance is that the handle of the club is in front of the ball, and this circumstance must be accentuated by the hands being held even slightly more forward than for an ordinary drive. Now they are held forward in front of the head of the club. In the grip there is another point of difference. It is necessary that in the making of this stroke the right hand should do more work than the left, and therefore the club should be held rather more loosely by the left hand than by its partner.
We may pause for a moment here to remark that this is another one of those very noticeable instances wherein Vardon infers that it is usual for the left to do more work than the right, and we may also note that he here gives advice which he has in other portions of his book condemned—that is, attempting to hold more loosely with one hand than with the other, for it is obvious that if, as he has told us will be the case, we attempt to give the right hand a watching brief over the left, the right will come in too suddenly at some portion of the swing, and it is also equally obvious that if we follow out Vardon's advice here and allow the left to hold the watching brief, it will similarly misconduct itself.
I must emphasise again, before I pass on, the very pronounced inference which Vardon here makes that, generally speaking, the left is the dominant partner. Vardon then continues: "The latter," that is the right hand, "will duly take advantage of this slackness," that is the slackness of the left hand, "and will get in just the little extra work that is wanted of it. In the upward swing carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive."
This, I may say, is remarkable advice, for it is well known that in playing the pull the club head begins to move away from the ball, inwards, the moment it is lifted from the ground. This, of course, is natural, for generally speaking, the club goes back to the ball in the way in which it comes up, and as the ball is played by an outward glancing blow, it stands to reason that it will not be taken back straight from the ball as Vardon states here. That, however, is by the way.
Let us now continue with what Vardon has to say:
The result of all this arrangement, and particularly of the slackness of the left hand and comparative tightness of the right, is that there is a tendency in the downward swing for the face of the club to turn over to some extent, that is, for the top edge of it to be overlapping the bottom edge. This is exactly what is wanted, for, in fact, it is quite necessary that at the moment of impact the right hand should be beginning to turn over in this manner, and if the stroke is to be a success the golfer must see that it does so, but the movement must be made quite smoothly and naturally, for anything in the nature of a jab, such as is common when too desperate efforts are made to turn over an unwilling club, would certainly prove fatal.
We have here Vardon's description of how to obtain a pulled ball which he regards as one of the master strokes of the game, but his conception of this stroke is absolutely erroneous. We are told by Vardon that in making this stroke "in the upward swing" we are to carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive. Now, at page 88, Vardon refers to "the inflexible rule that as the club head goes up so will it come down."
It is now established beyond any doubt whatever that the pull is played by an outwardly glancing blow, the converse of the inwardly glancing blow of the slice, but if to obtain a pull we are to follow Vardon's advice and take the club straight back away from the ball, how are we going to come back by the same track as we went up, which is straight down the line of flight, and at the same time to obtain an outwardly glancing blow? The thing is a manifest impossibility, and, as a matter of fact, is not practical golf. This idea of turning over the wrists at the moment of impact is an utterly erroneous notion which I must deal with somewhat more fully. I shall show that James Braid originally had this idea himself, but that he has now, in all probability, abandoned it.
It is evident that Vardon has but a hazy idea of the correct method of production of the pull, although, as we well know, he is a master of the art of producing this stroke. At page 92 of The Complete Golfer he gives his description of the manner in which he thinks one of the master strokes of the game is produced. I must quote him again fully, for it is necessary to do this in order that my readers may follow the trend of his mind:
It is necessary that in the making of this stroke the right hand should do more work than the left, and therefore the club should be held rather more loosely by the left hand than by its partner. The latter will duly take advantage of this slackness, and will get in just the little extra work that is wanted of it. In the upward swing carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive. The result of all this arrangement, and particularly the slackness of the left hand and comparative tightness of the right is, that there is a tendency in the downward swing for the face of the club to turn over to some extent, that is for the top edge of it to be overlapping the bottom edge. This is exactly what is wanted, for, in fact, it is quite necessary that at the moment of impact the right hand should be beginning to turn over in this manner, and if the stroke is to be a success the golfer must see that it does so.
It will be seen from this quotation that Vardon is under the impression that in playing the pull the club goes straight back from the ball in the same manner as it would be taken were one playing an ordinary drive. We notice, too, that he commits himself to the statement, that it is necessary that the top edge of the face of the club should be practically overlapping the bottom at the moment of impact. This, in effect, means that the club is actually deprived of its loft at the moment of impact.
It will be apparent to anyone who understands very little about the ordinary principles of mechanics that it would be an impossibility to play an effective shot in this manner. Indeed it would be impossible to raise the ball from the ground, and any attempt whatever to give this turn over of the wrists at the moment of impact would inevitably result in a very large proportion of foundered balls.
It must be remembered that Vardon is advising the player to consciously attempt to regulate the loft of his club during an impact which lasts for no more than the ten-thousandth of a second. Golf is at all times a game calling for a remarkable degree of mechanical accuracy, but it is obviously asking, even of the most perfect player, far too much when we request that he shall, by the action of his hands and wrists, regulate the loft of his club in an impact which lasts for such an extremely short time. We must remember that if the shot were played as Vardon describes it, the loft of the club face is continually changing during, let us say, the foot before it gets to the ball and the foot after it has passed it.
The whole idea of the stroke in golf, in so far as regards loft, ought to be that at the moment of impact the player has nothing whatever to do with the loft, his duty being confined to hitting the ball in a certain way and allowing the loft to do its own work, and to take the angle at which it will naturally come down, but any attempt consciously to regulate the loft of the club during impact, especially on the lines laid down by Vardon, must inevitably result in disaster. Vardon tells us that at the moment of impact it is necessary that the club face should be turning so that it will be practically overlapping at least the moment after the ball is struck.
His error is by no means an uncommon one. The same thing exists in lawn-tennis in the lifting drive, where about ninety per cent of the players who try the lifting drive under the impression that it is got by a turn over of the wrist, do the turn too soon and founder the ball—in other words, put it into the net. If the pull were to be played in the way Vardon describes it, the result would be exactly the same. The ball would simply be topped or absolutely foundered.
I cannot emphasise too strongly the fact that this turn over of the wrists in the pull has nothing whatever to do with the production of the stroke, although Vardon says that it has. This turn over of the wrists will, if it precedes the moment of impact, ruin the stroke. It must come naturally long after the ball has gone on its way, and it must come not by any voluntary or conscious effort on the part of the player, but as the natural result of the correctly played first portion of the stroke.
In my chapter on "The Flight of the Ball," I shall go more fully into the mechanical principles of the production of the pull. It will be sufficient for me to say here that the pull is produced by an upward, outward, glancing blow, but there must be no attempt whatever to alter the loft of the club at the moment of impact.
In so flatly contradicting such a master of stroke play as Harry Vardon, it may be as well for me to fortify myself by evidence taken from the work and photographs of another famous golfer who was himself originally under the impression that the pull was obtained in this manner, but who has apparently since abandoned this idea. I feel sure that for the great majority of players who know anything whatever of elementary mechanics, it will be unnecessary for me to do this, but there is a vast number of players who are not well acquainted with even simple mechanical problems, and it is for these that I take the trouble to bring forward James Braid to give evidence against this idea of turning over the wrist at the moment of impact.
We must remember that Braid himself has stated in How to Play Golf that the striking of the ball is merely an incident in the travel of the club's head, and we must remember that this book How to Play Golf was written long after the quotation which I am now about to give from Great Golfers at page 175. There James Braid tells us that "in playing for a pulled ball the right wrist turns over at the moment of impact." This is emphatic enough, and Braid here commits himself to the same statement as Vardon does, that is to say, that the right wrist turns over at the moment of impact. This is what I absolutely deny.
It is natural to suppose that Braid's book, Advanced Golf, contains the author's last word with regard to the science of playing the pulled ball, one of the balls, let us remember, which Harry Vardon considers the master stroke in the game. Let us therefore turn to Braid's illustration of playing for a pull in the four photographs following page 78. Braid here fortunately illustrates the actual moment of impact in the pull, and it will be seen on examining his club that it is apparently perfectly soled, that is to say that the club is lying as truly and flatly as it is at the moment of address. This is very important and quite incontrovertible as being Braid's considered opinion, because this stroke is a posed photograph for the purpose of illustrating the impact in the pull. We see quite clearly from this photograph that there is absolutely no turning over of the wrists, but that on the contrary, the right hand is, if anything, well back on the shaft, and showing no sign whatever, as I have already said—not even a symptom—of beginning to turn over. Nor, as a matter of fact, should it do so. The club does not begin to turn over in the manner described until it has reached practically the full extent of its outward swing on the far side of the line of flight.
This photograph is, in itself, quite sufficient evidence to show us that Braid has abandoned his idea with regard to the necessity for turning over the right wrist at the moment of impact in the pull, but it is instructive to note that there is in the whole of Advanced Golf not one word about turning over the wrists at the moment, of impact in the pull, so that we may take it as definitely settled that James Braid has, since the publication of Great Golfers, found out his error in this matter, for, against his one sentence in Great Golfers that "in playing for a pulled ball the right wrist turns over at the moment of impact," we have not only his statement in How to Play Golf that the impact is a mere incident in the travel of the club head, but the still more eloquent fact that in Advanced Golf he says no word whatever in support of this theory, and that he most expressly and emphatically by his own photographs contradicts the idea.
We need not consider what Taylor has to say in connection with the production of the pull, for we see clearly that his idea of both the slice and the pull is that they are merely errors in golf and not to be encouraged.
Let us turn now to a consideration of the slice. The same misconception which is so prominently shown by nearly every writer about golf with regard to the pull obtains also in connection with the slice. This is clearly shown by James Braid in Great Golfers, for following the quotation which I have already given with regard to the pulled ball, he says: "But for a sliced ball I cut a little across the ball, the wrist action being the reverse of that for a pull, viz., the right hand is rather under than over."
PLATE IX.
Braid tells us that for a pulled ball he turns his right wrist over at the moment of impact. Well, as the wrist action for the slice is the reverse of this, it follows that at the moment of impact he turns his right wrist under. This is a very common misconception. It is one which is held by an astonishing number of practical players. Mr. Walter J. Travis in his book on Practical Golf repeatedly makes the error of thinking that this turn under of the wrist has any effect whatever on the stroke, but it is just as great an error to think that this turn under of the wrist has anything to do with the production of the slice, as it is to think that the turning over of the wrist has anything whatever to do with the pull. Both of these actions quite naturally follow the correct production of the strokes referred to.
The slice is an inwardly glancing blow, if anything, with a suspicion of downward action, whereas, as I have already explained, the pull is an outward, upward, glancing blow. There must be no attempt whatever to turn the right wrist under or downward at the moment of playing the slice, as Braid says he does in Great Golfers, although I have not been able to find the same statement in Advanced Golf, where we should naturally expect to see it if Braid still has this idea. The curious thing is that in James Braid's illustrations in Advanced Golf for playing a slice the right hand is much further forward on the club than it is in those showing the grip for the pull; in fact were it not that the stance shows clearly that the photographs are correctly marked, one would be much inclined to think that they had been wrongly entitled. In playing for the slice, Braid's hand is well over the club, whereas in the pull it is almost underneath it. In Advanced Golf this grip for a slice is extremely pronounced, in fact very much more so than in his illustrations of the stance and address for this stroke which he gives in his book How to Play Golf.
The popular misconception about the slice is well instanced by what Harry Vardon has to say in connection with the cut mashie approach. He says at page 129 of The Complete Golfer:
It is also most important that at the instant when ball and club come into contact the blade should be drawn quickly towards the left foot. To do this properly requires not only much dexterity, but most accurate timing, and first attempts are likely to be very clumsy and disappointing, but many of the difficulties will disappear with practice, and when at last some kind of proficiency has been obtained, it will be found that the ball answers in the most obedient manner to the call that is made upon it. It will come down so dead upon the green that it may be chipped up in the air until it is almost directly over the spot at which it is desired to place it.
I have no hesitation whatever in saying that this is absolutely bad golf. In all cases where cut is applied to the golf ball there must be no attempt whatever to introduce anything into the stroke during the period of contact between the ball and the club. I am here dealing with Vardon's statement with regard to the mashie approach, but it is apparent that all cut shots are, in effect, slices, and if one gets the idea into one's mind that the slice is obtained by anything which is done consciously during impact and timed by the player to be done in that space of time, it must militate severely against one's chance of producing a successful shot.
A little farther down on the same page Vardon says:
At the moment of impact the arms should be nearly full length and stiff, and the wrists as stiff as it is possible to make them. I said that the drawing of the blade towards the left foot would have to be done quickly because obviously there is very little time to lose; but it must be done smoothly and evenly, without a jerk, which would upset the whole swing, and if it is begun the smallest fraction of a second too soon the ball will be taken by the toe of the club, and the consequences will not be satisfactory. I have returned to make this the last word about the cut, because it is the essence of the stroke and it calls for what a young player might well regard as an almost hopeless nicety of perfection.
Here it is quite evident that Vardon thinks that the cut on a mashie approach is played by something imported into the stroke during impact, whereas the truth is that the club in a good shot properly played never alters from the line of the arc mapped out by the mind from the very beginning of the stroke. Vardon says that the cut "must be applied smoothly and evenly without a jerk, which would upset the whole swing." It is obvious that if the head of the club has travelled in a certain line down to within a fraction of an inch of the ball, and is then suddenly pulled across the ball, there must be a jerk.
This, however, is not what happens when the stroke is well played. The club face simply passes across the intended line of flight of the ball with the front edge of the sole approximately at a right angle to such intended line of flight, but the club head proceeds across the line in an uninterrupted arc. If what Vardon, Mr. Travis, and many other people lay down, were correct, a drawing of the stroke would show the club head proceeding to the ball in a curve, then a sudden jump inwards towards the player with a continuation approximating to the follow-through of the first half of the stroke, but it is almost needless to say that nothing of this kind takes place either in this modified slice or the true slice at golf, which we shall have to deal with more particularly later on.
Speaking of this shot—the cut mashie stroke—Vardon says: "It will come so dead upon the green that it may be chipped up into the air until it is almost perfectly over the spot at which it is desired to place it."
This may be so. I have played the shot myself repeatedly, and I have repeatedly seen perhaps the greatest master in the world of the cut mashie approach, to wit J. H. Taylor, playing this shot, and there cannot be any doubt whatever that this particular class of mashie approach nearly always gives the ball a considerable run from left to right. This, indeed, is perfectly natural, for one goes right in underneath the ball and gives it a tremendous side roll tending to make it swerve in the air from left to right, and when it strikes the green, to run in the same direction. So pronounced indeed is the swerve and run of this ball that I have seen J. H. Taylor playing at Mid-Surrey when the green was practically completely obstructed by a large tree, play this shot so that it curved round the tree on to the edge of the green and then ran in almost to the pin.
The shot which stops so dead at the hole, as Harry Vardon mentions, must of necessity have much more in the nature of back cut which produces back-spin than has the ball played by the stroke which he describes.
Vardon refers to the pull and the slice as being the master strokes in golf. I have already said that if I had to pick any one stroke which could be called the master stroke in golf, it would be the wind-cheater, and it is open to question if the long plain drive is not entitled to greater respect than either the pull or the slice. Be that as it may, there is in my mind very little doubt about the respective merits of the wind-cheater and the other strokes referred to. The wind-cheater is the ball which is produced with a large amount of back-spin. Harry Vardon describes it at page 105, and he explains that in order to make the push shot perfectly "the sight should be directed to the centre of the ball, and the club should be brought directly on to it (exactly on the spot marked on the diagram, page 170)." I may remark here that the spot shown on the ball at page 170 of The Complete Golfer for a push shot is absolutely above the centre of mass of the ball, and that at page 106 Harry Vardon gives a diagram of "The push shot with the cleek." In this diagram he shows that the face of the cleek at the moment of impact is perpendicular.
It is quite certain that even if one could hit the ball above the centre of its mass with a perpendicular face, it would be impossible to get the ball off the ground in this manner. The push shot with the cleek must be played with loft on the club, and indeed it does not matter what club is used for this shot, there must be loft on the face of the club at the moment of impact if one is to obtain a satisfactory result, and not only must there be loft on the face of the club, but it is a certainty that the impact of the club with the ball must be below the centre of the ball's mass, and not as Vardon shows it at page 170 of The Complete Golfer, above it.
Vardon, for playing this push shot, uses a cleek with a shorter handle and with more loft than his ordinary cleek. This, indeed, is quite natural, for the shot is, in the nature of it, a very straight up and down shot in the line to the hole, and also as it is desirable that the ball shall be hit by the club before the club head has reached the lowest point in its swing, Vardon naturally has his hands forward of the ball at the moment of impact. This, of course, to a certain extent, counteracts the loft of the cleek, but in no case does it counteract it to the extent shown by Vardon in the diagram at page 106 of The Complete Golfer, for were the blow made as shown by these diagrams, it would be a mechanical impossibility to obtain the result described by Vardon.
The reason for keeping the hands forward of the ball is, as I have indicated, that the club head may make impact with the ball before it has reached the bottom of its swing, and Vardon's reason for playing with a club of greater loft than is usually employed is that this greater loft helps to make up for the fact that his hands are forward of the ball at the moment of impact. Playing this stroke with an ordinary cleek would rob the cleek of so much of its loft that the probability is that the flight of the ball would in its initial stages be too low to give a satisfactory result.
Vardon says at page 106: "The diagram on this page shows the passage of the club through the ball as it were, exactly," but the trouble is that it does not show the passage of the club through the ball "as it were, exactly," because at the moment of impact with the ball the club must have sufficient loft on its face to lift the ball, and, moreover, the face of the club must make its first contact at a point at most as high as the centre of the ball, but preferably much lower, so that the force of the blow has an opportunity of exerting itself upwardly through the centre of the ball's mass. Vardon plays this shot perfectly, but he does not describe it as well as he plays it. He says at page 106 of The Complete Golfer:
I may remark that personally I play not only my half cleek stroke, but all my cleek strokes in this way, so much am I devoted to the qualities of flight which are thereby imparted to the ball, and though I do not insist that others should do likewise in all cases, I am certainly of opinion that they are missing something when they do not learn to play the half shot in this manner. The greatest danger they have to fear is that in their too conscious efforts to keep the club clear of the ground until after impact, they will overdo it and simply top the ball, when, of course, there will be no flight at all.
There can be no doubt that this stroke is an extremely valuable one, particularly with the cleek, and it is a stroke which will well repay anyone for the time spent in practising it. There is, indeed, as Vardon says, a great danger of the player topping the ball if he tries to keep too far away from the ground until after the impact, but he must at all costs get out of his mind the idea of hitting the ball where Vardon says it should be hit, viz. above the centre of the ball's mass. This never was golf. It is not golf now, and it never will be golf.
It is almost incredible, but is a fact, that a golf journalist who presumed to say that he knew what was "at the back of his (Harry Vardon's) head" stated in an article in a sporting magazine in London, that this push shot, one of Vardon's most beautiful and accurate strokes, is obtained by thumping the ball on to the earth—in fact that the stroke is almost what one might term a "bump ball," to use the cricket term. Any idea more abhorrent to the true golfer than the notion of producing his finest cleek shots and approach shots by banging the ball on to the earth can hardly be imagined, nor anything more incorrect.
The wind-cheater is an invaluable stroke, but there can be no doubt that it is a stroke calling for a very considerable degree of skill in order to play it perfectly, or indeed very well, and in connection with this matter there was a very peculiar but entirely mistaken idea that for the production of this stroke it was necessary at the moment of impact to turn over both wrists. This idea obtained for years, and notwithstanding my repeated explanations, the deeply rooted notion was persevered in and used in such a manner by many players that it seriously interfered with their game.
Some of the criticism which I had to put up with at the time that I was instructing golfers in these matters was very remarkable. I must give one instance which seems almost incredible. I had explained in the pages of Golf Illustrated, the leading golfing journal of London, how the pull is produced, and I had therein indicated as clearly and decidedly as I now do that it was impossible to produce the pull by the method indicated by Harry Vardon. Mr. A. C. M. Croome, the well-known international player, solemnly asserted in the Morning Post that he had himself seen Harry Vardon produce the shot in the manner which I said was an impossibility, and that in effect an ounce of practice was worth a pound of theory.
I took the trouble to explain that a cinematograph with about 400 pictures, or perhaps a good many less per second, was sufficient to deceive an ordinary man into thinking that he saw a continuous picture. I explained that the camera which took the photographs for my purpose was timed to give an exposure of one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second, and that this was, therefore, at least three times as rapid as the machine which deceives an ordinary man into thinking that he sees a single picture, but notwithstanding that the camera was so tremendously rapid in its exposure, the golf club beats it to such an extent that at the moment of impact the club is represented by a swish of light or movement on the plate, and the ball immediately after impact is represented by something resembling a section of a sperm candle. So extremely rapid is its flight that it is impossible to obtain even by so short an exposure anything resembling clear definition.
I showed clearly that an implement which was moving so fast as to absolutely beat the machine which was three times as fast as the machine which deceived the human being, was not likely to be able to be followed accurately by the human eye unaided in any way whatever. Still, that was the kind of criticism which I had to undergo.
I was told exactly the same thing when I explained that in the push shot there must be no attempt whatever to turn over the wrists at the moment of impact, that in this shot as in all other strokes at golf, there must be no attempt whatever made to interfere with, or alter, during impact, the angle of the loft taken at the time of address, for any such attempt as this must end in trouble.
It was some years after this controversy that Mr. A. C. M. Croome produced a column in the Morning Post entitled "Justice," in which he referred to the matter as follows:
MR. VAILE RIGHT
It is common talk that Sherlock has improved a great deal since he migrated from Oxford to Stoke Poges, and for once common talk is right. His driving, at least when the ground is hard, is distinctly longer than it used to be, but the increased length has not been purchased at the expense of steadiness. The ball still flies from his wooden clubs along a line ruled straight to the hole. Even more valuable to him than the gain in length is the acquisition of all that range of shots which, if correctly played, leave the striker posed with his arms straight out and the back of his right hand uppermost.
A few years ago I, in common with many other misguided golfers, believed that the movement of the right hand was the cause, not the consequence, of correct execution. Consequently a large percentage of the shots attempted to be played in this way went anywhere but to the desired place. We turned the key in the lock too soon. So far as I know Mr. P. A. Vaile was the first publicist to set forth the truth. I have differed from him on many points and found myself unable to follow the more abstruse of his treatises. It is a pleasure to acknowledge a debt to him, and it is a heavy debt, for a misconception of the work done by the right hand in holding the ball up against a left hand wind is fraught with disastrous consequences. Sherlock was performing this feat most exactly on Tuesday and hitting the ball monstrous far with his irons forbye.
I was very pleased to see this statement by Mr. Croome, for several reasons. It was a sportsmanlike acknowledgment of error, and a fine instance of what I call "the detached mind," which is extremely rare in England. The majority of controversialists are too much taken up with the personal aspect of the controversy, to remember that the controversy if it is worth entering upon, must always be of more importance than the controversialists, but beyond this, it is always of importance, especially for one who is in the habit of writing golf, to know the game to the core, for such an one can do much to spread a correct knowledge of the game, and this misconception of the action of the wrists has been responsible for millions of foundered shots.
I cannot help thinking, however, that in Mr. Croome's generous acknowledgment of error, he was, to a certain extent, committing another error, for when he spoke of "all that range of shots, which if correctly played, leave the striker posed with his arms right out and the back of his right hand uppermost" he referred naturally to balls which have been played in the main with back-spin, but a little later on he proceeded to say:
It is a pleasure to acknowledge a debt to him, and it is a heavy debt, for a misconception of the work done by the right hand in holding the ball up against a left hand wind is fraught with disastrous consequences.
Here it will be evident that Mr. Croome is referring to a pulled ball, but at no time when one has obtained a pulled ball by a stroke properly played, will the finish be such as that described by Mr. Croome. The finish described by him is the characteristic finish of the wind-cheater type of ball, but, notwithstanding this, the point is that Mr. Croome has acknowledged the error with regard to the turn over of the wrists; as he very well puts it, "we turned the key in the lock too soon." That very succinctly summarises the matter, and it will be sufficient for our purpose in this chapter.
I must quote again a passage in Mr. Croome's article. He says: "Even more valuable to him than the gain in length is the acquisition of all that range of shots which, if correctly played, leave the striker posed with his arms straight out and the back of the right hand uppermost." This is a somewhat curious sentence. As a matter of fact, anyone who acquires this range of shots will acquire with it extra distance, for the finish, as I have already stated, but cannot state too often or too emphatically, is the characteristic finish of the wind-cheater—a ball which carries the beneficial back-spin of golf, the secret at once of length and direction.
