GOLF.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 15, 17 January 1914, Page 16

GOLF.

The system of learning to play golf by . reading books and articles, and by°studying the written words of experts, is one in which there are many pitfalls. A cor-1 respondent in a London newspaper <dyes an example of this. He calls attention to the circumstances that almost every authority on the game, including Taylor, Vardon, and Braid, states that the initial movement in the drive is made by the left wrist, and by the left wrist alone. That statement he proceeds appears in their written expositions of the j stroke, but anyone who has ever seem ' the triumvirate play must have noticed that they do nothing of the kind in practice. If it were true it would follow that the first visible motion in the' drive would be the movement of the club-head back and away from the ball immediately after the address. Now watoh any good professional closely and you must notice a mysterious movement indicative of great power and ease before the clubhead has moved. What is this movement? Let us see. Imagine you had to drive a stiff peg into the ground with a sledge hammer, would you begin with your wrists or even your arms? Not a bit of it! You would take your stance and at once get your shoulders into the stroke and let your shoulders swing your arms and the hammer over your bead, and then bang on to the peg with every ounce of weight and strength that j you are capable of. That is how the ! professionals drive from the tee; they get their shoulders into the stroke before the club-bead has moved. Immediately the shoulders have made the initial movement all the rest they have written about the stroke takes place in the order they have so laboriously explained in a hundred manuals. Why all writers on the game should be so unanimous and consistent in ignoring the most important part of the golf swing is a mystery Indeed in this age of precision."