GOLF.

Press, Volume LIX, Issue 17721, 24 March 1923, Page 15

GOLF.

A FALLACY. THE STRAIGHT LEFT. (SSECXALLY WBTJTJM JOB "iHS PBBSS.") (By Harry Vardon.) During the past year or two, a great deal has been heard of "the straight left" in golf. It has become something of a fetish. In books of instruction and in personal lessons, players lave been told to be sure and observe the principle of taking the club with a straight left arm. A good many professionals have adopted this phraseology for expressing the manner of taking the club back and among amateurs, it has spread far and wide—aided, perhaps by the fact that it has all the appearance of an aptiori&m presented in simple language. The term "straight loft" is borrowed, I suppose, from boxing, in which it has long been familiar. But However appropriate its use may be for desci'ibing a method of delivering a punch in the ring, I am certain that it does not indicate any method by which one may hope to succeed in delivering a blow successfully at ii golf ball. From time to time, a good many pupils have come to me impressed above all things, with the importance of the straight left theory, and I have felt obliged to tell them that unless Lhey were willing to forget it, it would be useless to try and teach them a'liyLhing about the game. Taken literally—as so many people do <ake it—the principle makes th.3 proper playing of a shot virtually impossible. In the first place it is calculated to make the club-head, at the start of the swing, move away from fcho body and outside the ball. The first necessity of a good shot is that the club- < head shall always move on tho inner side of the ball.

Another point is that repose and perfect ease of the muscles constitute a prime essential of their condition in the pursuit of golf. Never, in any circumstances, should one be conscious of tightening the muscles when playing a shot. They may tighten involuntarily at the instant of impact, but that is another matter. It is the ctimax of the effort; the result of the steady working up from relaxation to applied power.

Three Troublesome Fingers. If you focus your attention on swinging the club back with a straight left, you are nearly sure to make tUat left arm more or less rigid. And if you have it rigid, then you are going to play some very unhappy shots. One of the worst things possible in golf is to grip too tightly with the Jeft' hand, and to set out deliberately to pursue the policy of the straight Jeft is to encourage too firm a hold with the hand in question. The great majority-of golfers would, I am sure, fare very much better ou the links if they were altogether without the last three fingers of the left hand, and could grip only with the thumb and first finger. Those three fingers have the capacity to exercise far more effect than the thumb and fore-fui};er, and they generally Bucceed in exercising it. That is exactly where the /strength is not wanted. In truth, these three frequently overpower the other seven fingers and thumbs, and the resuTt is either that, keeping the club stiff they draw it across the ball to produce a si ice, or that, pulling the right hand oyer, they tarn the 'nose or the club on to the ball, which .is thus inevitably hooked. I know an excellent young golfer .latterly, -has been unable to use the last three fingers of the left hand owing to a dog bite. But he has been going on with the game just the same, gripping only with the thumb and'first' finger so far as concerns the left hand, and has been driving straightor and better than at any previous 6tage in his career. I always recommend my pupils to, holrl the club the more firmly with the right hand, because,. of the two, the left is always the one likely to overpower the other. But you do not want a vice-like grip with either hand, and to this day I say to myself every time I walk up to the ball to prepare for a short "Don't grip too tightly." It is perhaps an absurd' reiteration on the part of a man who has been practising golf for over 30 years, and preaching this doctrine all the while, but the value of observing it is enormous. An Exception.

Personally, I have never seen any really good golfer who plays with a straight left arm. The nearest approach is J. H. Taylor, who, however, is a law unto himself in many matters pertaining to methods. He turns the body less than any other' player of championship rank; he takes the club back in one sweep. But, even in his caso, there is the necessary bend of the left elbow joint before the club reaches the top of his comparatively modest back swing.

Tiie man who faithfully observes this straight left axiom is certain to be muscle-bound long bedore he gets anywhere near the top of the swing. Indeed you cannot properly raise the club half-way without, a bend of the left elbow joint. ■ The golf swing is a movement in four parts. There is the half-turn of the left wrist towards tho body, which turns the face of 'jhe club away from the ball at the start. If the muscles are relaxed, as they should ba, there comes a stage—it happens at about the end of the first quarter of the npswing—when the left elbow bends in order to allow tho club to fall into position behind the head. The beginning of the down swing is a matter of recovering the club from that position without trying to invest it with speed. This operation, in its gentleness and also in its duration, corresponds with the first movement in the upswing. The acceleration of the. club-head begins in earnest when it is about a. quarter of the way down. The person who pays homage to the straight left will never do any of these things correctly.