GOLF.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 17981, 26 January 1924, Page 11

GOLF.

PROFESSIONAL GOLFERS IN

1923.

ARTHUR HAVERS AND ABE MITCHELL. (SPECIAIXY TmITTEX POS "THE PBES3.") (By Harry Vardon.) Mr H. Ross Coubrough, who had so much to do with the successful organisation of this season's British open championship at Troon, where he i 3 secretary, provides us every year with, statistics about professional golf. He has just issued his figures for 1923, and they afford interesting matter for analysis. So far as concerns match-play, his tables supply lino tribute to the prowess. of Arthur Havers, the new champion, who has won 41 games, halved 1, and lost only three. Uxiis is as noteworthy a record as anybody has achieved for a very long while indeed; tho solitary serious blemish on it is the dofeat which my companion of boyhood's days .in tho Channel Islands, T. G. Ilenouf, administered to Haver in tho fourth round of tho £750 tournament at Walton Heath in October.

Ilenouf, always a cherry and highspirited soul —his rebukes in French to English long-handicap golfers who came to Jersey in our youth were classics in the way of admonition—set about the clTampion with fine zest and paved his way to tne final by winning at the 20th hole. How desperately near a thing it was can be gauged from the fact that Renouf stood two down at the Bth. If Havers had struggled successfully through that . match, very likely ho would have secured the whole tournament, and then his year's doings would have been without a real defeat.

Good as he is now—a. great natural golfer—l believe Havers will become better. I feel certain that he is handicapping himself by taking bucli big divots in playing iron shots, although lie may consider that the method 6uita him.

1 have seen instances where tho resistance of the tirrf to his determination to slice off a layer of ten or. twelve inches has caused him to lie short. This situation was presented during tho tournament which we played at Sandy Lodge in the autumn. _ Haver 3 is so essentially a born champion that I would just like to see how he fared when practising the principle of talcing the ball cleanly : with his iron clubs — or, at any rate, only grazing the turf instead of getting well into it. I feel confident lie would excel even his present form.

Averages. The statistics for the year's leading stroke-play competitions show that Abt> Mitchell leads the way. His avorage is 73.3 strokes a round for 2'J rounds. And yet, curiously enough, ho has won nothing; „f first-class importance. Hdward Ray comes second with an average of 73.6 for three rounds, followed by Havers with 73.7 for 27 rounds. All these are uncommonly fino figures,, and thoy confirm the impres. sion which most of us have held for a long time—that there is something wrong with the fact that Mitchell has not yet won a championship. It is mnmistakably his turn next. For length combined -with accuracy, ho is surely unequalled as a driver except, perhaps, by James Barnes, of New York. There are many big hitters in the world, but, as a rule, their power overcomes their, control of.direction during one round in about every four or five—in some cases more frequently—and they pay a heavy penalty. It is .very seldom indeed that Mitchell, with all his length of driving, strikes an erratic shot. His body-balance and his back-swing are perfect. Where he differs from most great golfers is in tho fact that he seems to tichten his grit> in a verv pronounced degree immediately he has hit tho ball) thus bringing the follow-through to a quick end. But I. decline to believe a statement which is made frequently: that he tightens his grip just as h£ is about to hit the shot and chenks the follow-through in that way. If he were to do. such a thing to produce as abrupt an end to the swing, he would never drive so far. The tightening must come the instant after the impact. On the comparatively rare occasions when I have seen Mitchell off the line from the tee he has usually been to tho left. In this fact, there, is an indication that his right hand is the master hand, as it is always likely to be in the case of a player who does not favour the overlapping grip-. - Personally, T th'nk there oncht to be no master hand ift golf. The two hands should work in perfect - unison. Almost without exception, teachers of old used' to say when telling pupils how to hit: "Give it the "back of the left hnnd." ProbaW that wps to counteract a tendency for the right to assume control —a natural tendency when the club is held deeply in the palm of that hand rather than in the fingers, as in the overlapping grip. A Successful Compromise.

Although Mitchell does, not actually place the little finger of the right hand over the forefinger of the left—the accepted formula for th-si overlapping way—it seems to me that otherwise the disposition of his hands is the same as that adopted by other leading professionals.

He is often described as a disciple of the old kind of grip, but, that is hardly true. He does not put the right hand under the shaft, as Mr John Ball apd Sand-v Herd do. He gets so near to the modern method that ho achieves it save for the fact that just one finger does not overlap the other. That may give his right hand a slight chance to assume control, because his little finger is exerting pressure da the club instead of held off by the left forefinger. It is the clutch of that right little finger, which often does the mischief by dragging the hand over —and the ckib-faoe with it —at the impact. The proof that Mitchell does not tighten his grip at the impact—as so many people declare he does and as even he is reported to iiave said he does —lies in the fact that '««• holds tho club in this way and .yet seJdom departs from the straight path. He is a |ine iron player, and if only he could recover his form of 1919 on the putting greens, he would 'Be champion at the first opportunity. He Lad just come back from active senvice—and lost all his clubs, too —when he putted so well. Mitchell imparts a remarkable defree of back-spin to his pu'ttu. When e is striking the ball wi'cir supreme confidence, he is successful.. At other times, the ball wobbles off the line. It is an indisputable fact that most of the acknowledged masters of putrting have struck the ball smoothly on the**green rather _than with check-spin. Having clung instinctively _to the latter method, even when trying to avpid it, I have a very poignant, appreciation of this fact.