AMERICAN GOLF METHODS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19285, 14 April 1928, Page 19

AMERICAN GOLF METHODS.

A PHASE THAT IS WORTH STUDYING. (SPECIALLY WBITTEK FOE THE PRESS.) (By Harry Vardon, Six Times Open Champion.) It is sometimes said that the leading American golfers, especiallj tho ama teurs. possess a rernai'Kable an i of style; that in stance, footwork, restriction of swing to something kss than what we adiiuro as a and manner oi sinking the ba! they are so nearly of uniform pattern as to suggest that they have discovered a standard way o. succeeding at J.e S I do not agree wholly with this view. Mr Bobby Jones stands with his feet very close together, but the characteristic is not marked in the others, while their swings are ot various lengths. There is, however, one detail in which they are noticeably alike, ana which may provide a valuable lesson especially to the young players ot britain. , It is the smooth, measured, symmetrical way in which they take the club to the top of the swing. Their younger representatives, such as Mr Joties, Mr Watts Gunn, Mr Roland Mackenzie, Mr Jess Sweetser, Mr Jesse Guilford, and Mr George Von Elm, possess this trait in no less a degree than the comparative veterans as, for instance, Mr Robert Gardner, Mr Francis Ouimet, and Mr Chick Evans. Among many players of the rising generation in this country there is an impulse whiqh produces a quick back swing too. quick, in the opinion of most people who have studied the art of golf. Possibly it is a predisposition born of national .temperament. II is the same among professionals (who are impelled to make a deep study of the methods that lead to success by the fact that their livelihood depends upon the game) as where amateurs are concerned.

The first point that struck the observer when watching Aubrey Boomer, of Paris, during his rapid rise two years ago, when he won several big tournaments in a f<?_w months was that he had reduced the pace of his back swing very appreciably by comparison with the preceding season. He was good enough to say afterwards that he introduced this change as -the result of a little advioo I had given him, and that he knew that he had obtained increased control over his shots. Waiting for the Brake. Boomer is only 30 years of age, so that he discovered the error of his ways in tolerably good time, although he had such natural qualities as a golfer five or. six years ago that his success in a representative lest would have been just as reasonable then as later. • • ' '

Age brings discretion,, and also brings into existence its own inexorable brake against the impetuosity of youth. Even is it conceivable that herein lies the explanation of the fact that the championships of this country have been won very seldom by young players, with their inborn tendency to swing back quickly, whereaß {he championships of the United States—particularly the amateur event —have been secured very largely by golfers of ages ranging from 17 to 23. Whether it is a : cult or an instinct, it is certainly a fact that American players have the characteristic of the slow, easy-flowing up swing. It is equally true that no British champion, with* the possible exception of Mr A. G. Barry when he was 19, has been quick in the back swing. An authority in America who wrote to me after a recent United States amateur championship remarked that, watching the 16 men who qualified for the match-play as they drove off for the, first round'of that stage, he was impressed by the. fact that nearly all of them stood square, with the ball about opposite the left heel. This suggests a practice of introducing "draw," and my informant remarks, indeed, that there was a great' preponderance of drives which flew at a low trajectory and raced forward on alighting in /that way which comes of "draw." Of Mr Jones it can be said that ho does not play the low trajectory drive. He hits the ball up. It has not that touch of starting with a velocity like a shot fired from a rifle which we see, for example, when Abe Mitchell drives; but it maintains its momentum for an astonishingly long while, flying higher and higher without losing,, pace, as though it were on wings, till it dies away rather suddenly. /By the time it does that, it has covered a wondrous distance, and the straightness of its flight is almost invariable. • Changes In the Stance. There are changing fashions in the stance. Thirty or forty years ago, it was considered the correct thing to stand with the left foot slightly in front of the right. The Badminton book ,of golf, one of the early classics of the game, contains illustrations showing this as the proper method, and emphasising it with a completeness which, to modern eyes, looks like a glaring mistake. And yet it was the accepted principle of those days. Later came the «players who popularised the open stance, with the right foot decidSdly in front of the left. . They represented the first great vintage of English golf; they dominated the championships for a long while; and they all stood open. Now, judging by the Americans, the tendency is to adopt a "half-way house" in the square stance. Another feature of the methods of the' United States amateurs is the restriction of their footwork. There is none of that elasticity of tho feet and free play of the ankles which have marked the styles of certain prominent British golfers. Stability of stance is evidently a system of belief in America. Theleft heel has to rise a little from the ground during the up swing, but its movement is slight. Flexibility of the ankles is natural in some people (myself, for example), but there is certainly no need to cultivate it. It •is apt to be a handicap I rather than a help; at any rate, when it exists in pronounced degree.