THE LEFT HEEL IN GOLF.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 15 April 1922, Page 2

THE LEFT HEEL IN GOLF.

ITS IMPORTANCE IN PLAYING THE I MASHIE. (By Abe Mitchell.) One cannot exaggerate the importance of balance in golf. To be able to ' poise the body surely and accurately is one of the secrets of success. It is a gift, a sense, and Ell the best players have it to a very marked extent. We may not keep our heads still, and there may be a distinct swing of the body as ■ the club is taken back, but balance is not lost, and this is why the shots con. ; tinue to be good. Watch Vardon— wo ■ are still justified in taking him as our j model —and you will see how firmly he stands, and how the movement of the body is part of the swing of club. This has always been one of the reasons for his wonderful accuracy. ' It is mainly the little things jn golf which make for real success, for it is sufficient for one of them to go wrong to put the whole movement out of gear. Take the little pitch with the mashie. There are countless players who fail to play this^1 stroke correctly, and in my experience of teaching I have found that the most common error-is due to i the movement of the left heel. For j some quaint reason, gdlfers have a ' strong inclination to lift this heel off the ground in taking the club back, and to neglect to get the foot back on the ground rjefore the ball is hit. The result is that the balance of the body is lost, and the blow, instead of being ' firm, is flabby and the ball stops short, of the green. " You must have the left ; heel on the ground .at the moment of ; 'impact for the shot to be a good one. ; { Consistently good golf is not possible un}ess the balance of the body is pro-. ', served right through the stroke. You ; seei players lurch at the ball and make ! tolerably successful shots, but this only i happens on those rare days when everything seems to connect. (At any rate it is safe to say that they have far ; more bad days than good ones. Some players when called upon to make a | short mashie pitch bend the left knee, ! and so avoid raising the heel from the j ground, but this cramps the swing, and ' I do not commend the stylo. | From my experience, the heel.should be lifted slightly, and those who find , that they do not get it down again in time to make the impact should try, and discover the reason, instead of bending the "knee as a cure for the fault. It may be due to the fact that ' the club is taken up too quickly. This

iis certainly the reason in many cases, j The shot with 'the mashie should b» J very deliberate. Above all. there should ;be no hurry in taking the club up. 1 But because you have gone back quietly, do not come down slowly. You will not get sufficient power in the shot if you do that. The maxim "slow back" ■is all very well, and it is essential, ' perhaps, until the player ga^ns the confidence to hit the ball freely, but in my opinion the speed of the down swing is to a large extent governed by the speed lof the up swing. At any rate the two are very closely related. Thus when the player goes up too slowly he fb apt to hurry the down swing, anc^ undei these conditions there is little chance oi the impact being made accurately. It is the balanced swing which gives the left foot the necessary time to readjust itself and be placed firmly and ready to stand up to the pressure which is exerted. Watch James Braid if you would see ) j how the left foot moves. In his case ,it rises and drops like a flash. Really his foot action is faster than the pace

of the club. It must be so, for the club quickly catches up on the way down, and were the foot not braced to receive the pressure, the balance of the body would be lost. Another reason why play with the mashie is often disappointing is that the blade of the club is not kept open. Indeed, you sometimes see it turned so far^over that the club is really converted into a light iron. It is, of course, only by straightening the blade that abnormal "distance can be obtained. Players will tell you that they can get [as far with the mashie as they can i with the iron. It is not a feat that should ever be boasted about, because ! they are only making the club ser.vie a purpose that wa!s not intended. 1 Golfers, who shut the face of the club always find difficulty in getting the ball up quickly in the short shot. The result is that, with the comparatively I low trajectory produced the ball ru«:> :oh pitching, and they are usually left

with a testing- chip back from the back of tffe green. Indeed, when they have to carry an obstacle and there is not room beyond foF the run that they are bound, to get, they art in a hopeless position. The face of the mashie should always be held wide open, and the loft of the club should be given full scope to operate. It is a difficulty shared by many handicap golfers that . they cannot get the ball to rise quickly. . Usually, as I have said, the defect is the closing of the blade of the club, but there is another. This is the throwing,of the weight of the body on the- left foot as the club comes down. The effect of this is to produce a- smothering blow. I favour what is called the "all air route" with all my shots, and I am what Duncan calls a light leftfooted golfer. I hit the ball up. , Taylor and others hit it down, but they always keep the face of the club open, and in this way produce the loft.