GOLF

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 8 September 1926, Page 7

GOLF

ERRATIC DRIVING .A SUGGESTION T'OE ITS CUBE (By Harry Yardon, Six limes Open Champion) A correspondent, who informs me tliaL his handicap is 8 asks for advice as to the best way of improving his driving. “[ am tolerably good with (ho iron clubs and the putter” he says “but, very uncertain in the mailer of direction where driving is concerned. One shot goes straight, the next to the left, the next to the right, and so on- Sometimes I feel tempted to play till mv lee-shots with an iron club, which I tint told was •the practice of .Mr Jerome 'leavers, t he former American champion. Do you recommend this?”

It is true, that Mr 1 ravers, who. in his day won bath the amateur and open championships of the United .States, made a, good deal of use of his straight faced iron from the tec, but it is not correct to suggest that he shunned a driver altogether. Still, ten the few occasions when I saw him use such a club iie was not very successful with it in the matter of direction.

Apart from the fact that the individual who constantly takes an iron club on the tee does not look quite what a golfer ought to look, [ doubt whether the policy pays over a long period of years. It promotes a tendency to strain for distance, it has a jarring effect on the joints and muscles and the very monotony of the thing breeds failure after a time. Tt may be successful for a season, but I never beard of a player who maintained efficiency for a long while by means of llie expedient. Even Mr Travers, a great natural bitter and a wonderful putter, bad only a short career in first-class golf.

RELIEF IN THE BRASSIE I recommend mv (•nrresponde.nl lo fry driving with a brassie. On Ibo teeing ground, this club is easier to use than a driver. The slight degree of loft on its face inspires confidence. And often it. is lack of confidence —which naturally arises when a. club is constantly perverse—that causes the trouble. The brassie may entail a. little loss of distance, but I know many players who, by faking to it. have overcome their crookedness in driving. Certainly straightness ought to bo cultivated as the first essential of skilful golf. The player who is renowned for keeping his shots straight is discussed by bis fellows with solemn respect; “A wonderful old fellow!” you will hear them say of a veteran of (his kind. “He can’t drive the ball 180 yards but lie’s never off tlie line.” So it is throughout the whole strata of Lhc golfing community.

The dashing young player, possibly a champion in the making, who hits two or three wildly erratic drives in nearly every round causes ominous shakings of many heads. The young golfer who has the virtue of straight driving seemingly ingrained in him carries the conviction of excellence into the very souls of those who watch him.

Lives there anywhere a player who does not feel aggrieved when, after doing a hole correctly in 4. with a drive, an iron shot, and two putts, he loses it to an opponent who drives into the heather, bangs the ball from there ou to (he green, and then gets down his putt for a 3? Tt is ns fhough something utterly preposterous bad happened, this riding rough-shod over perfection. The man who loses a hole through (Tie utter unorthodoxy of his rival can be curiam of a sympathetic audience wherever be explains the circumstances, and the fell person who wins it in this way never has the effrontery to try to justify his success. Which only shows that, accuracy of direction in golf, like honesty in everyday life, is regarded on all sides as’a crowning quality, no matter how often or in what circumstances somebody gets the better of Hie individual who practices it.

MR TROLLEY’S WAY Rather curiously, Mr C. J. 11. Trolley won his only amatetur championship at a time when he was a decidedly erratic golfer. That was in the season of 1920 at Muirfield. A man who played immediately behind him in the first two or three rounds came in at the end of each round with some such remark as: “I suppose Trolley was beaten? He’s been off the course nearly all the way.” Far from being the case, Mr 'Trolley kept on winning, until he defeated Mr Robert Gardner, of Chicago, in the final. But here is the moral; towards the end lie adopted the expedient of driving with his spoon, the driver having convinced him of its intractableness. Among professionals, Edward Ray is accepted as the arch example of successful golf pursued by devious routes. Professionals are rather more severe critics than amateurs in the case of a man who does the proper figures in an unorthodox way, and Ray knows that, in this respect, he is the despair of some of his rivals. In point of fact, he docs not make nearly so many crooked shots as his reputation imputes, and his methods are in many respects a mode] that anybody might well imitate. But lie certainly can hit some hopelessly wild drives when the spirit moves him, and make some recoveries that border on the impossible. The records of the game prove however, that straightness is a first essential of success. '