GOLF TOPICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20597, 23 June 1930, Page 14

GOLF TOPICS.

IMPORTANCE OF[ P.UTTING, SOUND METHODS NECESSARY. THE RIGHT HAND HINGE. BY ARCHIE COJtrSTON. P (Copyright.) • * . . , A short time ago I spent a fortnight in the sports departments of two big stores in the provinces, giving advice to all sorts and conditions of players. And tho thing that struck me most was that out of tne hundreds of anxious seekers after truth who came to me, only twowanted to be told anything about how to putt. Nine out of ton wanted to be told how to lengthen their drive; their whole idea of golf was to be able to knock one clean out of tho ground for six. Now if I had been handing out tho same sort of free advice in a store in tho United States, tho proportion of inquiries would have been just the other way about. Out there they appreciate that no man has any excuse for not being able to pitch and putt moderately woll, and a man who can't play the short game is reckoned a rotten golfer. The importance of putting is shown by the .fact that in first-class golf the. putts account for very nearly half the total number of strokes. If any of the leading professionals could be sure of being consistent in his work on the greens from one end of tho season to another he would burn up the fields. Perhaps tho maa who has come nearest to it is Johnny Farrell, the American open champion, and the result was that a fouple of seasons ago he won seven big open tournaments in a row. P.ub most of us vary in our work on tho green to an extraordinary degree. I count myself as good a putter as most, but there havo been times when I have found my putting touch desert me in the most surprising way and return just as unexpectedly. Course Becord Broken. I remember a year or two ago in tho Gleneagles tournament I had lot myself down rather badly simply through faulty work in holing out. On our way south from Perthshire Moses O'Neill and I had made an engagement to- play in an exhibition match at Dumfries, and I did not expect to do very well. But the greens at Dumfries were wonderfulj .it was like putting on a piece of silk. That day I simply could do nothing wrong, and broke the record of the course with a 63, and though O'Neill was playing very good golf, jind had a 72, ho was beaten pretty hoavily. The truth was that I had been so disgusted with myself before, that when I suddenly found that I had regained my touch on the greens, I swung over to the other extreme, and putted with a confidence that I would give a good deal to be able to command whenever I wanted it. But though the mental factor enters into putting to such au extent, we can go a long way toward ensuring a faildegree of consistency by the adoption of sound methods. The Americans are generally credited with producing better results on the green than our own players, and it is worth noting that among tho Americans you will find a much closer approach to a uniform putting [style than you do, here. They nearly all adopt tho same old square stance with the weight piled on tho left foot, and uso the old Travis grip with all the fingers of the right hand on the club and tho first finger of the left hand overlapping the little finger of the rigl\t. Diegol's Invention. * Leo Diegel some time ago invented a new putting grip with two fingers interlocked, and Johnny Farrell has also adopted this grip. But tho idea in every case is the samo. The left hand pushes the club back.in a straight lino behind tho ball, and the right brings it through again. Leo claims that with his new grip it is easier to do this than with the old Travis "reverse overlap." You will notice a certain amount of variation also as regards the position of the feot adopted by the really good putters. Walter Hagen, for instance, has his feot comparatively far apart, while Bobby Jones and Johnny Farrell both stand fairly upright with theiiJ feet nearly close together. But they are all at one in having tho ball nearly opposite the left foot and the weight piled on tho left leg. One advantage of this is that it acts as a check upon tody movement. 1 think it is sound in long approach putts to allow a slight amount of leg movement, but within easy distance 01 the hole I believe in keeping the body absolutely still. Moving in One Plane. Another feature of the style of the majority of good putters at the present time is that they keep the head of the putter moving in one plane both in the back swing and in coming through. In other words, they keep it moving so that as seen, from above it is travelling all tho time along a straight line drawn through tho ball in the direction of tiio ' hole. Tho face of the club also is .kept at right angles to this line throughout the stroke. The two things, of course, go together. If you allow the toe of the club to turn outwards a3 it swings back you must also have the club-head moving in an arc. which is the method used by many of tho famous putters of tho old school. 1 think that there is a good deal of sense also in the suggestion that it makes it easier to judge whether the club-head is moving in one plane if the player will stand close enough up to his ball v to bring his eye vertically over the line of the putt. Personally, I make my right hand the dominating factor in the putt, playing tho stroke with my right wrist acting as a sort of hinge. But I am content to use tho Vardon grip for the putt just as for tho other strokes, and with this method 1 think I may claim to be just about as consistent a patter as even tho players I have named. I advocate the idea of the two hands working against one another, the left hand pushing the club back in the up-swing, the right hand bringing tho club forward against the resistance of tho left in the downswing. It was tho change over to this stylo that converted Tommy Armour, the Edinburgh ex-amateur who won tho American open championship of 1927, from a rank bad putter into an exceptionally good one, so that there must be something in it. America's Good Putters. One of the things that helps to make tho Americans such good putters is that conditions out there are so much more difficult. The creeping bent which forms the turf of most of their greens has got a nap like the cloth of a billiard Eable, and you have to consider whether the putt has to be played with or against the "grain" of tho green or with the grain on either hand. The result is that tHey havo learned to study the putting problem much moro carefully than we do. Another thing is that 011 their heavier well-watered greens the ball has always got to be kept rolling. A man who played his putts with back-spin could nover got the long ones up to tho hole. To these conditions the stance with the ball opposite tho left foot and the righthanded stroke are especially suitable. But under any conditions they favour the smooth running ball, and that is a style Which, in my opinion, leaves less room for error than any other.