SMOOTHNESS AND POWER FOR GOLFERS

Southland Times, Issue 23610, 10 September 1938, Page 15

SMOOTHNESS AND POWER FOR GOLFERS

‘Easy does it in this game, all right.” The speaker was Ellsworth Vines, who happens to be quite a golfer as well as something of a tennis player. I had just hit a tee shot from the tenth hole at East Lake, not a '.“screamer” by any means, but a good one in which I had been conscious of,a smoothness in my hitting which is not now present as often as I should like. His habit of observing form led Vines, in this cryptic way, to describe the quality of this particular stroke which set it apart from most of the others I had made on the preceding nine holes (writes R. T. Jones in the American'magazine Golf)'. Actually, of course, as Vines knows quite well, it not “easy” or soft hitting that puts length on a drive or pace on a tennis ball. Smoothness is the quality which produces the appearance of ease, and it adds to, instead of detracting from, the force with which the face of the club or racket meets the ball. Watching Vines or Fred Perry playing tennis you are impressed by this same quality of smoothness. No matter how hard they may hit, the effort is disguised. The racket merely swings with increasing speed, attained by means of an even acceleration entirely free of any jerk or sudden effort.

In golf, many shots are spoiled by a last-second effort to add just a little

more force to gain a few extra yards. I do not believe in “easy” hitting. We disparage the slugger because, by definition, he is one who hits beyond the limit of his controllable power. But length with accuracy will be disparaged only by the envious—and one must hit hard to get length. The trouble is that the effort to add more at the last instant impedes rather than aids the stroke. Muscles tensed in making this sudden effort must hold the clubhead back. I like very much the conception of a free-travelling club-head at impact. This implies that the golfer will consider that it is his job merely to swing the club. By means of a full wind-up during the back-swing of trunk, arms and hands, and of the use in proper order of the sources of power in this wind-up, he will build his club-head speed to a maximum before impact. Having done so, his job is done. The club-head is now released to strike the ball.

The difficulty in applying this conception is in acquiring sufficient confidence in the swing to resist the impulse to try to make a last-instant correction or addition on the ball itself. It is in this way that the muchadvertised malady of steering manifests itself. STEERING MAY BE COSTLY I believe most sincerely that the impulse to steer, born of anxiety, is accountable for almost every really bad shot made by a top-notch golfer. If such a player might become able totally to subdue this impulse so that in making every stroke he would be willing to trust his swing and the habits of years of correct hitting, I think he should rarely ever have a bad round. For the average golfer it is no less important. The sad fact is that no amount of steering can possibly do any good. And it may serve to magnify errors. For him the best illustrations of the efficacy of a free-travel-ling club-head can be had in recollections of those shots he has played in a care-free way when he was merely trying to knock his ball up short of some hazard he could not carry. He will remember wondering at how well he hit them..