GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 9 August 1930, Page 16 (Supplement)

GOLF

AMERICA’S SIMPLE GOLF SECRET. THE OLD-FASHIONED SWING. (By Harry Varddn.—Special to News.) It js no wonder that for several weeks people have been discussing the question: “What’s wrong with British golf?” The recent overwhelming victory of the United States in the match for the Walker Cup at Sandwich (by far the easiest of the unbroken series of triumphs gained by the Americans in this country) and the fact that Americans have carried off our open championship eight times in the past nine years are sufficient to create the belief that some blight must have overtaken both our amateurs and our professionals. The success ‘of Miss Diana Fishwick in the face of- a great effort by the United States to win the British ladies’ championship is a welcome offset, but it does not lessen our concern' about what is happening in men’s golf. I heard a very - sound judge of the game express the opinion recently that the cause of the trouble is not lack of concentration or the grimly competitive spirit, or any other of the alleged shortcomings which have been paraded in explanation of the fact that our players take more shots than the Americans to ' r>o round a course. He admitted that the Americans have a way of saving strokes which they look like losing; they do it by a deadly, combination ofthe chip amt the putt. But the root of the situation, he declared, lies in a prevalence of rank bad methods in this country, and I think he is right. During receut years our leading golfers, almost without exception, have cultivated the habit of hitting at the ball instead of swinging through it; .The Americans, young at the game and sophisticated in their methods, are basking in the simple glory of having followed the example of early British champions—swingers pure and simple, to whom the striking of the ball was an incident in the process of taking the. clubhead from the top of the swing to its logical conclusion, which was the ' completion of an arc. RHYTHM. To be sure, the arc of the swing was designed, to make the impact effective, but the incident of striking the ball came as-the consequence of a rhythmic movement —not as the result of an alldominating determination to hit at the object. The swing was the complete thing, and, being such,. it. included .the desideratum of a well-struck ball. This is exactly how the ’Americans are ’now playing golf; wheroas ■ our • men* ■ arebanging away with a determination to hit hard and shrewdly, but without an appreciation of the fact that it is the trueness and completeness of the swing That produces tlie "right touch so far as ! concerns both distance .and direction.

Bobby- Jones ,ia -the perfect example of the old-fashioned way. .His up-swing is so slow an- te.look almost lazy. Nor docs he hurry the clul> down from the top; it is only by watching him very

closely as lie strikes the ball that you realise ho'w much he puts his right hipand the Upper' part of his right leg into .the Jmpact. This easily applied' accession of' strength, so natural as ‘to be-difficult to detect,-dies away just as easily in the follow-through. In* a less graceful but none the less c-finite manner, 'the'same trait is to be observed in the other American golfers who have distinguished themselves here. They swing at the ball instead of hitting at it; they are never in a hurry to be °up and doing and finished with the blow.. They stand for a new world, which has absorbed the principles, that obtained in the'old world , when it wfid supreme on" the links, and they have 7 spered by their devotion to; til® early champions. ’ - ' • ■ . HITTING THE PUfT. , The developments in British methods have been so extensive as to enter into the putt as much as into ..the drive. Nowadays everything is a "hit rather than a swing. Take, for example,; the. ways of Mitchell and Duncan. They have - their good days, when the timing of the hit happens to be perfect; but they cannot depend upon producing the effect with the consistency that marks the efforts of a first-class player' who depends upon a swing pure and simple. The putts of Mitchell and Duncan are, to "all intents and purposes, their drives on. a reduced scale. They tap the •: ball instead of swinging through it, and the overwhelming weight of evidence is that this'mere knocking of the object may produce anything, -whereas the rhythm of a swing begets control of strength and direction. ' • Mitchell has been trying desperately hard for some time to attune himself to. the old-fashioned faith. It is good to see him preparing for a putt. He stands at some part of the green more or less remote from his ball, and, with his vision fixed to the ground, passes the head of his putter to and fro over . the grass, as though he were lecturing himself: “Now I must swing- this and -follow through.”- But, alas! When ho comes to play the putt, especially in the--tension of a great occasion, it *is' sometimes the'miniature hit instead o£ the swing that asserts itself. So°far as concerns driving, Mitchell is a law unto himself. He has an absolutely perfect swing, with an knack of stopping the club-head directly he has struck the ball, so that the swin<» is never completed. But this curtailed finish , docs not matter Hn the i drive. By the time 8 that he reaches the ; impact, all that is necessary has been j accomplished. But it seems to matter | more and more as the shots., become shorter. The effect is best exemplified in his putt, where the ingrained habit of a quick stop to the follow-through ap- • pears to promote a hurried and abbreviated back swing—a tendency -against which Mitchell -struggles valiant - . ly. .Y.et. what a great golfer he is in ! every other respect.