LEFT-HANDERS’ FAILURE

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1935, Page 9

LEFT-HANDERS’ FAILURE

PECULIARITY OF GAME OF GOLF DISCUSSION OF CAUSES AND REMEDY (By “Stance.”) QOLF is a strange game in many ways, and one of these is that it appears to have a “sign” over those who stand on the wrong side of the ball. In nearly every branch, of sport there are lefthanders among the champions. Cricket abounds with them; in tennis Norman Brookes in his heyday stood in a class alone. Babe Ruth, the greatest of all baseball players, was a left-hander, .but at golf no major open title has ever fallen to left-handers.

The rather stiff, stilted swing of the left-hander is all the more curious when it is remembered that left-handed cricketers are almost invariably stylish and graceful players. Take for instance the two great Australians Warren Bardsley and Vernon Ransford. One could not ask for prettier batsmen to watch. Australia has produced two of the best left-handers in the world of golf in H. L. Williams and Len Nettlefold, but even these two are never really consistent and are always liable to hook any long shot. Strange again it is that it is the long shots that bring about the downfall of the left-handed golfer. On and around the greens the left-hander is usually steadiness itself. He appears to experience far less trouble than the average right-hander with short putts, while his approaches are generally straighter. When it comes to hitting the ball hard the left-hander finds more difficulty in keeping his shots along the straight and narrow path. The really long hitters pull while the shorter ones nearly always slice. The teachers of golf have never given any real explanation of the causes, but they never encourage left-hand play.When Len Nettlefold was in England he went to George Duncan for a lesson. Duncan did not know who Nettlefold was. The first tiling he said was that Nettlefold should change over if he ever desired to make good. When he was told that his prospective pupil' was the amateur champion -of Australia Duncan was amazed, but still persisted that he should change over. The writer after a careful study of the problem ‘ feels convinced that real lefthanders are very few and far between; in fact of the golfers at present playing left handed at least 19 of every 20

would do far better if they played the other way. With regard to golf “left-handed”, is a misleading phrase. It means nothing at all. What counts is the hips. A careful study of the majority of left-handers will disclose that the cause of their troubles is an inability to get the left hip through; it appears to become stuck half way in exactly the same manner as does the hip of the ordinary righthander attempting to play a. left-handed shot. Every left-hander whose hip cannot come through easily would be well advised- to change over to right-handed. Again left-handers are not always left-handed; many are super righthanders. One informed “Stance” that it would be: useless him trying to change over as he would’not be able to keep his powerful right hand out of the shot, and he had been told that that would be fatal. It is certainly remarkable how. some pay undue heed to well-meant but wrong advice. With a properly controlled right elbow a powerful right hand is a big asset, not a liability as some would have us believe. If this player could only make up his mind to take the plunge he would be a 50 per cent, better golfer in three months. And his ;s far from an isolated case.

One of these supposedly left-handed players was Alfred Perry, who recently spreadeagle’d the field in the British open championship. From boyhood Perry played left-handed, but recently he changed over with very happy results. Babe Ruth, the great baseball player, was another. . For, years his mighty lefthanded shots thrilled the American fans, but on the golf course poor Babe was all at sea. One day he was persuaded to play right-handed and from that day his play made great strides. To-day he returns cards • in the low seventies.