The Complete Golfer - Harry Vardon (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📗
- Author: Harry Vardon
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PLATE XVIII. DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING WHEN PLAYING FOR A PULL PLATE XVIII. DRIVER AND BRASSY. TOP OF THE SWING WHEN PLAYING FOR A PULL
PLATE XIX. DRIVER AND BRASSY. FINISH WHEN PLAYING FOR A PULL PLATE XIX. DRIVER AND BRASSY. FINISH WHEN PLAYING FOR A PULL
Now there is the pulled ball to consider; for there are times when the making of such a shot is eminently desirable. Resort to a slice may be unsatisfactory, or it may be entirely impossible, and one important factor in this question is that the pulled ball is always much longer than the other, in fact it has always so much length in it that many players in driving in the ordinary way from the tee, and desiring only to go straight down the course, systematically play for a pull and make allowances for it in their direction. Now examine Plate XVII. and the accompanying diagram illustrating the stance for the pull, and see how very materially it differs from those which were adopted for the ordinary drive and that in which a slice was asked for. We have moved right round to the front of the ball. The right heel is on the B line and the toe 4 inches away from it, while the left toe is no less than 21½ inches from this line, and therefore so much in front of the ball. At the same time the line of the stance shows that the player is turned slightly away from the direction in which he proposes to play, the left toe being now only 26½ inches away from the A line, while the right toe is 32 inches distant from it. The obvious result of this stance is that the handle of the club is in front of the ball, and this circumstance must be accentuated by the hands being held even slightly more forward than for an ordinary drive. Now they are held forward in front of the head of the club. In the grip there is another point of difference. It is necessary that in the making of this stroke the right hand should do more work than the left, and therefore the club should be held rather more loosely by the left hand than by its partner. The latter will duly take advantage of this slackness, and will get in just the little extra work that is wanted of it. In the upward swing carry the club head just along the line which it would take for an ordinary drive. The result of all this arrangement, and particularly of the slackness of the left hand and comparative tightness of the right, is that there is a tendency in the downward swing for the face of the club to turn over to some extent, that is, for the top edge of it to be overlapping the bottom edge. This is exactly what is wanted, for, in fact, it is quite necessary that at the moment of impact the right hand should be beginning to turn over in this manner, and if the stroke is to be a success the golfer must see that it does so, but the movement must be made quite smoothly and naturally, for anything in the nature of a jab, such as is common when too desperate efforts are made to turn over an unwilling club, would certainly prove fatal. It follows from what has been happening all the way through, that at the finish of the stroke the right hand, which has matters pretty well its own way, has assumed final ascendancy and is well above the left. Plates XVIII. and XIX. should be carefully examined.
The pulled ball is particularly useful in a cross wind, and this fact leads us naturally to a consideration of the ways and means of playing the long shot with the wooden club to the best advantage when there are winds of various kinds to test the resources of the golfer. Now, however, that this question is raised, I feel it desirable to say without any hesitation that the majority of golfers possess vastly exaggerated notions of the effect of strong cross winds on the flight of their ball. They greatly overestimate the capabilities of a breeze. To judge by their observations on the tee, one concludes that a wind from the left is often sufficient to carry the ball away at an angle of forty-five degrees, and indeed sometimes, when it does take such an exasperating course, and finishes its journey some fifty yards away from the point to which it was desired to despatch it, there is an impatient exclamation from the disappointed golfer, "Confound this wind! Who on earth can play in a hurricane!" or words to that effect. Now I have quite satisfied myself that only a very strong wind indeed will carry a properly driven ball more than a very few yards out of its course, and in proof of this I may say that it is very seldom when I have to deal with a cross wind that I do anything but play straight at the hole without any pulling or slicing or making allowances in any way. If golfers will only bring themselves to ignore the wind, then it in turn will almost entirely ignore their straight ball. When you find your ball at rest the aforementioned forty or fifty yards from the point to which you desired to send it, make up your mind, however unpleasant it may be to do so, that the trouble is due to an unintentional pull or slice, and you may get what consolation you can from the fact that the slightest of these variations from the ordinary drive is seized upon with delight by any wind, and its features exaggerated to an enormous extent. It is quite possible, therefore, that a slice which would have taken the ball only twenty yards from the line when there was no wind, will take it forty yards away with the kind assistance of its friend and ally.
However, I freely admit that there are times when it is advisable to play a fancy shot when there is an excess of wind, and the golfer must judge according to circumstances. Let me give him this piece of advice: very rarely slice as a remedy against a cross wind. Either pull or nothing. If there is a strong wind coming from the right, the immature golfer who has been practising slices argues that this is his chance, and that it is his obvious duty to slice his ball right into the teeth of that wind, so that wind and slice will neutralise each other, and the ball as the result will pursue an even course in the straight line for the flag. A few trials will prove to him that this is a very unsatisfactory business, and after he has convinced himself about it I would recommend him to try pulling the ball and despatching it at once along a line to the right directly against that same wind. When the pull begins to operate, both this and the wind will be working together, and the ball will be carried a much greater length, its straightness depending upon the accuracy of allowance. The diagram explains my meaning. But I reiterate that the ordinary shots are generally the easiest and best with which to get to the hole. The principle of the golfer should be, and I trust is, that he always wants to reach the hole in the simplest and easiest way, with a minimum of doubt and anxiety about any shot which he is called upon to play, and one usually finds that without these fancy shots one comes to the flag as easily as is possible in all the circumstances. Of course I am writing more particularly with the wind in mind, and am not recommending the ordinary shot when there is a tree or a spinny for a stymie, in contradiction to what I have said earlier in this chapter.
However, there is one kind of wind difficulty which it is certainly necessary to deal with by a departure from the ordinary method of play with the driver or the brassy, and that is when the wind is blowing straight up to the player from the hole, threatening to cut off all his distance. Unless measures are taken to prevent it, a head wind of this description certainly does make play extremely difficult, the comparative shortness of the drive making an unduly long approach shot necessary, or even demanding an extra stroke at long holes in order to reach the green. But, fortunately, we have discovered a means of dealing very satisfactorily with these cases. What we want to do is to keep the ball as low down as possible so as to cheat the wind, for the lower the ball the less opportunity has the breeze of getting to work upon it. A combination of two or three methods is found to be the best for obtaining this low turf-skimming ball, which yet has sufficient driving power in it to keep up until it has achieved a good length. Evidently the first thing to do is to make the tee—if it is a tee shot—rather lower than usual—as low as is consistent with safety and a clean stroke. The player should then stand rather more in front of the ball than if he were playing for an ordinary drive, but this forward position should not by any means be so marked as it was in the stance for the pulled drive. A reference to Plate XX. and the diagram will show that now we have the ball exactly half-way between the toes, each toe being twelve inches to the side of the B line, while both are an inch nearer to the ball than was the case when the ordinary drive was being made. But the most important departure that we make from the usual method of play is in the way we hit the ball. So far we have invariably been keeping our gaze fixed on a point just behind it, desiring that the club shall graze the ground and take the ball rather below the centre. But now it is necessary that the ball shall be struck half-way up and before the club touches the turf. Therefore keep the eye steadily fixed upon that point (see the right-hand ball in the small diagram on page 170) and come down exactly on it. This is not an easy thing to do at first; it requires a vast amount of practice to make sure of hitting the ball exactly at the spot indicated, but the stroke when properly made is an excellent and most satisfying one. After striking the ball in this way, the club head should continue
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