The Soul of Golf

[Dark Saint Alaick]

When one writes of the soul of golf it sounds almost as though one
were guilty of a little sentimentality. As a matter of fact, it is the
most thorough practice which leads one to the soul of golf. Many a
good professional can produce beautiful shots, such as the
wind-cheater and the pull at will, but he cannot explain them to you;
and no professional ever has explained clearly in book or elsewhere
what produces these beautiful shots.

A famous professional once asked me quite simply, "How do I play my
push-shot, Mr. Vaile?" I explained the stroke to him. He is as good a
sportsman as he is a golfer, and would be ashamed to pretend to a
knowledge which he has not. When I had told him, he said, "Thank you.
Of course, I can play it all right, but I never could understand why
it went like that. Now I shall be able to explain it better to my
pupils."

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Now it may in some measure sound incongruous, but I repeat that unless
one knows the mechanics of golf one has missed the soul of the game.
It is simply an impossibility for the blind ball-smiter to get such
joy and gratification from his game as does the man who from his
superior knowledge has produced results which are in themselves worth
losing the game for. Many a golfer, or one who would like to be a
golfer, will wonder at this. Many a game at billiards has been lost
for the poetry of a fascinating cannon when the win was not the main
object of the game; but in this respect billiards and golf are not
alike. One is not, in golf, penalised for putting the soul and the
poetry of the game into his shots, for they come of practice, and
simply render one's strokes more perfect than they would otherwise be.
So in the end it will be found that he who knows the game most
thoroughly will have an undoubted advantage.

Therefore it behoves every golfer to strive for the soul of golf.

And now, as we must for a little while leave the soul of golf, let us
consider its body, that great solid, visible portion which is the part
that appeals most forcibly to the ordinary golfer. It is this to which
the attention of players and writers has been most assiduously
directed for centuries, yet it is safe to say that no game in the
whole realm of sport has been so miswritten and unwritten as golf.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

This is very strange, for probably there is no other game that is so
canvassed and discussed by its followers. The reason may possibly be
found in the fact that golfers are a most conservative class of
people, and that they follow wonderfully the line of thought laid down
for them by others. This at its best is uninteresting; at its worst
most pernicious.

Another contributing cause is the manner in which books on sport are
now produced. A great name, an enterprising publisher, and a
hack-writer are all that are now required. The consequence is that the
market is flooded with books ostensibly by leading exponents of the
different sports, but which are, in many cases, written by men who
know little or nothing of the subject they are dealing with. The
natural result is that the great players suffer severely in
"translation," and their names are frequently associated with quite
stupid statements,--statements so foolish that one, knowing how these
things are done, refrains from criticising them as they deserve, from
sympathy with the unfortunate alleged author, who is probably a very
good fellow, and quite innocent of the fact that the nonsense alleged
to be his knowledge is ruining or retarding the game of many people.
This is a most unscrupulous practice, which should be exposed and
severely condemned, for it must not be thought that it is confined to
any one branch of sport.

While we are dealing with the slavish following of the alleged thought
of the leading golfers of the world, we may with advantage consider a
few of the most pronounced fetiches which have been worshipped almost
from time immemorial, fetiches which are the more remarkable in that
they receive mental and theoretical worship only, and are, in actual
practice, most severely despised and disregarded by the best players;
but unfortunately the neophyte worships these fetiches for many years
until he discovers that they are false gods.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Perhaps one of the silliest, and for beginners most disastrous, is the
ridiculous assertion that putters are born, not made. In the book of a
very famous player I find the following words:--

It happens, unfortunately, that concerning one department of
the game that will cause the golfer some anxiety from time to
time, and often more when he is experienced than when he is
not, neither I nor any other player can offer any words of
instruction such as, if closely acted upon, would give the
same successful results as the advice tendered under other
heads ought to do. This is in regard to putting.

Now this idea is promulgated in many books. It is, in my opinion, the
most absolute and pernicious nonsense. The best answer to it is the
fact that the writer of the words was himself one of the worst
putters, but that by careful study and alteration of his defective
methods, he became a first-class performer on the green. Also it will
be obvious to a very mean intelligence that there is no branch of golf
which is so capable of being reduced to a mechanical certainty as is
putting.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The importance of removing this stupid idea will be more fully
appreciated when one remembers that quite half the game of golf is
played on the green, leaving the other half to be distributed among
all the other clubs. It is well to emphasise this. A good score for
almost any eighteen-hole course is 72. The man who can count on
getting down in an average of 2 is a very good putter. Many
professionals would throw away their putters if they were allowed to
consider it down in 2 every time. This gives us 36 for puts. With this
before us we cannot exaggerate the pernicious effect of the false
doctrine which says that putting cannot be taught, that a man must
just let his own individuality have full play, and similar nonsense;
whereas the truth is that one might safely guarantee to convert into
admirable putters many men who, from their conformation and other
characteristics, would be almost hopeless as golfers. I must emphasise
the fact that there is no department of the game which is so important
as putting; there is no department of the game more capable of being
clearly and easily demonstrated by an intelligent teacher; and there
is no department of the game wherein the player may be so nearly
reduced to that machine-like accuracy which is the constant demand,
and no small portion of the charm, of golf.

Another very widely worshipped fetich, which has been much damaged
recently, is the sweep in driving a ball. Trying "to sweep" his ball
away for two hundred yards has reduced many a promising player to
almost a suicidal frame of mind. Fortunately the fallacy soon
exasperates a beginner, and he "says things" and "lets it have it."
Then the much-worshipped "sweep" becomes a hit, sometimes a very
vicious one, and the ball goes away from the club as it was meant to.
It is becoming more widely recognised every day that the golf-drive is
a hit, and a very fine one--when well played.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Perhaps the most pernicious fetich which has for many years held sway
in golf, until recently somewhat damaged, is that the left arm is the
more important of the two--that it, in fact, finds the power for the
drive. Anything more comical is hard to imagine. There is practically
nothing in the whole realm of muscular exertion, from wood-chopping to
golf, wherein both arms are used, that is not dominated by the right,
yet golfers have for generations quietly accepted this fetich, and it
has ruined many a promising player. The votaries of this fetich must
surely find one thing very hard to explain. If we admit, for the sake
of argument, that the left arm is the more important, and that it
really has more power and more influence on the stroke than the right,
can they explain why the left-handed players, who have been provided
by a benevolent providence with so manifest an advantage, tamely
surrender it and convert their left hand into the right-handed
players' right by giving it the lower position on the shaft? If this
idea of the left hand and arm being the more important is correct,
left-handed players would use right-hand clubs and play like a
right-handed player, with the manifest advantage of being provided by
nature with an arm and hand that fall naturally into the most
important position. I think that this consideration of the subject
will give those who put their faith in the fetich of the left,
something to explain.

Almost from time immemorial it has been laid down by golfing writers
that at the top of the swing the golfer must have his weight on his
right leg. A study of the instantaneous photographs of most of the
famous players will show conclusively that this is not correct. It is
expressly laid down that it is fatal to sway, to draw away from one's
ball during the upward swing; the player is specially enjoined on no
account to move his head. A very simple trial will convince any
golfer, even a beginner, that without swaying, without drawing his
head away from the hole, he cannot possibly, if swinging correctly,
put his weight on his right leg, and that at the top of his swing it
must be mainly on his left--and so another well-worn belief goes by
the board.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

So it is with the exaggerated swing which for so many years dominated
the minds of aspiring golfers to such an extent that many of them
thought more of getting the swing than of hitting the ball. It is
slowly but surely going.

The era of new thought in golf has dawned. It will not make the game
less attractive. It will not make it any more exacting, for the higher
knowledge cannot become an obsession. It sinks into a man, and he
scarcely thinks of it as something beyond the ordinary game. It brings
him into closer touch with the best that is in golf. He is able to
obtain more from it than he could before. He is able to do more than
he could formerly, for a man cannot get to the soul of golf except
through the body, and love he not the body with the love of the truest
of true golfers he will never know the soul.

This chapter originally appeared in _The Fortnightly Review_
in the United Kingdom, and in _The North American Review_ in
the United States of America.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

CHAPTER II

THE MYSTERY OF GOLF



There is no such thing as "the mystery of golf." One might reasonably
ask, "If there is no such thing as 'the mystery of golf,' why devote a
chapter to it?" But "the mystery of golf" should really be written
"the mystery of the golfer," for the simple reason that the golfer
himself is responsible for all the mystery in golf--in short, "the
mystery of golf" may briefly be defined as the credulity of the
golfer. Notwithstanding this, at least one enterprising man has
produced a book entirely devoted to elucidating the alleged mystery of
golf, wherein, quite unknown to himself, he proves most clearly and
conclusively the truth of my opening statement in this chapter, that
the mystery of golf is merely the credulity of the golfer; but of that
anon.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

There really is no mystery whatever about the game of golf. It is one
of the simplest of games, but unquestionably it is a game which is
very difficult to play well, a game which demands a high degree of
mechanical accuracy in the production of the various strokes. It is
apparent from the nature of the implements used in the game that this
must be so. All the foolishness of nebulous advice, and all the quaint
excuses which have been gathered together under the head of "the
mystery of golf," are simply weak man's weaker excuses for his want
of intelligence and mechanical accuracy. Until the golfer fully
understands and freely acknowledges this, he is suffering from a very
severe handicap. If, when he addresses his ball, he has firmly
implanted in his mind the idea that he is in the presence of some
awesome mystery, there is very little doubt that he will do his level
best to perform his part in the mystery play.

We do not read anywhere of the mystery of lawn-tennis, the mystery of
cricket, the mystery of marbles, squash racquets, or ping-pong. There
are no mysteries in these games any more than there are in golf, and
the plain fact is that the demand of golf is inexorable. It insists
upon the straight line being followed, and the man who forsakes the
straight line is immediately detected. In no game, perhaps, is the
insistent demand for direction so inexorable as in golf. Perhaps also
in no game is that demand so frequently refused, and, naturally, the
erring golfer wishes to excuse himself. It is useful then for him to
be told of the mysteries of golf--the wonderful mysteries, the
psychological difficulties, the marvellous cerebration, the incredibly
rapid nerve "telegraphing," and the wonderful muscular complications
which take place between the time that he addresses the ball and hits
it, or otherwise.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Now, as a matter of fact, this is all so much balderdash, so much
falseness, so much artificial and indeed almost criminal nonsense. It
would indeed almost seem as if the people who write this kind of stuff
are in league with the greatest players of the world, who write as
instructions for the unfortunate would-be golfer things which they
themselves never dreamed of doing--things which would quite spoil the
wonderful game they play if they did them.

If there may be said to be any mystery whatever about golf, it is
that in such an ancient and simple game there has grown up around it
such a marvellous mass of false teaching, of confused thought, and of
fantastic notions. No game suffers from this false doctrine and
imaginative nonsense to the same extent as does golf. It is
magnificently played. We have here in England the finest exponents of
the game, both amateur and professional, in the world. If those men
played golf as they tell others by their printed works to play it, I
should have another story to tell about their prowess on the links.

Golf, in itself, is quite sufficiently difficult. It is quite
unnecessary to give the golfer, or the would-be golfer, an additional
handicap by instilling it into his mind that golf is any more
mysterious than any other game which is played. The most mysterious
thing about golf is that those who really ought to know most about it
publish broadcast wrong information about the fundamental principles
of the game. Innocent players follow this advice, and not unnaturally
they find it tremendously difficult to make anything like adequate
progress. Naturally, when some one comes along and explains to them in
lengthy articles, or may be in a book, about the psychological
difficulties and terrific complications of golf, they are pleased to
fasten on this stuff as an excuse for their want of success, whereas
in very truth the real explanation lies simply in the fact that they
are violating some of the commonest and simplest laws of mechanics.