Hints on Iron Play in Golf

A Few Friendly Counsels by the British Open and American Amateur Champion

ROBERT T. JONES, JR.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Having read, with some attention, what Bobby Jones has written on golf during the past year or two, we have thought it well to collect certain thoughts of his on iron play, on wooden play, and on putting, and to publish them as three consecutive articles. The following interesting notes have to do with certain problems of iron play. They have been placed in sequence and are here published with the permission of the Bell Syndicate, Inc.

OF recent years there has been considerable discussion concerning the part of the left hand in the golf stroke. There are those who contend that the left hand is the controlling member while others say that the stroke must be two handed. It seems to me that both theories are right, to a certain extent, the apparent difference of opinion resulting from a misunderstanding.

There can be no doubt that the right hand must supply the punch. A purely left handed stroke could result only in a tame, sliding contact with the ball. The crispness of the blow can be derived only from the right hand; and those who champion the left most strongly do not say that it is the dominant factor. I think the left hand and arm should pull the club down until the hands are approximately waist high. The wrists are then still cocked or "broken" and in a position to hit. The right then, by sheer necessity, overcomes the left and drives the club through the ball. Of course, this is all purely conjectural and is intended only as a more or less interesting discussion. Whether or not my theory will bear the test of the tell-tale slow motion camera I do not know. At any rate, it is the feeling I have when playing a shot, and that, after all, is the best guide.

When I am playing a full shot (with wood or iron) I like to feel that I am tugging at the club with my left hand and arm, because, as explained above, there is then no danger that the right will fail to come through; but when the stroke is eased up for any reason, I always have the feeling that I must wait for the club-head to catch up. In other words, I am forced then to think about bringing the right hand around.

LAST year in Florida I tried, in my iron shots, to hit mostly with my left hand and arm. At that time I was playing a moderately open stance—right foot advanced and shoulders turned well toward the hole. Jimmy Donaldson diagnosed my trouble as hitting too quickly from the top of my swing. My right hand was taking command from the very beginning of the stroke with resulting loss of power and control at the moment of impact.

This change worked well on the full shots where the force of the stroke compelled the right hand to come in at the proper moment; but I did not like to play full shots with the irons, and when the strain of competition was upon me my iron play broke down lamentably. It did so because, in playing a half or threequarter stroke, I was not hitting hard enough to bring my right hand around in time to deliver a firm, straightforward blow to the ball.

In our preliminary play in England and in the British Amateur Championship I was making vain efforts to stop the fading iron shots which were carrying my ball always to the right of the green, especially if a left hand cross wind were blowing.

Mr. Harold Hilton then told me that I was "playing across the ball" and Archie Compston made the same observation at Sunningdale. By that time, however, I had given up fighting the fade, and, on the calm days of the qualifying rounds, I had it well under control. At St. Anne's, however, it was windy again and the battle had to be renewed. With what poor success can be seen from the manner in which I played the ninth and thirteenth holes. The ninth was a short hole of I6D yards where the wind was always off the left, and following. In four rounds I was on this green only once from the tee, and on that occasion I improved my good fortune by taking three putts. The thirteenth was a long two-shotter with a strong breeze straight across from left to right. I missed this green, to the right, in every round, and, as the saying is, I missed it "plenty."

STEWART MAIDEN says, and I have reason to respect his judgment, that it is much easier to control the range of a fading iron shot than that of the straight flying type. I am able to assign no reason why this should be true, but I agree that it is. On the other hand, it is easier for me, if the shot is working, to control the direction if I can hit the ball straight at the objective. Of the two cardinal virtues in golf, which is the more important, range or direction? That is a hard question. In my case, under ordinary circumstances I think I should choose direction and take my chances on the range.

A month or so before the Amateur tournament last year I began some experiments with my iron play. I found Stewart Maiden in his shop, not very busy, and induced him to walk down to the first fairway to a point where I could reach the green with my number one iron. I put down a couple of dozen balls, explained to Stewart what I was doing and what I wanted to do, and asked him to watch me hit a few shots. I hit several balls, starting them all straight for the pin and, using my old open stance and left handed stroke, I tried as hard as possible to keep them straight; but they all finished at various distances to the right of the green.

"Now square your shoulders around and pull your right foot back a bit," said Stewart.

I did so.

"Now what?" I asked.

"Knock hell out of it."

I did so and the ball went perfectly straight, dead on the flag. I hit several dozen more shots and they were, on the whole, very satisfactory.

The effect of pulling my right foot back and of squaring my shoulders with the line of. play was to encourage a free turn of the shoulders and hips, to make the club go back in a flatter arc, and to keep the left arm closer in to the body. My chief fault had been a tendency to lift the club up from the address, mainly with my arms, whence, pulling down with my left arm, I was coming onto the ball with the blade slightly open. The freer turn of the body and flatter arc of the swing got rid of the fade.

And that is the other type of iron shot, to my mind the more generally useful of the two. The fading shot, as I have said, is useful at times, due to the position of the hole or other circumstances, but it is a perilous conveyance to ride too often. The old straight forward shot which flies like a rifle bullet dead on the pin is the safest over the long route.

AFTER returning from St. Andrews I ac. quired a large sackful of old balls and selected a quiet spot on one of East Lake's fairways for a daily session of an hour or so with a mashie niblick, a number two iron, and a negro caddie. With my inherent dislike of practice, these were desperate measures indeed; but I am now more than thankful for them. For out there in two days I think I learned more about an iron club than I had been able to digest in five years of hard play.

And yet the thing I learned is so small that it is extremely difficult to describe, and I wonder that I could not have seen it before. I asked Stewart Maiden if he had known it and if so why he had not told me. Characteristically he replied that he thought I had been doing well enough.

Now this change, which helped me to play my irons at Minikahda more satisfactorily than ever before, as I have worked it out, involves simply a change in the position of the right shoulder and arm at the moment when the club is being brought against the ball.

I shall attempt to explain this by showing that the shoulder action which I have always advocated and employed is fundamentally wrong, and I think I can do it without losing myself in a maze of meaningless technicalities.

I am sure that we have all heard—I certainly have had it drummed into me in my younger days—that to strike a ball with underspin, the hands must go through the ball without turning over; that is, with the back of the left hand and the palm of the right upward. To accomplish this without an unconscionable break of the wrists, the right shoulder must go considerably underneath the left. And I have always maintained, mistakenly I now believe, that the shoulders should not operate even nearly in the same horizontal plane, but that, in the hitting stroke, the left shoulder should be uppermost and the right shoulder below.

Working on this theory I have had great difficulty in bringing the club-head up to the ball in a true position, the tendency always being to open the face of the club at impact because the right hand wanted to lag or lay off. Possibly that may account for a life-long habit of turning the toe of the club slightly toward the ball at the address. But that is unimportant.

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What I now believe to be proper in hitting an iron shot consists largely in keeping the right shoulder up and in hitting a crisp blow against the left hand. The effect is this; if the right shoulder is allowed to go under, the little finger side of the left hand is presented to the ball, and there is an appalling tendency on the part of the left elbow to jump out of its proper position close to the ball (a very efficient cause of the dreaded "shank").

Now in keeping the right shoulder up, the left elbow is forced in against the side and the back of the left hand is presented to the ball. The abbreviated finish, after a crisp spanking blow is easy now, whereas, from the old position, it was impossible without seriously straining the left arm.

Of course, this one may go the way of my other pet theories but at least it helped me win a championship and has given me an assurance and accuracy with an iron club wholly unknown to me before.

When approaching the green with an iron there are usually two methods between which the player must choose. Sometimes he has no option but must pitch over a cross-bunker. Ordinarily though, he may pitch or he may run-up and the decision which he makes may be very important.

When you make a choice between the pitch and the run-up, you are not trying to create opportunities for displaying your skill. The only legitimate reason for playing either shot is that it is easier.

That little incident at Toledo, when Vardon played a simple run-up and I half-topped what I intended to be a delicate pitch, affords an excellent illustration of what I mean. If Vardon had mis-hit his run-up the mistake would have meant a difference of only, a few feet and he would still have been on the green, whereas the small error which I made in my pitch sent my ball over the green into a bunker.

The tenth hole at Merion was always interesting to me. During the championship of 1924 the green was exceptionally keen and a ball striking it without sufficient backspin would go over into a difficult bunker beyond.

All the other boys pitched to this green and pitched successfully. But I could never forget w-hat might happen if I failed to nip my ball exactly right so I always played a pitch-andrun and usually got on the green, although possibly not so near the hole as my pitching opponents. At any rate, while I rarely got threes, I seldom took fives, which I might have done frequently if I had pitched.

In choosing between the pitch and the run-up, where there is an election, many things have to be considered.

First, the lie of the ball. Many players (I, for one) cannot pitch accurately with a heavy-lying ball, or with a ball imbedded in clover. In either case the run-up is much simpler and should be played rather than the risk of a bad pitch taken. If the ball is lying cleanly, then pitch if you like.

The condition of the ground in front of the green is most important. I have seen men try persistently to runup on courses where the fairways were not smooth, or where the speed of the fairway was greatly different from that of the green. Of course, such attempts were mere folly. It was impossible to foresee what roll the ball would take. I have a little run-up club, a short approach cleek, in my bag, of which I am very fond. I use it continually in the East and in Great Britain where the fairways are smooth, and fast, but in the South, on Bermuda grass, it never leaves my bag.

It is surprising to me how completely the virtues of my favorite club, the niblic, are overlooked by most golfers, even the good ones. Because the club is designed primarily for a trouble-implement, it has come to be used only in sand-pits and rough grass and is looked upon more as an unwelcome necessity—a weapon of defensive character—rather than as one of the most devastating tools in the birdie-shooter's bag—which it is.

Ordinarily an increased loft upon the club means increasing hardship upon the player, but I think the niblic has compensating advantages which more than make up. It has a very deep face and a very broad sole. The depth of the face makes for a greater margin up and down. With the shallow blade of an ordinary mashie-niblic the shot will fail unless the ball is taken with meticulous accuracy near the lower edge of the blade. The deep face of the niblic will bring off a good shot from any reasonable point on its surface.

I should describe the cause of shanking as a failure to keep the left elbow close in to the body when the ball is being struck. That, in turn,' is caused either by bending the arm too much at the top of the swing or by making the hitting stroke too much of a righthanded affair from start to finish. If the left arm is relaxed too much at the top, the elbow is left in the ideal position to be thrown away from the side, and the only way to prevent its going out is to pull down hard with the left arm.

By assuming the position of address with left arm crooked and left elbow held out from the body, one can see immediately that the socket of the club is the very first thing to be presented to the ball. It is difficult to see how a shank could be avoided.

My own suggestion would be this: try to brush the left trouser-leg with the left hand when you hit the ball. I realize that while that might work very well for me, because I always play with my .hands and arms abnormally close in, it might not work so well in the case of the player with more orthodox style and with the ball farther away.

One of the hardest things a golfer has to do is to curb his stroke and still retain control. It is doubly difficult when, in addition, he must hit with sufficient crispness to impart backspin. It is bound to be a lot simpler to use a more lofted club and hit hard. Then, even if the ball is taken a bit heavy, the natural elevation from the club-face will cause the shot to stop.