How to Swing a Golf Club

Being Some Friendly Counsels by the British Open and American Amateur Champion

ROBERT T. JONES, JR.

EDITOR'S NOTE:—Having read, with some little attention, what "Bobby" Jones has written on golf, during the past year or two. Vanity Fair has collected certain theories of his on swinging a golf club. The following article is published here by permission of the author and of the Bell Syndicate, Inc.

ONE may safely say that, as no two human faces are precisely alike, neither are there any two golfing styles that are exactly the same. Rut, unlike as they may appear, all human faces are fundamentally the same. They are all possessed of the same sort and number of features. They differ only in details. Similarly, while no two experts swing their clubs in exactly the same manner, there are still fundamentals which they all alike observe. I believe that among really good players, if we could eliminate the little individual mannerisms and peculiarities, we could strip the golf swing down to a few basic principles upon which all our great golfers are building.

For myself I believe that one of the fundamental maxims for a golfer is, "Stay dowm to the hall". That, perhaps, is a crude way of expressing my meaning hut I believe a person who does "stay down" would have little difficulty in understanding what I mean.

It is the almost universal belief of all good teachers that the left heel, some say both heels, should be firmly planted upon the ground at the moment of impact. That, I believe, is the sounder practice with the irons, for it makes for both compactness and accurate hitting. The foundation is strengthened by just so much. (With the wooden clubs, especially from the tee, I am not certain that it is of such importance.) George Von Elm, who is probably the best iron player among the amateurs, is almost a flat-footed player with his iron clubs. There is, as a result, an amazing economy of footwork, especially after the backswing is completed. Abe Mitchell is another such player. Mitchell appears to he set upon both heels as he strikes the ball.

BUT by "staying down to the ball" I mean considerably more than that the heels should stay down. Watch the head, shoulders, arms; in short, the upper body of any first class player. Watch them hear down upon the hall. And after the impact, watch the hands and club head go through low, and you will understand what it means to stay down to the ball.

Did you ever see a good player make a good shot and finish hack on his right foot? No. You may have seen him, playing a steep uphill lie, fall back upon his right foot after the shot had been made. Rut how many times have you seen the duffer, on the first tee, elevate his head, shoulders, left foot, and everything except the ball, and finish with his weight to the rear and arms pointing skyward? That is the typical swing of the over-a-hundred player. He has no center of gravity, no arc, no foundation for his stroke. If he hits the hall right it is an accident.

Naturally, to swing freely and easily is the all important end to which the efforts of every golfer should he directed. Tense muscles, impeding rather than promoting the progress of the club head, take away materially from the force of the blow, as well as tending to pull or push the club out of its natural and proper path.

There is nothing occult about hitting a golf hall. But the great fault in the average golfer's conception of his stroke is that he considers the shaft of the club a means of transmitting actual physical force to the ball, whereas it is in reality merely the means of imparting velocity to the club head. We would all do better could we only realize that the length of a drive depends not upon the brute force applied, hut upon the speed of the club head. It is a matter of velocity rather than of the physical effort of the kind that bends crowbars and lifts heavy weights.

I like to think of a golf club as a weight attached to my hands by an imponderable medium (to which a string is a close approximation), and I like to feel that I am throwing it at the hall with much the same motion I should use in cracking a whip. By that simile I mean to convey the idea of a supple and lightning-quick action of the wrists, a sort of flailing motion.

IT is obviously impossible to execute the stroke in this manner if the club is grasped tightly in the hands. I have seen numbers of men take hold of a club as though it were a venomous snake and they were in instant peril of being bitten by it. The tight grip necessarily tenses all the muscles of the wrists and forearms so that any degree of flexibility is impossible. The proper grip, above all things, is a light one, merely tight enough to hold the club rather lightly in the fingers.

The objection to trying to hit excessively hard is that the effort defeats the easy flexibility of the swing. It does so because we cannot get away from the conviction that we are moving pianos or shovelling gravel. The tension which ruins the shot is the result of sacrificing speed for force, and even if we meet the hall squarely it does not go so far as an easier and more relaxed swing would send it. Proof of this is found in the fact that when we swing easily in order to stay short of trouble ahead, we often surprise ourselves by going smack into it.

One of the golfer's main difficulties is what might he called the right hand complex. This complex is no respecter of persons, and champions and duffers alike are affected by it. Whenever you see a player (who is apparently going along easily) blow wide open under the strain of a great competition the chances are that the most immediate cause of the detonation is an unruly right hand, a hand which has gotten out of control because of the anxiety and nervousness of the player.

I think I can say truthfully that I am always on guard against a misapplication of right hand power, but that even then it gets me. For a right-handed person it is, of course, perfectly natural to want to do every thing with that hand and it becomes necessary, not to call it in when it is needed, but to keep it out when it is not. The consciousness is of exclusion rather than of use. To my mind the right hand is absolutely useless, except as a steadying factor throughout the entire backswing and nearly half of the down, or hitting stroke. Its first real use comes when it assumes command for the actual delivery of the blow.

Another thing. Nine beginners out of every ten seem irresistibly impelled to lift the club straight from the ball to the shoulder witli the right hand. The straight left arm, the free body-turn, and all the fundamental necessities of the swing go to smash. In reality there is no swing and the golf club might fully as well be a pick-ax. The right hand spoils everything before even a start can be made.

THEN there is another fault, that of allowing the right hand to take hold at the very beginning of the downward stroke. We call it hitting too soon or "hitting from the top" and there is no surer road to disaster. The swing has never a chance to get started in the proper groove and the chances are that the face of the club has been shut so as to smother and hook the shot. In any event, the power has been spent too soon, the wrists have been uncocked before the stored-up energy could be expended upon the ball.

My conception of the golf stroke involves the same principles as throwing a stone. No effort is expended in going back, and the wrist remains cocked until the very instant before the stone is released. The snap of the wrist at that instant is the throw. Similarly, in the golf stroke, the right hand has little to do in going back. In coming down, the arms supply the initial acceleration, but there is little force exerted until just before the impact, when the wrists uncock. The main difference between hitting a golf ball and throwing a stone is that in golf, added to the snap of the wrists, we get the leverage of the right hand going over the left.

There is another fault to which I must draw attention. Some while ago I seemed unable to prevent a smothered hook from nearly every tee, although I could discover nothing wrong with my swing or timing. I finally located the trouble in a quarter where I least expected to find it. The difficulty had been in the right elbow, which insisted upon going up, like the wing of a bird attempting to fly. Once I discovered what I was doing, the way in which the trouble was caused became quite obvious.

If my right elbow went up the natural and inevitable consequence was that my right hand should turn with it. This in turn meant that one of two things must happen. Either the hand would turn the club with it and "shut" the face of the club at the top of the swing (in which position it would remain throughout the stroke) or the hand would turn on the club and the face would be shut when the hands came in normal position to the ball. In either case, the result was the same as if I had addressed the ball with my right hand underneath the club, in the hooking position. The face was bound to be shut at the point of impact.

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The proper place for the right elbow is as close to the side as is possible without the sense of cramping. There is no necessity to hold it tightly in, but no daylight ought to pass under it, at least until the very top of the swing is readied. Even when I am swinging well, my elbow a little leaves my side at the top, but it does so only because it is a characteristic of my style, my hands being very high at the top. To reach this position the elbow must go up a little, but it does so only in the last few' inches. The important thing is that it does not go up with respect to the club, the right forearm remaining in a nearly vertical position.

I doubt if Tommy Armour's elbow leaves bis side at all when he is playing an iron. Hut bis wrists break and the club goes barely over his shoulder. All this gives the appearance of great compactness and is very effective.

It might seem of little importance in what manner we start the swing back, so long as the hitting stroke is in the proper groove. But the backswing is important as a means of getting in position to bit, and if that position is not right we cannot expect to make correction on the way down to the ball.

I have noticed that almost every beginner manifests a desire to "pick the club up from the ball, lie seems to lift it with his hands and arms as though he were trying to hook a fish. The result is that at the top of die swing his body has turned scarcely at all, or, if it has, it has done so entirely independent of the motion of bis arms. He has succeeded in raising his club to the shoulder position hut he has not "swung" it up. There has been no rhythm. For rhythm in the golf swung is an all important feature, and the fundamental conception of rhythm is inseparable from the swinging motion. The club must he swung, in the true sense of the word, and not transported in the more upright arc which we should follow with a pick-handle.

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I will now risk describing how a beginner might go about learning to swing his club.

First, he should address the hall in a perfectly natural position. By that I mean with feet not abnormally far apart; with body only slightly bent forward, with the arms hanging naturally down (not extended too far nor caught in too close), and with the balance so perfect that no sense of strain is felt in any muscle.

Second, he should relax completely. Even a hit of laziness in the attitude is better than too much tension. He should try to stand easily: even to feel as though he were engaged in an ordinary conversation with some friend whom he has met on the street.

The third step is the waggle, and for those who have not cultivated a relaxed swing, the waggle should be full and free, with a very supple wrist action. Too much attention cannot be given to the waggle for it loosens the taut muscles and settles the player more comfortably to the hall. The little adjustments in stance and carriage will be made quite naturally if the muscles are relaxed.

This brings us to the actual start of the backswing and to the point where I shall probably get into trouble with many authorities. I have been called down more than once for saying that the weight of the body shifted during the stroke. Let me, then, in order to be quite safe, confine my attention to the hips alone. Let me say that the hips shift. The rest matters little.

The easiest way to "swing" the club hack, then, is to start the motion with a small lateral shift of the hips. To the beginner, I should advise that this motion be exaggerated at first; that it should be done slowly and in about the following manner:

After the waggle is finished and the club head has been returned to its position behind the hall, shift the hips straight back, parallel to the line of flight (an inch or more) at the same time holding the club so lightly that the head will not leave its position behind the ball as the hands move backward. Then with the same loose grip continue the swing by turning the body and allowing the arms to pull the club along. The idea is that the club head should be the last thing to move instead of the first. It must he dragged away from the hall rather than picked up from it as if it were a dead rat on a stick.

I believe that if the novice can school himself into the conception of that "drag", which literally pulls the club head from the ball, he will have less trouble with slicing and will more easily acquire the knack of correct timing—which is so alien a gift to most beginners. There is nothing like it to give the feeling of relaxation and poise, and its effect can he felt throughout the stroke.

An appearance of laziness and slowness will go far toward eliminating the sense of hurry and anxiety which exerts so many evil effects on all of us.