Bobby Jones on Golf

by Robert Tyre Jones

  The easy, and usually graceful, pose in which the correct golf swing comes to an end is the result of this relaxed swinging. Muscles that have not been tightened in the effort of hitting do not tighten up to stop the club. When the swing has passed through the ball, the work has been done, the impulse is withdrawn, and the momentum of the club simply draws a compliant body around to the finish of the swing.

  If we liken the backswing of a golf club to the extension of a coil spring, or the stretching of a rubber band, I think we shall not be very far off our mark. The greater the extension or stretching, the greater the force of the return. In the golf swing, every inch added to the backward windup, up to the limit at which the balance of the body can be easily maintained, represents additional stored energy available to increase the power of the downswing. It may be possible for the player with a comparatively short windup to make up this difference by an extraordinary hitting effort, but he will never be able to do so without more than a proportionate loss in smoothness and precision.

  It seems to me likely that too much stress has been laid upon the desirability of compactness in the swing, especially when the impression is that such compactness demands an abbreviated stroke. Many players have come to believe that a short backswing, by eliminating some of the body turn, simplifies the stroke to such an extent that grave errors will be avoided. I have always held the contrary view, and am convinced that a great many more shots are spoiled by a swing that is too short than by one that is too long, and this applies in the use of every club, from the driver down to and including the putter.

  The one quality a golf swing must have is smoothness. The acceleration from the top must be gradual, and the motion must be unhurried and free from any sudden or jerky movements. In order to accomplish it in this manner, the club head must have plenty of time to gather speed before it reaches the ball. It is apparent that the longer the arc through which the club travels, the less need there will be for any abnormal expenditure of energy at any one particular instant. The long path affords plenty of space for building up velocity from the zero point at the top to a maximum at the moment the ball is met.

  4 ROLL OF THE LEFT FOOT

  Many players, for one reason or another, form the habit of arriving at the top of the swing with too much of their weight supported by the left leg. This is usually evidenced by the heel of the left foot being firmly planted on the ground at this stage. Not only in such a swing is the player prevented from shifting his hips forward as he begins to unwind, but the necessity of maintaining his balance will always force him to fall back upon his right foot as he swings through.

  The raising of the left heel during the backswing must not be considered to be an end in itself; rather, is it to be looked upon as the result of handling the backward windup of the body in a correct fashion. The body simply turns, with the weight either moving back toward the right foot, or, if enough of it is already there, without any lateral shift whatever, and the heel comes up as the leg action accommodates the turning movement.

  One thing should be emphasized—that there must be no pivoting on the toe of the left foot. The weight supported by this leg at the start of the backswing should be felt to roll across the foot until it is resting upon the inside of the ball of the foot and the great toe. The player who swings his foot around and pirouettes upon his toe until the entire sole of the shoe is exposed to the hole is guilty of a very serious mistake. By doing so, he puts his left leg entirely out of commission and otherwise upsets any possibility of correct body movement.

  5 COCKING THE WRISTS

  In any full swing, correctly performed, the trunk will begin to unwind while the hands and club are still going back. This order of movement has the effect of accomplishing two very important results. First, of course, it causes the hip-turn to lead the downstroke and so makes the power generated by the reverse turn of the body usable in the form of club head momentum. But equally important is the effect of completing the cocking of the wrists. This is accomplished as the wrists give to the pull of the hips in one direction and of the club head moving in the other. As the downstroke begins, one should have the feeling of leaving the club head at the top.

  The habit of maintaining this order in a full swing came to me quite naturally. I suppose if it had not, I should never have reached the stage where I should care enough about golf to worry with it. But for years I was a very poor mashie-niblick player simply because I was inclined to be a bit wooden in my wrists when playing the shorter strokes. The abbreviated backswing was not enough to free me of this restraint. I was getting enough wrist movement to avoid shanking, but not enough to assure the crisp downward blow needed for good pitching.

  An ample cocking of the wrists, and the retention of the greater part of this angle for use in the hitting area is not only important for good timing and increasing the speed of the club head; it is absolutely necessary in order to enable the player to strike downward and so produce backspin. When the angle between the left arm and the shaft of the club becomes open too early in the downstroke, the club head at this point will be too low and the subsequent arc will be too flat.

  6 THE POSITION AT THE TOP

  There is no part of the golf swing that consists of one simple movement. The whole thing is a process of blending, correlating, and harmonizing simple movements until smooth, rhythmic motion is achieved. When actually swinging a club, there is no way to complete the body turn and wrist movement separately, having done with one before the other is commenced. But a simple little exercise can be performed to illustrate the nature of each.

  Let the player grip the club in the manner I have described and address the ball. Then, without moving his body, let him raise the club with his hands and arms until his hands are about opposite his chest and well away from his body, and his wrists are cocked so that the shaft of the club passes over his right shoulder. Then, keeping his eye on the ball and his head steady, let him turn his body about the spine as an axis. When he has accomplished a full turn, he will find himself approximately in the position he would like to reach at the top of his swing. He has executed the two essential movements that are blended in the correct backswing.

  Now there are a number of important things to be watched in the position at the top of the swing. It is possible to write many pages on this phase of the stroke. But the one feature I have in mind now is the one the duffer ignores entirely, and yet it has everything to do with the success of the stroke.

  At the top of the swing the shaft of the club, which for the long shots is in a position approximately in a horizontal plane, should at the same time be pointing to a spot slightly to the right of the object at which the player is aiming. This will be found to be a uniform practice among the best professional golfers. It is the result of swinging the club back to the top, rather than lifting it up as so many beginners do.

  Now, from this position it is important in what manner the club is started downward. The necessary elevation of the hands at the top of the swing draws the right elbow away from the ribs, where it should have remained until the last possible moment. The elbow is not, however, lifted into the air aimlessly; the right forearm should point obliquely, almost vertically, toward the ground and be drawn away from the side only by as much as may be necessary to accommodate a full swing of the club.

  Many players advance this far with fair success; but the next step usually trips them. The almost irresistible impulse now, when all is in readiness to wallop the ball, is to allow the right hand too much freedom. Immediately that unruly member, which has to be watched continually, whips the club over the right shoulder toward the front of the player, whence it must approach the ball from outside the line of flight. Whether a smothered hook or a bad slice results, depends only upon whether the club face is shut or open when it reaches the ball. If anything like a decent shot results, it may be ascribed to pure accident.

  The proper start down from the top position I have described is in the direction in which the grip en
d of the shaft is pointing. Since the head end of the club is pointing slightly to the right of the objective aimed at, the grip end will be directed away from the vertical plane in which the ball rests. In other words, instead of immediately beginning to approach the line of flight as the downward stroke commences, the club head should be made at first to drop away from that line.

  The importance of this movement cannot be overestimated. The right elbow quickly drops back into place close to the side of the body, and the player is in a compact position ready to deliver a blow squarely at the back of the ball. There is no possibility of cutting across the shot.

  So that the action may be visualized more clearly, let us imagine that we are standing directly in front of the player, looking toward him in a direction at right angles to the line of play, that the movement takes place all in one plane, and that we can see only the shaft of the club and the player’s left arm, from the shoulder down.

  At the beginning of the backswing, when the grip upon the club is light and the wrist and forearm relaxed, the motion originated by the turn of the hips and the movement of the arm causes a break in the approximately straight line from the left shoulder to the club head. From our point of observation, this break is toward our left as the hand moves in that direction and the relaxed wrist joint flexes back toward the ball.

  This is the drag so clearly defined in slow-motion pictures, and it is the beginning of the leisurely slinging characteristic of the swings of all good players. As the backswing progresses farther, the club head catches up, passes through a point where the straight line from the shoulder to club head is restored, and continues on in the action that gradually completes the cocking of the wrists. The full amount of this cock is indicated to us when the angle between the straight left arm and the shaft of the club is most acute.

  An interesting point is that apparently it does not make much difference where, within limits, of course, this angle of greatest cock is reached. The player who indulges in a full backswing usually exhibits this angle at its most acute stage at what might be called the top of the backswing just before his arm starts down. But the man with a shorter backswing often diminishes or closes the angle still more after his arms have definitely begun their downward sweep.

  But wherever precisely the maximum cock is obtained, it is important that the angle should not begin to open at the very beginning of the downstroke. Many players, in order to accomplish what they conceive to be the desirable act of throwing the club head at the ball, open this angle too quickly. They arrive at a point where they want to hit, and discover that they have little left to hit with. As soon as the left arm and the shaft of the club are again on a straight line, the wrist-cock has been used up, and only a disastrous rolling of the shoulders can be used in its place. Unquestionably, the increasing speed and momentum of the club must open this angle some, but as much of it as possible ought to be saved for hitting.

  7 SHIFTING THE WEIGHT

  It is my definite opinion that there need be no shifting of weight from left foot to right during the backstroke. I have examined numbers of photographs of the very best players and I have been able to find no case in which such a shifting was perceptible; but there should occur during the hitting stroke a pronounced shift from right to left—a shift that does not follow the club, or pass smoothly along coincident with its progress, but is executed quickly, and leads the arms and club all the way through.

  The more expert players stand almost erect when addressing the ball. Rarely does one see a really first-rate player bend or stoop over the ball. His body curves only very slightly and his weight is equally apportioned to each foot, and, if it is possible, evenly distributed over the area of each. In other words, he stands neither upon his heels nor upon his toes. From this position, the proper body action is purely a turn or pivot with no shifting or sway whatever.

  The downswing or hitting stroke presents another picture. There is a shift here, but there is no sway, and the difference is what the average golfer wants to understand. It is this: the weight shift which is proper is a shift of the hips—a lateral movement of the middle part of the body that does not alter the location of the head and shoulders with respect to the ball; the sway, which is improper, is a forward movement of the entire body, that sends the head and shoulders forward, too, and tends to upset the player’s balance.

  There are two common methods of handling the weight improperly. The more damage is caused by settling most of the weight upon the left foot at the top of the swing; a beginner nearly always has a liking for this. Although we may sometimes overlook the root of the trouble, the result is a familiar sight. The effort of hitting always throws the weight violently back upon the right foot. The player falls away from the ball, his left foot flies up into the air, and his balance is completely lost. The other method, too, we have often seen, when in the backswing the player draws his entire body backward, and finds himself poised at the top with his entire weight upon his right foot and his left leg completely straight. This beginning ends in a despairing lunge that usually carries the ball nowhere.

  If we examine the swings of several golfers, even with the naked eye, it is easy enough to tell whether the weight transference has been a sway or a shift. One characteristic of the proper body action, that is to say, the shift, is that the left leg is straight at and after impact. If you want to know why this is, you have only to look at the line, which marks the left side of the body. It has been lengthened, without lifting the head, by holding the shoulder back while the left hip goes forward. The characteristic of the sway, located again in the left leg, is a decided bend of the left knee in the same area; the entire weight of the body being thrown forward prevents the straightening of the left leg so that either the knee bends or the player falls flat on his face.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1 DEVELOPING A STYLE

  2 THE MOST IMPORTANT MOVEMENT

  3 AN IMPORTANT FAULT

  4 USING THE BODY

  5 HITTING DOWN ON THE BALL

  6 INSIDE-OUT?

  7 USING YOUR LEGS

  8 LOOKING UP

  Starting Down

  CHAPTER FOUR

  1 DEVELOPING A STYLE

  More than fine-spun theories, the average golfer needs something to give him a clearer conception of what he should try to do with the club head. The golf swing is a set or series of movements that must be closely correlated. The smallest change in any one will make a difference in one or more of the others, and although for consistent, high-class performance there can be only a small deviation in any particular, it still is a fact, and always will be so, that there are more ways than one of swinging a golf club effectively.

  I do not intend to argue against the development of a good sound method, but I do believe that this method should be put together with due regard for the requirements and swing preferences of the individual. I think also that before a player should begin to worry about the finer points of form, he should play enough to know what his preferences are.

  When we speak of a sound swing or of good form, we mean nothing more than that the possessor of either has simplified his swing to the point where errors are less likely to creep in, and that he is able consistently to bring his club against the ball in the correct hitting position. We talk, think, and write so much about the details of the stroke that we sometimes lose sight of the one thing that is all-important—hitting the ball. It is conceivable that a person could perform all sorts of contortions and yet bring the club into correct relation to the ball at impact, in which case a good shot must result. The only reason for discussing method and form at all is to find a way to make it easier for the player to achieve this correct relationship. In a crude way, he might do it only occasionally; in a finished, sound, controlled way, he will be able to do it consistently and with assurance.

  Ultraslow motion pictures made by the Professional Golfers Association show one point of comparison of the methods of Harry Vardon and myself that demonstrates how on
e motion or position depends upon another, and how after all, it is only the contact between club and ball that matters. The pictures show that at the instant of impact, Vardon’s hands are perceptibly behind the ball, and that he has whipped the clubhead forward to make contact, whereas at the corresponding instant in my swing, the hands are slightly in front of the ball and the club head is being pulled through. Years of play and experience had told each of us that we must handle the club in this way in order to bring the club face into the correct position; and while we may be thinking of some other part of the stroke, subconsciously, through our sense of touch, we bring the club head around in the way we have learned produces a good shot. The reason for this difference is found in the slightly different positions of our hands on the club, my left hand being slightly more on top of the shaft than Vardon’s. If either should meet the ball in the same way as the other, a bad shot must inevitably result.

  This is the sense every golfer must develop. The beginner ought to keep always before him the determination to put the club against the ball in the correct position. It is not easy when form is lacking, but it is the surest way to cause form to be more easily acquired. The expert player corrects subconsciously; some instantaneous telegraphic system tells him, just as he begins to hit, that something is wrong; and at the last instant a muscle that may not always function perfectly will do so in a sufficient number of cases for it to be well worth its keep.