SWING THE CLUBHEAD ERNEST JONES
"My wording, which he has seen and which I use frequently in teaching, implies the same thing as Ernest Jones's "Swing the club-head," but I somehow feel that the word "swing" refers only to part of the game and to me means no hit at all, whereas I teach "hitting with the right hand past the left, making the club-head do the work. What I have not grasped is his interpretation of how to swing the club-head." Henry Cotton
HARRY VARDON Open Champion 1896 1898 1899 1903.
The Flail The Basic Swing 1988 by Peter Alliss
The Word Swing (1890) By H. G. Hutchinson
"Now what, after all, is the meaning of the word 'swing,' which we have so often had the occasion to use? It has a meaning which it is useful to fully realise.
The upward swing should be slow and even, downward swing even and swift. But though the upward swing should be slow, it should, we have said, be a swing, not a lift. And the essential difference between a swing and a lift, and between a swing and a hit, is this : - that in a swing one is all the while conscious of - one can all the while feel in one's hand - the weighty thing, the head of the club, swinging upward or downward, at the end of the shaft. We are to feel that the weight of the head has its influence upon the movement of the club - we must rather try to follow and be guided by this influence than to interfere with it with our tautened muscle ; for this it is that produces jerkiness, and unevenness, and misses, and disaster.
Encouraging and accelerating the speed of this swinging thing at the end of the club means hard driving, in its true sense - above all, accelerating the pace to its utmost at the moment that the club-head meets the ball. But directly we begin to force the swing out of its harmony - to over-accelerate the pace - from that instant it loses the true character of a swing and becomes a hit, a jerk - and this is 'pressing.
'Festina lente - 'Don't press.' Let the club swing itself through. Help it on, on the path of its swing, all you can, but do not you begin to hit with it. Let it do its work itself, and it will do it well. Interfere with it, and it will be quite adequately avenged.
And now we have finished, immensely, probably, to the student's relief, our didactic treatise upon the normal driving swing."
Reference : 'The Badminton Library of Sports And Pastimes' Edited By His Grace The Duke of Beaufort, K.G. Assisted By Alfred E. T. Watson GOLF, Printed By Spottiswoode And Co., New-Street Square London. GOLF By Horace G. Hutchinson With Contributions By Lord Wellwood, Sir Walter Simpson, Bart., Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, M.P. Andrew Lang, H. S. C. Everard, And Others With Numerous Illustrations By Thomas Hodge And Harry Furniss Second Edition London Longmans, Green, And Co. 1890. Chapter IV Elementary Instruction By H. G. Hutchinson, page 95.
"The operation consists of twisting the body corkscrew like by the aid of the club and arms; not of lurching away from the ball, and then making a hefty lunge at it. That point having been appreciated, let us now consider the operation in detail." Harry Vardon
The Swing Of Harry Vardon (1900) By E. Blackwell
"Harry Vardon is the first man, so far as I am aware, and hitherto the only man, not British born who has won the open championship. We cannot give up all claim to him and announce him as not a true Briton - he is far too good a golfer and too good a fellow for that - but he was not born and bred in Great Britain or in Ireland, but in the Channel Island of Jersey, where he learned to play a remarkably good game of golf.
I am not sure that before he won his first championship most of the golfing world was not disposed to put his brother, Tom, a little before him as a golfer; but Taylor, at all events, knew even then whom he had to fear - Taylor, who had held the championship twice successfully at that time. He played with clubs considerably shorter and considerably lighter than those that are used by the great majority of golfers, and he drove very long balls.
He drove longer balls than Taylor, who is certainly not a short driver, and Taylor has all the appearance of being the stronger man. And he drove longer balls without appearing to force the stroke at all, appearing rather as if he could hit a deal harder if he so pleased, as if he were always playing well within himself, with a good measure of reserve force to be called upon on occasion.
He hit every ball perfectly cleanly, with his club-head always travelling in the right direction. This, and the fact that such force as he did apply was applied at precisely the right moment - this it was that sent his ball flying so far and so straight, and helped him to his championship.
The manner of his beautifully easy swing is very well shown in the accompanying pictures. It is, you will see by the first illustration, not a long swing.
HARRY VARDON AT TOP OF SWING
The club does not come even so far round as to be horizontal behind the back; the arms have not been thrown out far from the body, the right elbow is kept low. By way of compensation the turn of the body is great; the legs, the hips, the feet, all the lower half of the body, have taken a great share, an unusually great share, in the movements.
Seldom will you see any one rising so freely on the toe of the right foot, bending the left knee so much, or even allowing the left shoulder to come so far away under, aided by the turn of the hips. It is in these particulars that Vardon's swing is big, and I should say that if a man knew his common error and his besetting sin to be a too wild swinging with the arms without sufficient movement of the body, too much arm work and arm hitting, too little help from the body turn, an excellent remedy would be for him to study again and again, with purpose of some degree of imitation, the swing of Harry Vardon.
Reference : 'The Book of Golf And Golfers' By Horace G. Hutchinson With Contributions By Miss Amy Pascoe H. H. Hilton, J. H. Taylor, H. J. Whigham And Messrs Sutton & Sons With 72 Portraits New Impression Longmans, Green, And Co. 39 Paternoster Row, London New York And Bombay 1900 All rights reserved First printed in 8vo. April 1899. Reprinted June 1899. Cheaper Edition, small 8vo. February 1900. Chapter V. A Portrait Gallery H. VARDON Mr. E. BLACKWELL, page 110.
Download : 'Chapter V A Portrait Gallery H Vardon By H. G. Hutchinson The Book of Golf And Golfers' By Horace C. Hutchinson And Others 1900.
"If at this moment you stand comfortably with your hands on your hips, toes pointing outwards, and heels about fifteen inches apart, and keeping the head absolutely still, screw the body round at the hips and unscrew it again, you will then have a fair idea of the proper action of the golf swing." Harry Vardon
The Complete Golfer (1905) By Harry Vardon
"Many times I have been strongly advised to write a book on golf, and now I offer a volume to the great and increasing public who are devotees of the game. So far as the instructional part of the book is concerned, I may say that, while I have the needs of the novice constantly in mind, and have endeavoured to the best of my ability to put him on the right road to success, I have also presented the full fruits of my experience in regard to the fine points of the game, so that what I have written may be of advantage to improving golfers of all degrees of skill.
There are some things in golf which cannot be explained in writing, or for that matter of that even by practical demonstration on the links. They come to the golfer only through instinct and experience.
But I am far from believing that, as is so often said, a player can learn next to nothing from a book. If he goes about his golf in the proper manner he can learn very much indeed.
In the course of this volume there are several chapters describing the way in which the various strokes should be played, but I am no believer in learning golf from books alone.
I do not think it likely that the professional teacher who is giving the pupil lessons will disagree with any of the chief points of the methods that I explain, and, read in conjunction with his frequent lessons at the beginning of his golfing career, and later on studied perhaps a little more closely and critically, I have hope that they will prove beneficial.
At all events, as I have already suggested, in the following pages I teach the system which has won Championships for me, and I teach that system only."
Reference : 'The Complete Golfer by Harry Vardon' With Sixty-Six Illustrations, Second Edition, Methuen & Co. London. First published June 1905 Second Edition June 1905. Preface.
Download : Open Champion 1896, 1898, 1899, 1903. American Champion, 1900.
Source: Used under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License, at www.gutenberg.org including Harry Vardon's grip, page 52, and 'on driving and other golf advises'.
Download : 'Anything Can Happen In Golf' Mrs W. Y. Atkinson of Newnan Country Club Georgia, U.S.A., "She got hold of a book by Harry Vardon. She learned golf from the book." By O. B. Keeler, 1921, Courtesy LA84 Foundation.
"I say that the left hand guides and the right hand strikes, and whether he knows it or not I think that every golfer's hands divide the work between them in this way." Tom Vardon
Save Himself From Slicing (1907) By Alex Smith
"I wish that you could see me drive a ball, for then it would be a much simpler thing to explain my management of the right forearm and wrist.
My normal drive is rather low, rising very gradually from the tee. Its direction is to the right of the centre of the course, but during the last portion of its flight it begins to curve in a little and falls straight in line.
In other words, it is a ball with just a touch of pull i.e., a curve to the left.
Alex Smith U.S. Open Champion 1906, 1910
Alex Smith Harry Vardon Edward Ray George Low Baltusrol Golf Club
Under all ordinary circumstances this is the ball that I always try to get, and for the following reasons:
- In the first place, a pulled ball, by virtue of its over-spin, has a much longer run than any other, a manifest advantage.
- Secondly, a pulled ball is the direct opposite of a sliced one, and every golfer knows that a slice invariably means trouble, if it is only loss of distance.
Now, the man who normally tries for a perfectly straight ball is apt to drive a little higher than is good for distance, especially against the wind, and the slightest drawing in of the hands turns the straight ball into a sliced one, by which is meant curving to the right of the true line.
If a man invariably plays for a pull, he may not always get it, but he will, at least, save himself from slicing. If the pull does not come off, the ball either goes perfectly straight, or comes to rest a little to the right of the middle of the course. There is still a respectable distance gained, and the ball is seldom off the fair green. In other words, slicing is the worst of golfing faults, and the one to be avoided most sedulously.
The books enter into learned theories upon the causes of slicing and how to cure it.
I prefer to play for a pull, and so avoid it possibility altogether. Once acquired, the pulled ball is even easier to control than the straight one and, as I have said, it is the longest one that can be driven.
"To pull in moderation, and with any degree of certainty, is an acquisition that any golfer can be proud of. The easiest way of pulling is to turn the right hand over just at the time of striking." Joshua Taylor
Learn How To Pull A Ball (1909) By Harold H. Hilton
"Most of the extraordinary wooden club shots in the game are played by the aid of either a pull or a slice.
Harold H. Hilton
WINNER BRITISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP 1892, 1897
The former is undoubtedly the most useful and serviceable class of stroke to add to a player's repertoire, for the simple reason that it always adds length to a shot, whatever conditions it may be played.
I have not the slightest doubt that many who read these lines will suggest that I have allowed prejudice to prompt me in forming this opinion, simply for the reason that I am what is termed an habitual "hooker" with all manner of wooden clubs and play for what is termed the "draw", perhaps more than any other player living, and probably do so because it is peculiarly adapted both to my natural style and physique.
This latter fact may be true, in fact I personally think that it is, but it may surprise many who have only seen me play in recent years to know that I commenced my career in first-class golf as a player who habitually hit his tee shots with a slight curl on the ball from left to right ; in other words, I played my wooden club shots with a slice, and allowed for that slice.
I had almost forgotten this fact myself until a very well-known Hoylake amateur reminded me of it only the other day, and I had to acknowledge that it was a true bill. He himself does not agree with a pull at all.
Like Taylor, he wants to know what is the matter with the middle of the course, but each man has his own devious methods, and I, for one, have never regretted that circumstances in the shape of a damaged wrist some fifteen years ago forced me to employ unnatural methods to make up for the temporary loss of length due to the injury, and I found the panacea for this loss in what is termed the pull stroke, and I have nursed and nourished it ever since.
I have held a strong view that every player, after he has well passed through the rudimental curriculum of learning to hit the ball on the face of the club, should attempt to learn how to pull a ball, as it will not only add length to his best drives, but he will also find that the half missed and the actual missed ones will travel infinitely farther with a pull than if they sliced or even hit quite straight, and one of the great secrets of success at the game is to make your badly hit shots travel a comparatively long way.
Reference : 'THE SIX HANDICAP GOLFER'S COMPANION' by "Two Of His Kind" With Chapters By HAROLD H. HILTON And H. S. COLT Illustrated From Photographs of JACK WHITE Mills & Boon, Limited 49 Whitcomb Street London, W.C. Published October 1909. Chapter III Scientific Wooden Club Play, By Harold H. Hilton Page 30.
Winner Amateur Championship 1900, 1901, 1911, 1913 (Runner-Up 1891, 1892, 1896), Open Champion 1892, 1897, American Amateur Championship 1911
"Now about that wrist roll. It is applied by adding a little extra pressure with the right hand at impact. Be very careful here, for, as I have said, that roll, if overdone, can be disastrous." Bobby Locke
The Art of Timing (1913) By Joshua Taylor
"The stroke is likened to nothing better than the swish with a cane that takes off the the head of the thistle.
The body does not enter into the shot at all. It simply turns to allow the arms full play. The body is always accessory to the arms, and the instant this is reversed, the fact becomes known by a missed shot.
The only way an absolute beginner can hope to master the preliminary points of the game is by taking lessons from a competent teacher.
No book, however well written, can convey to the lay mind those points so vitally important to the person taking up golf.
Now to resume. The fault that stands out most prominently in driving is that of taking the eye off the ball.
The Quick Flick of the Wrists
I have often been asked why it is the professionals invariably drive further than amateurs, and I have always answered that the professionals are stronger in the wrists.
It is the quick flick of the wrists that gets the ball long, not the sudden heave of the body.
The flick of the wrists commences from the time the club leaves the right shoulder. If the wrists do not start working at once, the time taken for the club to come to the ball is so short that the hands will arrive first, leaving the head of the club behind, with the result that the ball is pushed to the right.
At the Same Moment
The hands and the head of the club should arrive at the ball at exactly at the same moment, that is what is known as the art of timing.
Should the club head arrive first, the fault is that there is too much right hand in the swing, the right hand forces itself over the left hand and the ball is driven into the ground.
The First Principle of Golf
It has been the first principle of golf for years that the hitting of the ball is confined to the arms and wrists alone.
If the arms and wrists are capable of hitting a difficult straight shot without the aid of the body, cannot they be depended to do the same, when asked to pull or slice?
Logic seems to say yes! To pull in moderation, and with any degree of certainty, is an acquisition that any golfer can be proud of. The easiest way of pulling is to turn the right hand over just at the time of striking the ball. This, combined with holding the left elbow closely to the side, will have the effect of putting left-hand "side" on to the ball.
I do not believe in altering the stance for either pulling or slicing, being firmly convinced that a better control is obtained over the direction of flight if the actual work is left entirely to the hands."
Reference : 'THE ART OF GOLF' By JOSHUA TAYLOR With a Chapter on the Evolution of the Bunker, by J. H. TAYLOR, Ex-Champion The Drive The Quick Flick of the Wrists Page 16 Hints On Brassie Play Firm Page 25 For the Ladies Page 125. ILLUSTRATED LONDON T. WERNER LAURIE CLIFFORD'S INN. The photos were taken specially for this book by A. S. Hardy, Esq., a keen golfer, and a member of the Acton Club. The Acton professional was Joshua Taylor, the brother of the great J H Taylor Source : golfsmissinglinks.co.uk
"I once had a lady ask me in all seriousness why it was she could not hit the ball as far as I did. For the moment I was too astonished to answer, and after I had got my breadth I gently informed her that there was some little difference in her seven stone and my thirteen ; but that did not satisfy her, for she informed me that she had always understood strength was not required for golf, and that there must be some secret that we professionals would not impart to anyone. I am afraid I left her at that, for it was no good arguing on a point that was obviously one-sided." Joshua Taylor
Nerve And Control of Nerve (1915) By Jerome D. Travers
"There is no set answer, of course, to the "Secret of Steady Golf" that might always fit in; but I believe there are certain aids and suggestions which will help wonderfully if properly followed out.
In the first place, there are two features of golf which must be considered, above the mere ability of a player to play a certain shot. There are any number who can stand upon a tee in practice, and make shot after shot like a Vardon, Ray, or Taylor.
Jerome D. Travers
But once out in the wear and tear of active competition they are all over the course without a shot left. These two features, mentioned before, are Nerve and Control of Nerve - quite separate and distinct, but entirely too often confused. It not only takes Nerve to win at golf, but in addition the complete control of nerves.
There are men who have raw courage enough to charge a lion's den, but who haven't control of nerves enough to make a three-foot putt in a tight match.
Nerves must be used as something more than the plural of Nerve, as used in the sporting sense. The two are not the same. "But how," asks the duffer, "can I get this control of nerves?"
How do you learn to play a mashie or to putt? For the most part by practice. And that is how one must learn control of nerves - by practising this matter of control just as one practises swinging a club.
Reference : 'THE WINNING SHOT' By Jerome D. Travers And Grantland Rice Illustrated London T. Werner Laurie Ltd. 8 Essex Street, Strand. Chapter IV. The Secret of Steady Golf, Page 86. Open Champion and Four Times Amateur Golf Champion of the United States.
There is one thing that has helped me more in match play than any other factor, and that is to play each shot by itself - to forget what has gone before and think only of the shot immediately before you."We think, talk, and write so much about the details of the stroke that we sometimes lose sight of the thing which is all-important - hitting the ball. It is a matter of well-timed acceleration rather than of physical effort of the kind that bends crow-bars and lifts heavy weights." Bobby Jones
"In thirty-five years of teaching golf to thousands of people from total beginners to national champions, I have found it best to have slightly more weight upon the heels than upon the toes in order to overcome the pull of centrifugal force which is generated by the swing. It is not the force which drives the ball as some golf writers not familiar with mechanics seem to think, but it does pull you off your balance towards the ball and causes you to shank or heel your shots." Seymour Dunn
"This is a good time to distinguish between leverage and centrifugal force. You can hit the ball by employing leverage. The power applied moves in one direction, while the object to which it is applied moves in the opposite direction. A characteristic of centrifugal application of power - i.e. swinging - is its apparent effortlessness. The principle of centrifugal force assures this. There is no strain, as in levering." Ernest Jones
Swinging The Clubhead (1920) By Ernest Jones
Ernest Jones
"When teaching golf, I try to present a picture of a fundamental principle that applies to all golfers. It does not matter to me whether the pupil is a national champion or has never held a golf club. I try to explain exactly what he should try to do, somewhat in this fashion: What you must realize is, as Sir Walter Simpson explained 60 years or so ago, that there is only one categorical imperative in golf, and that is: to hit the ball. There are no minor absolutes. There is only one thing you are allowed to hit the ball with, and that is the head of the club.
So therefore, the object is to use your power to transmit as much force as you are capable of producing into the clubhead. No one can do more than one thing at one time, and golf is no different from anything else.
A swing is one continuous motion, to and fro, backward and forward.
In 1917 I collaborated with Daryn Hammond in a series of articles entitled 'The Essence of the Matter' which became the basis of the book The Golf Swing by Daryn Hammond.
In that, it was pointed out that I was convinced that the golf swing could be readily taught and consistently performed only if it were conceived as one movement, under one control - the hands.
Further, that various members of the body (including the shoulders) were normally anxious to get busy too strenuously and too soon, and that the only way of insuring their working in due co-ordination with the other members of the body, notably the hands and fingers, was to treat them as disastrous leaders, but as wholly admirable followers. The basis of the swing was the proper action of the hands and fingers.
Now, after thirty years of teaching, it has become an axiom that the only way to have control of the motion of the clubhead is through the medium of the hands and fingers.
"Much learning has been devoted to the question whether the golfer's action is a swing or a hit. Most good golfers say it is a swing, but what most good golfers have in mind when they make the shot is to hit. This kind of bewildering inconsistency is rampant in golf. The golfer should picture to himself that he has to hit the ball away with the club-head, and that in order to do this most effectively he must set the club-head moving and keep it moving all the time by hand and finger work." Daryn Hammond & Ernest Jones
"Golf is played by striking the ball with the head of the club. The objective of the player is not to swing the club in a specified manner, nor to execute a series of complicated movements in a prescribed sequence, nor to look pretty while he is doing it, but primarily and essentially to strike the ball with the head of the club so that the ball will perform according to his wishes." Bobby Jones
"It Is Not Centrifugal Force" (1922) By Seymour Dunn
Download : "It has been said that the power which drives a golf ball is centrifugal. It is not centrifugal. It is an accumulation of speed produced by the rotary motion of three levers: the left shoulder, left arm, and club. Centrifugal force is a force proceeding outward from the center of rotary motion. A force which is directed at right angles to the flight of the ball cannot drive the ball." By Seymour DUNN, Original Golf Fundamentals By The Dunns of Musselburgh, Scotland, First published 1922, 1930
"As far as applying power goes, I wish that I had three right hands! On a full shot you want to hit the ball as hard as you can with your right hand. But this is only half the story. If you hit hard with only the right and let the left go to sleep, you will not only lose much valuable power, you will also run into all the errors that result when the right hand overpowers the left. The average golfer's problem is not so much a lack of ability as it is a lack of knowing what he should do. The left is a power hand too." William Benjamin Hogan
Application Of "FLAIL" (1924) By George W. Beldam
"THE Flail is an instrument which was generally used for beating out the ears of corn before more up-to-date methods came into use.
It consisted of two sticks, one longer than the other, which were joined together by leather thongs - here is an illustration :
B was called the hand-staff, and will be referred to as the staff.
C is the thongs, and D the swiple, which was loaded at the end, similar to a golf club, which has lead in the back of the head.
The function of B was to move D by means of C in such a manner that D was flailed on to the ears of corn.
It is obvious that the staff had to stretch the thongs before the swiple could be moved - that is, that any slack had to be taken up first, when the swiple would at once answer to any movement conducted to it by the staff operating on the thongs. If the staff turned round a moving or fixed axis, the swiple would do the same via the thongs - the wrists of the Flail.
There were various methods of using the Flail, all, however, whether big or small movements, had to take into account the thongs.
As space is limited in a booklet it is better to go straight to the point.
Firstly. - It is necessary to make plain what a Flail is, for there are many who have never even heard the name.
Secondly. - It is important to show how "FLAIL" is adapted to the human machinery.
Thirdly. - It is essential to show by demonstration of the photos, that the champion golfer's movements can be interpreted by the application of "FLAIL."
But is was the discovery that Flail is the key to the interpretation of all natural movements - in which the maximum of effect is achieved with the minimum of effort - that led to the use of the very special Ultra-Rapid Camera, in the hope that it would prove beyond doubt that Golf was no exception.
The reader shall judge for himself whether the art of the champion golfers is not disclosed.
The movements governing "FLAIL" are diametrically opposed to most of the teaching on the golfing swing of the past twenty years.
That teaching, so far as the timing or order of the movement was concerned, was : The hands take the club back (with turn or otherwise), and call on the arms, which call on the shoulders, which call on the hips.
Wrists - The Thongs As Applied To Human Machinery
That "FLAIL" movement will be seen to be just the reverse of this. Again, teaching has put the mind on "wrists," with the result that in many players they have become active, viz., supplying the motive power.
In "FLAIL" it is the reverse of this, the wrists supply none of the motive power, and that is why they have been made the thongs, as applied to human machinery.
They are simply the medium by which the muscular effort originating in the Pedestal is translated into speed of the club head."
Reference : 'The World's Champion Golfers Their Art Disclosed By The Ultra-Rapid Camera ARTHUR HAVERS Open Champion, 1923 THE DRIVE. 36 Positions (No. 3 First Series) By George W. Beldam Author of "Great Golfers - Their Methods At A Glance," &c. Price Two Shillings Exclusive Copyright Publication By The Photochrom Co. Ltd London And Tunbridge Wells' New Light On Golf 36 Pictures Revealing The Golf Secrets Of Arthur Havers, 1924.
"The whole anatomy should work as one piece of mechanism, with the club as part and parcel of the human frame." Harry Vardon
The Whip In The Right Place (1933) By Henry Cotton
"It is still only a short time since I decided I could not find equals to my old hickory shafted clubs, with which I had built up my game (such as it is) and with which I had practised all my life.
This is not meant to give the impression that I had not tried steel shafts, but rather that I had not found an efficient substitute in steel shafts for my original hickory ones.
As various new steel shafts came on the market I tried them out carefully, but could not convince myself that they were exactly what I wanted, so I waited and played on with my hickory clubs. I felt, all the time, I was missing something ; I wanted a shaft that was stiff but which had the whip in the right place.
An easy feeling to have but it was a long time before the shaft I wanted appeared, then the True Temper Master step-down shafts completely won me over.
I tried them out at first with badly made heads which were too light or too heavy, or the wrong shape, etc., and it was some time before I found how really near they came to my hickory shafts.
When I had the correct balance and the right heads, I discovered that they possessed also many virtues which my hickory shafts had never possessed. I found, too, that with these shafts I had scarcely any jar, and even the occasional half hit shot seemed to lose its sting before it reached the grip.
I am still trying out various weights, thicknesses of blade, various metals in the heads, in my endeavour to find the ideal combination (of the strength of the shaft and the weight and length) to suit my game. Naturally my experiments are within the stiffer range of the 'Master' shaft, as the medium and whippy grades do not suit my particular style, although they are eminently suitable for many other players.
Steel shafts are easier to play with and have helped the average golfer even more than the terrific improvement made in the qualities of the golf ball."
Reference : 'HINTS on PLAY with STEEL SHAFTS' by HENRY COTTON, including Why I Changed To Steel Shafts, The Address, Starting Back, Starting Down, A Wrist Exercise Published by BRITISH STEEL GOLF SHAFTS LTD., 26 Exchange Street East, Liverpool 2, by whom the Copyright of the text and illustrations is reserved. Circa 1933. Champion, Belgian Open 1934, Italian Open 1936, German Open 1939, French Open 1947. British Open Champion 1934, 1937, 1948.
"It is unfortunately the fact that the majority of golfers who use an overlapping grip entirely miss one of the essential features of this form of grip. What they do not realize is that the very essence of the grip is the dominating part played by the forefinger and thumb of each hand." Daryn Hammond & Ernest Jones
The Forward Press (1934) By Seymour Dunn
"Every player sooner or later develops quite unconsciously a little forward pressing movement just before he starts his back swing. It is a slight tensing of the muscles of the right side of the body against those of the left side. The club is pressed forward and slightly downward against the ground. The most noticeable part of the whole movement is an inward movement of the right knee.
Pupils have often asked me what this movement is and why all good players do it.
It is what psychologists term "motor suggestion", which means a movement made for the purpose of suggesting to the muscles the "feel" of a movement which they are about to engage in, and in which perfect co-ordination is required.
It is the mind instructing the muscles of the right side of the body to get ready to deliver a powerful blow. It also instructs the muscles of the left side of the body to get ready to receive the shock of the blow. It suggests to the forearm muscles the feel of the club head and of what they are to do with it in order to strike the ball true with the proper amount of force, and the feel of the exact location of the ball.
It is a preliminary suggestion to the muscles of what the impact will feel like so that they will know what is expected of them and will get ready to do it.
It is as if the mind were saying to the muscles, "Do you feel that? All right, do that when you strike the ball.""
Reference : 'Standardized Golf Instruction Seymour Dunn' Head of Madison Square Garden Golf School New York City Published by Seymour Dunn 307 W. 49th St. New York City, U.S.A. Seymour Dunn Author of "GOLF FUNDAMENTALS" Standardized Golf Instruction In Five Books Book III The Seymour Dunn Orthodox Golf Form The Forward Press Page 94 Copyright 1934 All Rights Reserved.
"It suggests to the forearm muscles the feel of the club head and of what they are to do with it in order to strike the ball true with the proper amount of force, and the feel of the exact location of the ball. It is as if the mind were saying to the muscles, Do you feel that? All right, do that when you strike the ball." Seymour Dunn
Centrifugal Force With Leverage (1937) By Alex Morrison
"The pro and others to whom I confided my intention of taking up golf in a serious way shook their heads doubtfully. Physically, they told me, I was entirely unequal to the task of producing enough power and control in swinging a club to send a ball much farther than the edge of the tee. They pointed to my small hands and thin arms. No punch there.
Of course, they'd be glad to help me, give me what tips they could, but as for playing golf - why not take up some game I could sit down to, something where brawny arms and broad shoulders weren't essentials?
Alex J. Morrison
Point was given to their objections by the fact that I was unsuccessful in learning to play golf by orthodox methods. Yet in spite of my failure and in spite of everything my teachers said, I could not put aside several obvious and to me extremely pertinent facts.
First, I had been able for several years to put considerable steam into a tennis stroke and to bat a baseball as well as other youngsters. Therefore, I reasoned, in my attenuated body must lie power sufficient to propel a golf ball an adequate distance - if only I could find the right combination.
Second, every successful golf stroke, I had seen looked simple, so much so that I felt certain that anything that was so simple in execution certainly must have a simple explanation. All golf instructions I had received, all I had given at this time were in terms of the knees, elbows and wrists; how the player placed and moved them, and what happened as a result of his doing so.
Light first began to dawn on my problem when it occurred to me one day that I was merely confusing the issue, complicating matters hopelessly in trying to cover so many different phases of body action. The obvious and logical first point of attack in analysing the swing was the action of the club and ball.
The more I considered the action of the club, the more I experimented, the more apparent it became that the surest, most certain, the most efficient way of obtaining maximum power in the clubhead at the all-important moment when it strikes the ball came not from a conscious application of "punch" to the club at that moment by any action of the hands, arms or body, but through the clubhead travelling at gradually increased speed as it approached the ball and reaching its maximum speed at the moment of impact.
I recognised this motion. You will recognise it too. Everyone at some time has attached a stone or other weight to a length of cord and whirled it around by revolving the hand. Terrific speed of the weight results from a comparatively slight motion of the hand. And the faster the weight whirls, the truer its path. Furthermore, the weight being whirled will strike any object in its path with great force. This striking force, of course, is proportionate to the speed at which it travels.
A whirling motion of this kind demonstrates the application of centrifugal force - a scientific principle dealing with force directed or tending away from a central point.
Download : Studying The Grip and Wrist Action By Alex J. Morrison, 1935.
Download : Interviewing Alex Morrison By Grantland Rice, The American Golfer, February, 1933.
Download : 'THE TURN OF THE WRISTS' Proving That the Turn or "Snap" Does not Occur Until Well After Impact By ALEX J. MORRISON, Golf Illustrated July, 1922, including "One of the most damaging illusions in a golf stroke is the so-called "snap" or "turn over" of the wrists" Courtesy LA84 Foundation.
And so we can trace the force that propels the club as follows: It "First, the swing is made by a turning movement of the body below the waistline: the body turns and is turned, it does not sway; second, the wrists must be flexible and free, turning with the body, and whipping back into their original position only at the last moment; third, the hands should go out after the ball. Those three things are enough. With practice, confidence will come." J. H. Taylor
Types Of Backswing (1946) By Edward C. Acree
"The important features of the backswing are:
Types of Backswing
FLAT ARC
- used when executing shots which require distance.
SEMI-FLAT ARC
- used when executing shots which require a combination of distance and loft.
UPRIGHT ARC
- used when executing shots which require loft.
The player should not attempt to execute a particular type of backswing.
Usually the arc is determined by the width of stance and the amount of body turn. A wide stance, with a considerable amount of body turn, usually produces a flat arc in the backswing. A stance of medium width, with a medium amount of body turn, usually produces a semi-flat arc in the backswing. A narrow stance, without much body turn, usually produces an upright arc in the backswing.
The intended purpose of the backswing is to get the hands and other parts of the body in a position to supply a sufficient amount of power to propel the ball a required distance. The player should be comfortable and have a good balance at the end of the backswing. It is advisable to test the balance during practice by raising the left foot off the ground and standing on the right foot only."
Reference : 'GOLF Simplified' By Edward C. ACREE In Collaboration With Jock Hutchison and Bill Hutchison Introduction By Charles "Chick" Evans Ziff-Davis Publishing Company Chicago - New York Copyright, 1946, By Ziff-Davis Publishing Company. 3. Mechanics of The Golf Swing Backswing, page 19.
Download : 'GOLF Simplified 3. Mechanics of the Golf Swing BACKSWING 1. Types of backswing By Edward C. ACREE in collaboration with Jock Hutchison, Open Champion, and Bill Hutchison, 1946
"I always call in, when in New York, to see Ernest. I had only a brief chat with him on a recent occasion. Whilst Ernest laughs at the thought of the lever and buffer action being present in the swing I am satisfied it exists. You can go on swinging a club till you are blue in the face and never gain a yard in length unless you work on the 'heart of the swing' - the just before-and-after-impact section." Henry Cotton
Back Of The Left Hand (1947) By Byron Nelson
PLATE 15 - Starting Downswing
"My first move is the beginning of transfer of weight back from my right to my left side.
I am conscious of pulling the club down with the left hip and shoulder.
This leaves my hands ready to their work as the clubhead enters the hitting area.
PLATE 17 - Releasing Hand Power
At the point in the swing pictured here I have the sensation of my right hand trying to catch up with my left.
This is the release of power that gives you clubhead speed.
The only way you can get maximum clubhead speed is through unleashing the full power of your hands as the clubhead enters the "hitting area" - last 20 inches before clubhead impact with ball.
Note that weight is planted firmly on the left foot.
The left hand has not turned (rolled) over, and will not do so during the entire swing.
The back of the left hand is toward your objective all the time your hands are taking the clubhead into the "hitting area" and on through the early stages of the follow-through.
This method increases accuracy and consistency.
Fault Of Rolling Your Wrists
It is a sure cure for the common and disastrous fault of rolling your wrists (turning the left one under and the right over, as the clubhead progresses into the follow-through stage of the swing)."
Reference : 'Winning Golf' Byron Nelson Chapter VI Playing The Woods. MACDONALD and CO. (Publishers) LTD. 19, Ludgate Hill, London, E.C.4 First published 1947 Foreword By Grantland Rice. Masters Tournament Champion, Augusta, Georgia, 1937, 1942. National Open Champion, 1939. Champion Texas Open, 1940. Victory Open Champion, 1946, at Medinah, Chicago.
Set new world record for 72-hole competitive golf tournament by shooting 62-68-63-66 - 259 to win the Seattle Open by 13 strokes, 1945.
Download : 'Winning Golf' Byron Nelson First published 1947 including The Grip, Hitting An Intentional Slice Hitting An Intentional Hook, and Putting.
"It is highly dangerous to put any wrist work at all into any golf shot from a position four feet before impact until four feet after impact. Through this vital eight feet of the swing there should be no wrist-work." Bobby Locke
THE GOLF SECRET (1953) By Dr. H. A. MURRAY, M.D.
"GOLF, as played by the leading professionals of today, is played the correct way, but they have, as a body, failed to tell would-be golfers how to do it. Why?
Presumably because they "know not what they do".
Subsequently, I quote twelve leading players on starting the backswing, and twelve on the forward swing. In each instance they give twelve different versions. Since these two movements are universally admitted to be the very essence of golf, there can be no doubt about the truth of my indictment.
What chance has the unfortunate pupil-golfer of succeeding? Maybe he takes a lesson, or six lessons, or a dozen. He swings, and swings, and swings, until his hands are sore and blistered - which is often due to the loose grip he has been told to use. Still the ball won't go straight, so he reads another book, which probably makes matters worse, because he tries to copy the intermediate positions depicted in the photographs. I have discovered that these intermediate positions - such as the middle of the backswing - are not voluntarily "gone into". To deliberately swing into them will always produce a faulty swing. More of that later.
Our learner will then probably accept a tip from a friend (or from a professional, as I have done on many occasions), which, at the time, appears to help him. But soon another fault appears, requiring further advice.
So it goes on, month after month, year after year, always patching and tinkering.
Regarding golf books - not to mention magazine and newspaper articles - I think during the last eighteen years I must have read almost everyone that has been published, and tried all the many methods therein advocated. Although latterly I have lost faith in golf books, I must admit that I have learnt a lot from them, but chiefly from really studying the photographs, and finding there much that was not pointed out by the authors.
There must be some reason for so much bad golf, and intelligent people's inability to knock a stationary ball in a straight line. It is not lack of enthusiasm, as every golfer - and his wife - knows. There must be something that all professionals do, which they are unable to pass on. Although there are slight differences, and maybe peculiarities, in professionals' set-up and action, they all swing, basically, the same way.
Presumably this is the much talked-of grooved swing. But how is it done?
There are lots of "theories" about golf, but hitherto there has been no real, universal, acceptable "golf theory". Nothing, as there is in other professions, that you could set about learning with the certainty that it was right, and would work.
Producing just that was the task which I set myself. Let me emphasise that that did not entail discovering a new method of playing golf, but merely finding out what the professionals do, and how they do it: avoiding the idiosyncrasies and eccentricities, and finding the "common denominator".
That is what I claim to have done.
I would like to acknowledge my indebtedness to Algy Easterbrook for many inspirations, and also for consenting to write the "Foreword" - "if the manuscript proved acceptable to him".
After reading this book you will be able - in less weeks than it took me years - to "swing in the groove", and knock the ball straight and far, quite easily, with certainty, and without the many "do's" and don'ts" normally required.
You will be able to by-pass the many mistakes which I have made - and practised - during many years, but you will also be deprived of the pleasure of profiting by your mistakes.
Perhaps you would prefer to profit by mine!"
Download : 'The GOLF SECRET' By Dr. H. A. MURRAY Preface by ALGY EASTERBROOK ELLIOT'S RIGHT WAY BOOKS KINGSWOOD SURREY Copyright, A. G. ELLIOT MCMLIII Printed in England by C. Tinling & Co. , Ltd., Liverpool, London, and Prescot "Therefore the LEFT SHOULDER is our sheet anchor. THAT - in a nutshell - is "THE GOLF SECRET".
"Many years ago I asked Charles Ward to tell me the "secret". He replied, "Just hit the ball hard." He won the 1950 Daily Mail Tournament, beating Bobby Locke in the play off!" H. A. MURRAY, M.D.
Relearn My Game (1954) By Bobby Locke
"I am writing this as I convalesce after an operation which is keeping me completely away from golf for two months, and when I get back I shall rehabilitate my game in the way I have described in this book.
In a sense I shall have to relearn my game.
Back To The Right-Hip-High
I shall start with the grip, taking hold of clubs again and again and examining my hands to make sure that they fall naturally into the correct position...
...In the next stage I shall practise the backswing, and for an hour a day during the first week I shall practise the movement back to the right-hip-high and no more, concentrating on seeing that club, hand, arm and shoulder all move back in one piece.
I am now at the position I call 'right-hip-high', in that the hands are in line with the hips.
The club is now definitively moving upwards, and I want to emphasize I do not attempt to start 'breaking' the wrists until I get to this position. In this way I get the widest possible arc, and that automatically gives extra power with less effort. The left shoulder has now turned almost completely towards the ball.
'Inside' The Line of Flight
The club-head is going back 'inside' the line of flight.
From this point onwards the wrists begin to 'break' or 'cock' to allow the club-head to go up and over. Then on cocking the wrists and making certain as I go back that my left shoulder is fully turned and pointing towards the ball at the top of the backswing.
You see that what I have to do is to get acquainted again with the essential fact that there is only one correct hitting position, at the same time making sure there is no backward sway of the body at all and that my chin remains opposite the ball throughout the entire backswing."
On To The Downswing
When I am happy that this has once more become automatic I shall go on to the downswing making sure that the first movement is a slight drag with the left hand.
I shall then unwind my wrists to the hitting position at right-knee-high, doing this time and time again because the natural tendency for me - as it is for anyone who does not play the game regularly - will be to want to hit from the top of the backswing.
Reference : 'Bobby Locke On Golf My Golfing Life How I Play Golf The Psychology of Golf Courses and Players' By Bobby Locke. 1954 Simon And Schuster, New York Copyright, 1953, 1954, By Country Life Limited. First Printing. In order to bring Part One up to date for American publication in 1954, the author has written a final section to "My Golfing Life", covering the events of the golfing year 1953.
Part Two: How I Play Golf, 1. Five Fundamentals, 4. The Backswing, page 82. 5. Downswing to Impact, page 88. 6. The Full Follow-Through, page 90.
"I am now down almost to the "right-knee-high" position with my hands, and this is the hitting position. It is here that the right hand takes possession to square the club-face with the ball at impact. It is utterly wrong to start hitting from the top of the backswing - and by that I mean consciously hitting." Bobby Locke
The Basic Idea (1957) By Cary Middlecoff
"The basic idea in putting together a golf swing is to get one that varies as little as possible from shot to shot, one that can be depended on to produce the same or similar results time after time.
Step "A" in acquiring such a swing is to get a sound grip.
The grip is clearly basic in golf because it provides the only contact between the club and the swinger - you.
The grip largely determines how your hands will function during the swing, and the way your hands function absolutely determines where the ball will go on the shot. In my view, all the other phases of the golf swing are secondary to the function of the hands.
The body movements on the backswing are made for the purpose of getting the hands into the proper position and working in the proper tempo.
The movements of the downswing can be said to be for the purpose of getting the body out of the way so that the hands can follow the proper course.
If a certain hip movement, for instance, causes a slice, it is because that movement makes the hands bring the clubhead into the ball on a wrong line.
Since no two persons have hands exactly alike it is patently impossible to prescribe a single grip that will be suitable for everybody...
Going back to the start of the downswing, this is the place where most golfers err.
"Ladies, as a rule, play more naturally than men. There is, however, a greater tendency to overswing. No doubt they imagine that extra length of the swing will help them get more distance. I recommend them to restrict their swing and to pay more attention to timing their shots. Many lady golfers do not understand the meaning of timing and, as it comes so natural to the professional, he does not realise the necessity of explaining it to his pupils." Charles Whitcombe
The Changing Golf Swing? (1964) By Henry Cotton
IF ONE FOLLOWED all that is written about golf, it would be easy to believe that a golf ball today is propelled in a different way from say fifty years ago.
I honestly do not see it.
The gripping of the club by players has changed, from a double-handed palm grip - back of the left hand facing the hole where the palms were parallel, via a finger grip, where four knuckles of the left hand showed - to an overlapping palm (left hand) and finger grip (right hand) where the palms are again parallel and the back of the left hand again faces the hole. If the power players seem to use less wrist action today than the champions of years ago, it is simply because they are playing now a type of push shot to keep the ball from flying too high and to keep it in play.
They have almost more length than they need. Thus it might be possible to claim that some change has taken place for the power players, at their end of the power graph, but for the average-length players everything is unaltered. They will still need to use their wrists to the maximum to get the ball 'out there'. The place where the ball is teed has always varied; the player's build and the angle that the club-face lies come into this, too.
Perhaps there is a trend now to play more flat-footed golf, the left heel lifting but little; but while this has worked for a few young golfers for a time, I have not seen a player continue to keep his rhythm without moving his feet correctly. This does not mean dancing about on the toes, but allowing the heels to lift freely to help in weight transference and to maintain proper balance and rhythm.
These Five Fundamentals
If any further proof is needed on how to swing a golf club correctly, here is a page from the latest American Teaching Manual of the National Golf Foundation (of Chicago).
The club-face and left wrist are seen in exactly the position I have used and recommended for years.
How far this is from the so called 'square' method with which the British golfer was indoctrinated heavily in recent years! Some professionals even made a name by teaching this 'square poison' and articles flooded the golfing journals.
Now there has been a swing back to the really reliable action of a lifetime - left wrist under the shaft at the top of the back-swing in varying degrees."
Reference : 'Study the GOLF GAME with HENRY COTTON' Published in 1964 by Country Life Limited Tavistock St. London WC2 © HENRY COTTON 1964 The Changing Golf Swing?, page 203. THANKS FOR THE GAME The Best of Golf with HENRY COTTON Ken Brown Nick Faldo 118 Left Foto Belarte, Lagos
Download : The Changing Golf Swing? Including All Golf Stars Have These Five Fundamentals
"And, just as with a bow, the relation of wood and gut, or wood and resined horse-hair, remains the same, so one tries to keep, subconsciously, the relation between shaft and left arm the same through the medium of the cocked wrist, till the centrifugal force of the club-head unlocks the hinge and it comes slinging, or flailing, round through the ball at HIT." Alfred Padgham
Three-Part Action (1975) By Vivien Saunders
"To learn the down and throughswing let's work on a definite three-part action.
Firstly assume the top of the backswing position, left heel pulled an inch or so off the ground, legs flexed and the arms in position (Fig. 35).
The first stage is to develop the right idea of the start of the downswing.
Of The Start of The Downswing
To do this, push the left heel back to the ground and at the same time pull down a couple of inches with the left hand.
Now let the left heel lift again and the arms rise and repeat this with an almost bouncing action.
Heel down, left hand down.
The movement only needs to be a matter of inches to alert the parts of the body which are responsible for changing directions (Fig. 42).
The second stage, having alerted the left heel and left hand, is to continue these movements fluently through to hip-height position beyond the ball. The left leg straightens, right knee coming through, heel well off the ground, while both arms point out towards the target, toe of the club and thumbs uppermost (Fig. 43).
The third movement is to hinge the wrists upwards, this time letting both arms relax and bend so that the club comes straight back over the left shoulder with the thumbs largely supporting it (Fig. 44).
The whole body is now turned to face the target with the right knee almost beside the left and the right foot brought onto the toes.
Having worked on these three essentials of the throughswing it is gradually moulded into a one-piece, fluent movement, with the clubhead brushing the ground each time at the bottom of the swing."
Reference : 'The Complete Woman Golfer' Vivien Saunders Stanley Paul & Co Ltd. Foreword Peter Alliss. London W1. An imprint of the Hutchinson Publishing Group. First published 1975. © Vivien Saunders 1975. © Peter Dazeley 1975. 4. Down And Through The Ball, Three Key Points, Page 35. Abbotsley Golf Academy with Vivien Saunders at www.abbotsley.com
Download : Extract 4. Down And Through The Ball Three key points including 'The key to most hook and slice problems', and 'Creating the right plane of swing: the wrists can naturally hinge as the arms swing on up, the club now supported by the thumbs at the top of the backswing' by Vivien Saunders.
Available on Amazon : The Complete Woman Golfer
"My hands are ready to unleash their full power. The right hand has followed the left hand down to this point, but will in an instant throw its full force into swinging the club-head at the ball." Louise Suggs
Left Hand And Back of The Head (1980) By Laddie Lucas
"What then followed from Jones - a cleanly stuck medium iron (it was, in fact, his trusted old 'mashie iron') off fine, loose sand, across an intervening wilderness which could have spelled disaster for even the slightest mis-cue, to the green some 170 yards away - one of the great pressure shots of golf - is already too well detailed to bear repetition.
What may not, I think, be so well known is a remark which Ernest Holderness told me Jones made to him that same summer soon after his two wonderful rounds of 66 and 68 on the Old Course at Sunningdale, to lead by seven shots the qualifiers for the Open at Lytham.
Jones's golf at Sunningdale, played, we must always remember, with hickory-shafted clubs, was as near perfect as anyone saw it had ever witnessed.
Of the first round of 66 - 33 out and 33 back, with 33 putts in it, Jones would just bring himself to call it 'the best round, I ever played in important competition'. Ernest, who had a perceptive mind for the theory and practice of golf, asked Jones in a quiet moment when they were alone together whether he had been conscious of any special feature in his game during those two startling days at Sunningdale.
'I guess, Ernest,' he said, 'I felt I could hit the ball to any part of the course with my left hand alone.'
The retort was music to Holderness' ears. For much of his playing life, both when he was winning his championships and, later, in middle age, he had been an out-to-out, incorrigible believer in the part which the left hand and arm should play in a right-handed swing.
A dominant left hand was His Secret. There was so much precision, accuracy and repetition about his striking - and such a manifest impression that he knew exactly what he was doing - that anything to say about golf (and it wasn't a lot) carried the conviction of performance.
In the memorable rounds which my brother and I were invited to have with him in the summer holidays round the old Prince's, this was his recurrent theme - The One Fundamental Which Really Mattered In Golf.
Reference : 'The Sport of Prince's By Laddie Lucas Reflections of a Golfer' Stanley Paul. Chapter I0 Scrapbook on the Game, page 112. First published 1980 © P. B. (Laddie) Lucas 1980.
Download : 'The Sport of Prince's Reflections of a Golfer' 'Scrapbook On The Game', 'Harold Hilton and Henry Cotton experiences' by Laddie Lucas.
"I must warn any one, however, against any forward lurch of the upper part of the body in the effort to keep the arc wide; it must purely be done by the straightness of the arms. If the left arm crumples before it actually needs to, the follow through will be cramped by the club head being drawn inwards across the ball. Especially if this crumpling up occurs at the moment of impact, the accuracy and power of the shot is seriously affected, and it may also mean that the face of the club will no longer be perfectly square to the hole at impact." Joyce Wethered
To Banish The Slice (1982) By Peter Kostis
"Swing from Inside to Banish the Slice.
Based on my observation of thousands of students, I'd estimate that 85 percent of golfers in the world slice the ball, or curve it to the right of the starting direction...
Understanding that the hands and arms create the speed of the clubhead is important, but learning how it is done is even more important.
If you examine closely the hand and wrist action in a proper throwing motion, you will find three distinct movements: first, the hand hinges at the wrist in the backward motion; then it unhinges in the forward motion (this is commonly referred to as the "release"); ...
'THE INSIDE PATH TO BETTER GOLF' BY PETER KOSTIS Page 31. OVER 200 PHOTOS CHAPTER 2 The Five Fundamentals of Impact WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU CAN BUILD A BETTER SWING Page 25 1982 INTERNET ARCHIVE
Smooth Tempo (1990) By Kathy Whitworth
"Smooth tempo is another important fundamental of a good golf swing, one that is, unfortunately, sometimes ignored.
Tempo and timing are based on everything working together. Let's go back to the child's playswing. If it gets jerky, it just doesn't swing; if something makes the chain jerk, you don't get a good swing. This is tempo.
When you start your downswing, you swoosh down through the ball and then slow your swing automatically at the follow-through.
Therefore, your maximum clubhead speed is right down at the bottom of the swing. That's what you're striving for, maximum timing at the bottom of the swing, or at the ball.
It's as if you were swinging that pail of water. If you jerk it back, it throws your tempo and timing off. Tempo and timing are basically the same thing.
When instructors tell you that your tempo or timing is off, they are trying to get you to swing with everything working together.
There is one very simple key to help you have a smooth tempo.
When I see someone whose timing is a little off, I always tell the person to slow down the first move away from the ball. This is a procedure I follow in my own golf swing.
You can't go from zero to 60 m.p.h. and then expect to accelerate through the ball.
So, if you can make that first move away from the ball a very deliberate one, you'll develop smoother tempo.".
Download : 'GOLF for WOMEN' KATHY WHITWORTH Tempo: The Forgotten Fundamental Illustrated with more than 120 instructional photographs WITH RHONDA GLENN Foreword by Patty Berg St. Martin's Press New York Copyright © 1990 by Kathy Whitworth and Rhonda Glenn
"Lack of length, says Compston, is the principal reason why women golfers will never be able to play on level terms with men. And lack of length is due to lack of power in the wrists and fingers. Miss Pamela Barton, British woman champion and a pupil of Compston since the age of 16, is the longest hitter in women's golf. He attributes her victory largely to strength in her hands. Here you see the tremendous "snap" that she is able to deliver into the blow at the last moment." Henry Longhurst
Experiential Learning (2008) By A. And D. Kolb
"The spiral of learning from experience described in experiential learning theory (ELT; D. Kolb, 1984) can help learners "learn how to learn." By consciously following a recursive cycle of experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting, they can increase their learning power.
Following "the learning way" begins with embracing the idea that "I am a learner" and continues with the development of sophisticated strategies for intentional learning based on their unique talents and the different learning challenges they face.
In this article, we describe the meta-cognitive experiential learning process originating in the works of foundational theorists of experiential learning—William James, John Dewey, Kurt Lewin, Carl Rogers, and Paulo Freire—who placed conscious intentional action based on subjective experience at the center of the learning process.
ELT defines learning as "the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combination of grasping and transforming experience" (D. Kolb, 1984, p. 41). The ELT model portrays two dialectically related modes of grasping experience—Concrete Experience (CE) and Abstract Conceptualization (AC)—and two dialectically related modes of transforming experience—Reflective Observation (RO) and Active Experimentation (AE).
Experiential learning is a process of constructing knowledge that involves a creative tension among the four learning modes. This process is portrayed as an idealized learning cycle or spiral where the learner "touches all the bases"—experiencing, reflecting, thinking, and acting—in a recursive process that is responsive to the learning situation and what is being learned.
Immediate or concrete experiences are the basis for observations and reflections. These reflections are assimilated and distilled into abstract concepts from which new implications for action can be drawn. These implications can be actively tested and serve as guides in creating new experiences (see Figure 1.) Practice makes perfect.
Little of importance is learned in one sitting. For example, the expertise literature shows that practice is a major factor in expertise development (Ericsson & Charness, 1994). Practice is not just the amount of time doing something, so experience with something alone is not a good predictor of performance.
Practice involves comparison with a mental model or explicit outcome (Keeton, Sheckley, & Griggs, 2002).
In Mastery, George Leonard (1991) describes the master's journey as a path that follows a recurring cycle of brief spurts of progress followed by dips of performance and a plateau of performance that is slightly higher than before where nothing seems to be happening until the next spurt.
For many, this path, particularly the long plateaus, proves frustrating, and efforts to learn and develop are abandoned."
Reference : 'Simulation Gaming' 2009; 40; 297 originally published online Oct 10, 2008; Alice Y. Kolb and David A. Kolb The Learning Way: Meta-cognitive Aspects of Experiential Learning. The online version of this article can be found at: http://sag.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/40/3/297
Reference : 'Experiential Learning articles and critiques of David Kolb's theory' at Reviewing.co.uk
Reference : 'Experience Based Learning Systems Inc.' at Learningfromexperience.com
Download : 'MOTOR LEARNING IN SPORT' Milan Čoh Dragana Jovanović-Golubović, Milovan Bratić Faculty of Sport, University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia Faculty of Physical Education, University of Niš, Niš, Serbia and Montenegro 2005 591.513 UDC 796.012: Golf page 49.
"Golfers live on hope and promise: the hope that tomorrow will be better, and the promise that a newly discovered swing tip will contain "the secret" - the key that will unlock the mystery of the repeating, power-filled, yet effortless golf swing. If they are looking for a perfect golf swing, that fits everyone, it should be made clear that it won't be found anywhere, given a lifetime to search." Gary Wiren
Insights
"A metronome is a practice tool that produces a regulated pulse to help you play rhythms accurately. The frequency of the pulses is measured in beats per minute..."
Reference : Online Metronome Flute Tunes https://www.flutetunes.com/metronome/
"Two days before my departure for Hoylake I played a round at Fixby Hall with Mr. Stoner Crowther, who gave me a lesson one day in self-control that stuck to me for good. I hit a telephone wire with a fine drive at the fifteenth hole and the ball dropped like a dead pigeon ; I showed temper, and wished telephone wires among the cables at the bottom of the sea. Mr. Crowther listened to my remarks and then quietly said,
"So that's why your luck has been out at previous championships, it it? The fates will never favour a man who can be put out by such a trifling incident as hitting a telephone wire. Sandy, my boy, it is the man who cannot be ruffled that gets nothing to ruffle him in the end. Keep that in your head through all the coming championship, and never mind telephone wires until you have won. You can then use the wires to let your friends at Huddersfield know of your victory."
These wise and cheery words struck home on the spot. I made my second shot onto the green and holed out in 3. If I were to say that I kept my cool all through this championship none of my brother professionals would believe me.
An amateur ought to be better to control his feelings than a professional. His living is not staked on his golf. He is able to play at golf. The professional works at it."
Reference : 'My Golfing Life' Told To Clyde Foster By Sandy Herd With A Foreword By Field-Marshall Earl Haig With Numerous Illustrations London Chapman & Hall, Ltd. 1923 Chapter VI The Coronation Champion A Golfer's Physical Jerks Page 75.
"... The parts and then the sequences of the parts."
"It's simply a scientific description of an expert performer. It has nothing to do with how you actually learn it," said Pirsig.
"Right!" agreed Joseph.
"So, to reiterate what you have been saying," said Pirsig, "about the problems in the golf teaching world you have witnessed is simply people are taught to imitate this scientific description of an expert performer."
"That is definitely what is happening at the other school!" said Joseph.
"Right!"
"Wow ...I'm exhausted," said Joseph, "so that explains everything."
"Me too Joseph!" said Pirsig still looking out of the window, "It's been a long journey to here, your Arete is the missing piece."
Reference : 'HIT THE BALL' Joseph Dylan Educure Written by Dylan Kuhnzack Bawden Advanced PGA Professional BSc Copyright © 2020 Dylan Kuhnzack Bawden
"THERE WAS A time early in my career when I was working on some things in my swing and I was hitting the ball really well on the driving range. But when I got to the first tee, I couldn't start my backswing. It was the most terrible feeling. I had so many things going on in my mind that I didn't know how to start the club back. It was a classic example of paralysis by analysis. It was 1962. I won a tournament earlier in the year and I had been playing pretty well. The problem happened towards the end of the year in Salt Lake City. After I teed the ball I was just paralyzed.
I asked Mickey if paralysis by analysis could really happen. She said, "Yes, you can get paralyzed by thinking too much about your swing and not where you are trying to hit the ball." Mickey saying that meant so much to me. I thought that if Mickey said it, it must be true. That's exactly what was happening. That was when I became a player. The cure was to think about the target while I swung the club. That totally freed me up."
Reference : 'Kathy Whitworth's Little Book of Golf Wisdom' Also By Kathy Whitworth: Golf for Women Easy-to-follow Instruction from Pro Golf's Leading Tournament Winner A Lifetime of Lessons from Golf's Winningest Pro Kathy Whitworth with Jay Golden, PGA Skyhorse Publishing Copyright © 2007 by Kathy Whitworth Available on Amazon
"The first movement in the down swing is the shifting of the body weight by a sidewise action of the hips. This movement, in fact, starts before the backswing of the club is completed. The second movement in the down swing is the downward pull of the let arm, which drags the club handle foremost, first in the direction of the outside of the right foot, and then as if you intended to hit the back side of the ball with the butt end of the club handle.
The wrists remain cocked until the first and second movement are completed.
While the hip shift and left arm pull are taking place, the shoulders slowly unwind.
This unwinding of the shoulders would throw the swing out of line were it not counteracted or absorbed by further pronation of the left forearm during the down swing. This absorption of the shoulder turn by the forearms is the most complicated movement in the entire swing, so I will analyze it in detail."
Reference : 'STANDARDIZED GOLF INSTRUCTION' Analysis of the Back Swing Movements Page 87. Third Edition Published by Seymour Dunn Queens Plaza Outdoor Golf School 21st Street and 41st Avenue Long Island City New York U. S. A. Author of "GOLF FUNDAMENTALS" Copyright 1934 - Seymour Dunn All Rights Reserved
"I knew the club was revolutionary, so much so that I was scared to show it to anybody. I hid the head of it by placing the club upside-down in my bag while I was playing and by taking it home with me at night.
The first successful test of the sand-iron came at Prince's, in Kent, England, where I won the British Open that following spring, in 1932. Soon afterwards, I won my second Open, at Fresh Meadow, on Long Island. Thinking back, I cannot recall an instance in which I did not get down in two from a trap. In short, I won both those championships with the sand iron.
The first thing you have to do in order to use the sand-iron is to take a lesson in its technique from your local pro. The technique of it is so utterly different from the technique of other irons that you are unlikely to find the secret through experimentation alone.
You don't swing the clubhead. You pick it up with the hands and then drop it behind the ball.
The clubhead is taken back outside the line of flight and then flicked down behind the ball, not too unlike the way you would swing an axe when chopping a tree. And, above all, the wrists remain "unbroken" throughout the stroke.
By "breaking" the wrists, you almost certainly will either top the ball or hit way behind it, resulting in one of those disastrous double-bogeys which the sand-iron was specifically designed to overcome."
Reference : 'GOLF Magazine's Your Short Game' Foreword by Bobby Jones Instruction Editors: Jimmy Demaret, Gene Sarazen, Louise Suggs Illustrations by: Lealand Gustavson, Joe Farris Award Books New York Tandem Books London Copyright © 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962 by Universal Publishing and Distributing Corp. 5. Development Of The Sand Wedge By Gene Sarazen, page 79.
Download : 'Golf Magazine's Your Short Game' Development of the Sand Wedge by Gene Sarazen.
"The pride of the whole professional class was brought low by the great victory of Mr. Hilton in that meeting at Hoylake in which Braid came second to him.
It is a sufficiently great feat for an Amateur to have won the Open Championship at all ; but Mr. Hilton has won it twice. No other amateur except Mr. Ball has ever won it, and Mr. Ball has only won it once.
Curiously enough, Mr. Hilton had never won the Amateur Championship at the time of his second win of the Open, although he has twice won the Amateur since, but his greatest strength has generally been shown in score play rather than in matches by holes.
Mr. Hilton, it scarcely needs to say, is a past master in all departments of the game. He has always been a remarkably good short game player, and in recent years he has added many yards to the length of his driving, which was all that was wanted to put him at all points equal with the best.
He has a way of playing his approaches straight up to the hole, without any curve in the air, which scarcely any other player except Taylor and very few besides have achieved. In addition to this he has one or two shots rather peculiar to himself, notably a half shot with the brassey, which he often uses with deadly effect.
Of his driving style the chief characteristic is its fine finish, the way in which he lets his body turn right round to help in the follow on, while the club comes right back over the left shoulder. But temperament seems to have as much to do as the muscular adjustments with Mr. Hilton's success.
He is always good-tempered and cheery in good and evil fortune alike, never losing heart and never being frightened by the excellence of a good score."
Reference : The "Oval" Series Of Games Edited By C. W. Alcock 'GOLFING By Horace Hutchinson' Golfers And Styles Page 75. With Plates Seventh Edition Revised By The Author London : George Routledge And Sons New York : E. P. Dutton & Co. 1903.
"A person's Level of Arousal can be described as a function of alertness, situational awareness, vigilance, level of distraction, stress and direction of attention. In effect, how ready a person is to perform appropriate tasks in a timely and effective manner.
Extreme under-arousal is manifest by unconsciousness, possibly caused by tiredness, fatigue, hypoxia, poisoning or other illnesses.
Extreme over-arousal can be manifest by a range of symptoms that will be peculiar to the individual, the environment, the task and other factors. Such symptoms may include: panic, aggression, submission, resignation, withdrawal, irrational behaviour and mood swings, as well as unconsciousness.
Somewhere in between the two extremes a point of optimum-arousal will exist, which is appropriate and effective for the situation, allowing for optimum performance.
At this point it seems that our mental capacity, situational awareness, alertness, attention, vigilance, decision-making, and actions are all heightened in sensitivity and execution – we are in the zone."
Reference : From SKYbrary Wiki
"Have you ever noticed that you perform better when you are just a little bit nervous?
For example, you might do better at an athletic event if you are excited about participating or do better on an exam if you are somewhat anxious about your score.
In psychology, this relationship between arousal levels and performance is known as the Yerkes-Dodson Law.
What impact can this have on our behavior and performance? What exactly is the Yerkes-Dodson Law and how does it work?
Answer: The Yerkes-Dodson Law suggests that there is a relationship between performance and arousal. Increased arousal can help improve performance, but only up to a certain point. At the point when arousal becomes excessive, performance diminishes.
The law was first described in 1908 by psychologists Robert Yerkes and John Dillingham Dodson. They discovered that mild electrical shocks could be used to motivate rats to complete a maze, but when the electrical shocks became too strong, the rats would scurry around in random directions to escape.
The experiment demonstrated that increasing stress and arousal levels could help focus motivation and attention on the task at hand, but only up to a certain point. The anxiety you experience before an exam is one example of how the Yerkes-Dodson Law operates.
An optimal level of stress can help you focus on the test and remember the information that you studied; too much test anxiety can impair your ability to concentrate and make it more difficult to remember the correct answers.
Athletic performance offers another great example of the Yerkes-Dodson Law.
When a player is poised to make an important move, like making a basket during a basketball game, an ideal level of arousal can sharpen his performance and enable him to make the shot. When a player gets too stressed out, he might instead "choke" and miss the shot."
Source : 'What Is the Yerkes-Dodson Law?' By Kendra Cherry, at About.com Guide © About.com
Download : "Yet the majority of the scientific community today says that this isn't so" in 'Stress, Cognition, and Human Performance: A Literature Review and Conceptual Framework' By Mark A. Staal, Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California. NASA/TM-2004-212824 August 2004, page 3 - 7.
"The European Golf Teachers Federation (EGTF) was established in 1992 to provide individuals interested in a career teaching golf to be trained to teach the game and to gain a Qualification.
The EGTF is now an internationally recognised teaching organisation with members all over the world within the golf industry.
Find a Professional European Golf Teacher near you!
If you think YOU have the potential to be a golf teacher, then the EGTF Diploma Course will give you all the necessary skills to fulfil YOUR dreams.
Source : The European Golf Teachers Federation, Bromley, Kent, United Kingdom
"BYRON NELSON, Sam Snead and Ben Hogan, three of the great golfers of this generation, have recently contributed instructional golf books to the world's already extensive golf library.
These interesting, easy-to-read books follow the same lines in presentation and curiously enough describe the same method.
The young American generation of golfing machines considers the method used by these golf stars as something new, original even, whereas, in fact, it is probably as old as the game - even in golf "there is nothing new under the sun".
The theme in these books is that it is safest to keep the left wrist from going under the shaft too much at the top of the swing, as we have seen done for years by Harry Vardon, J. A. Taylor, James Braid, Bobby Jones, Walter Hagen, and others, and to make the back of the left hand and the arm remain in a straight line; in other words, that there be no wrinkles at the wrist joint.
The value of this position, it is claimed, is that it keeps the club-face shut or half-shut at the top of the swing, and by restricting the wrist action, cuts out the danger of "letting go".
That this method produces results, and wonderful results, is beyond argument, as these three athletes have long demonstrated, but having been aware of this method and having tried it extensively myself, I feel that it requires more than average athletic ability to use successfully...
...I am not in any way trying to persuade golfers not to give this method a try but, up to the present time, all the golfers who have remained good players for a very long time have kept away from closed-faced methods, and I am sure that, as one grows older, it is increasingly difficult to maintain the necessary combination of strength and flexibility to keep the club-face square at impact.
The ordinary "open to shut" method of the old masters has stood the test of time."
Reference : 'This Game of Golf' With A Foreword By Bernard Darwin London Country Life First Published in 1948 by Country Life Limited Fourth Impression 1949. Part III 27 An American Method page 139. British Open Champion 1934, 1937, and 1948.
Download : This extract 'An American Method' including On American Golf (1948), and 'The Best Player Ever? Harry Vardon, J. H. Taylor, James Braid, Robert Tyre Jones, Horton Smith' by Henry Cotton.
Compare with : 'Lesson 8 Top of the backswing analysis, the correct left wrist position at the the top' by Leslie King from www.golfpro-online.com or download PDF here
"One of the first studies to examine the effects of musical practice on the brain came when a team of neuropsychologists led by the German neuroscientist Thomas Elbert combined an array of different brain-imaging techniques together in order to investigate what happens to the brain's representation of fingers as a person learns to play an instrument.
If you have taken a class in psychology or neuroscience, you may recall a famous picture that looks like this:
The point of the illustration is twofold.
First, the picture makes clear the fact that each part of the body has a specific piece of neural tissue assigned to it in the area known as the primary motor cortex;
second, it also illustrates the fact that the exact amount of cortical real estate allocated varies from one body part to the next, with more sensitive areas getting more brain tissue.
Fingers and lips get a lot, the back of the knee hardly any. (...)
Earlier work by Michael Merzenich and others had shown that the boundaries between these areas aren't entirely fixed; a monkey that lost its middle finger, for example, might reallocate some of the primary cortex that was assigned to its middle finger to an adjacent finger.
Similarly, in people who are born congenitally blind, the brain sometimes winds up taking some of the neural tissue that would normally be used for vision and using it for hearing.
Could music practice similarly rewire the brain?
Indeed it could.
Focusing on nine string players (six cellists, two violinists, and a guitarist), Elbert and his team discovered that string players dedicated an unusually large amount of cortical representation to the fingers of their note-selecting left hands, likely yielding two benefits.
First, it gives string players greater control of their fingers, and second, it may make them more sensitive to the feedback that their fingers receive, allowing them a more precise mental picture of where their fingers are, and even of how taut a given string is - vital for playing with the correct touch.
Since then, dozens of studies have furthered Elbert's basic conclusion, that the brains of musicians differ from those of nonmusicians, and not just in the sensorimotor cortex but also in other brain areas such as the planum temporale (an area just behind the auditory cortex that is implicated in pitch perception), the cerebellum (implicated in rhythm), and the anterior (frontward) part of the corpus callosum, the thick set of fibres that connects the two sides of the brain, perhaps because of its role in coordinating the left and right hands.
In keeping with these physical differences, the brains of musicians respond more sensitively to slight deviations in musically relevant parameters such as pitch, rhythm, and timbre (the sonic properties differentiating one instrument from the next, such as the sound of a violin versus the sound of a flute).
The differences between musicians and nonmusicians depend in part on a musician's instrument of choice; the brains of violinists are especially sensitive to the sounds of violins, and the brains of trumpeters appear to be specialized for trumpet. Opera singers show specializations in the part of the primary somatosensory cortex that represents vocal articulators and the larynx.(...)
These studies all raise an important question, especially salient for a beginner like me:
Are musicians' brains different because they are born that way or because of all the hours they put into practising?"
Reference : 'GUITAR ZERO The Science of Learning To Be Musical' by Gary Marcus. Oneworld. This edition published by Oneworld Publications in 2013 Copyright © Gary Marcus 2012. It Don't Come Easy page 18.
"Before describing in detail the proper movement of the body, let me give you three simple ways by which you can acquire the physical "feel" of what you must do.
The first method I use, and still my favourite after many years, is to give my pupil a bucket three-quarters full of water, and making him hold it by the handle with both hands in front of his body, I ask him to swing it freely from side to side without causing the water to splash or spill.
The "give", or motion of the body to the swing of the weight of the bucket is precisely the motion of the body necessary at the commencement of the upswing, at impact point, and in the first part of the follow-through.
The second method is..."
Reference : 'It's All In The Swing' Self Help for the Average Golfer By Kenneth Wilson Author of To Better Golf in Two Strides Putnam London 42 Great Russels Street. First Published June, 1947. Chapter 2, Body Action, Page 24.
Download : 'Body Action' extract, from 'It's All in The Swing' By Kenneth Wilson, including advice on "a contributory cause to "outside-in" hitting, page 22, Plate 1 and compare with Plate 2".
"One of the best selling sports book of all time was written by a golf teacher. His name was Harvey Penick. He dedicated an entire chapter, in his Little Red Book, on the magic move in golf, which was the first move on the downswing.
He describes the move as follows, "to start your downswing, let your weight shift to your left foot while bringing your right elbow back down to your body" (Penick).
Harvey called it the magic move because he knew the importance of starting the downswing.
It was the one move that could make or break a swing. No other move had such high importance. His tip was brilliant because it focused on shifting weight to start the downswing and delivering the club from the inside by dropping the right elbow.
Harvey's tip not only works, it holds against the scrutiny of modern technology. High-speed cameras and video analysis software confirm the accuracy of his magic move.
All great ball strikers use lateral motion to start their downswing as well as drop the elbow.
Players may not feel it the same way but they certainly do it. Slow motion video is a great way to challenge assumptions like Harvey's. But in this case, he was absolutely right."
Reference : 'Finally Down the Middle, 2011. A New Focus on Driving the Ball Farther and Straighter' By Adam Kolloff. The Most Important Move in Golf Harvey Penick and the Magic Move' page 38. Scratch Golf School. www.scratchgolfschool.com
"Character is what allows you to reach the top and stay there.
Ben Hogan was hit by a bus and was physically destroyed, but he made it back to the top
"I believe that ability can get you to the top," says coach John Wooden, "but it takes character to keep you there...It's so easy to...begin thinking you can just 'turn it on' automatically, without proper preparation. It takes real character to keep working as hard or even harder once you're there. When you read about an athlete or team that wins over and over and over, remind yourself, 'More than ability, they have character."
Let's take an even deeper look at what character means, and how the growth mindset creates it. Stuart Biddle and his colleagues measured adolescents' and young adults' mindset about athletic ability.
Those with the fixed mindset were the people who believe that:
"You have a certain level of ability in sports and you cannot really do much to change that level."
"To be good you need to be naturally gifted."
In contrast, the people with the growth mindset agreed that:
"How good you are at sports will always improve if you work harder at it."
"To be successful in sports, you need to learn techniques and skills and practice them regularly."
Those with the growth mindset were the ones who showed the most character at heart. They were the ones who had the minds of champions.
What do I mean? Let's look at the findings from these sports researchers and see..."
Reference : 'mindset The New Psychology Of Success How We Can Learn To Fulfill Our Potential' by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. 2008 Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Edition Copyright © 2006 by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. Page 97.
Reference : 'Teaching Is About Relationships' including "That takes a certain mindset to borrow the title of an excellent book" By Bill Gates August 16, 2015.
"It should be noted that the 2003 modern reprint is a partial reprint of the 1937 original; that is as a reprint of PART ONE : The Swing Technique By Ernest Jones' of 'Swinging Into Golf By Ernest Jones and Innis Brown' of that earlier publication.
And so missing 'Part 2 : General Observations And Comparisons of the Jones System With Other Methods by Innis Brown'.
This second part covering: Chapter I, A Matter of Joint Responsibility; Chapter II, Adding to the Confusion; Chapter III, On the Subject of Concentration; Chapter IV, Your Golf and Your Ego.
Considering, further, that the following books (all purchased) have been read/studied:
- The Golf Swing The Ernest Jones Method by Daryn Hammond, Chatto & Windus 1920
- Swinging Into Golf Ernest Jones & Innis Brown, 1937, U.S., By Whittlesey House
- Swinging Into Golf Ernest Jones & Innis Brown, 1938, Australia, By Angus & Robertson Limited
- Swing's The Thing in Golf, by Ernest Jones, Copyright, 1940, by Reader Mail, Inc. U.S.A., where it states, on page 21: "Learning to swing a club may be likened to the action of a child's outdoor swing."
- Swing The Clubhead And Cut Your Golf Score, 1952, U.S. by Ernest Jones as told to David Eisenberg
- Frankel Golf Academy's Golf's One Motion, with DVD, booklet and weight on a string Motion Trainer™, 1995, U.S.
- Ernest Jones' Swing The Clubhead Method, Skylane Publishing, 2003, Revised, with Frankel Golf Academy. A reprint of a part of the Ernest Jones & Innis Brown book.
Of these, then, the best material is the Daryn Hammond book - for its completeness, excellent illustrations and clearest explanation of the Ernest Jones' method - entitled: 'The Golf Swing The Ernest Jones Method by Daryn Hammond', London, Chatto & Windus 1920' - available in digitized format (PDF) on the web as a (at time of this writing) free ebook.
Next is 'Swing The Clubhead And Cut Your Golf Score', 1952, U.S. as told to David Eisenberg, from which this extract, from page 37: "The overlapping grip, used by the great majority of golfers, is the one I favor and recommend. It has all the qualities and none of the failings of the other grips. In this grip, the thumbs and forefingers of the two hands, which do the job and sense the feel of the club, have the contact with the shaft, which is vital."
Followed by 'Swinging Into Golf Ernest Jones & Innis Brown', 1937, U.S., By Whittlesey House.
In 'Swing's The Thing in Golf, Holding The Club, page 11' Ernest Jones writes: "What I want to impress on you is the why, rather than the how, of holding a golf club. You want to hold it in such a way as to transmit and to control power. Control means that you know through the feel of action that you are doing with the club head what you understand you should be doing".
But to conclude what really matters is this : "My wording, which he has seen and which I use frequently in teaching, implies the same thing as Ernest Jones' "Swing the club-head," but I somehow feel that the word "swing" refers only to part of the game and to me means no hit at all, whereas I teach "hitting with the right hand past the left, making the club-head do the work". What I have not grasped is his interpretation of how to swing the club-head." 'This Game of Golf' Henry Cotton page 133 First published in 1948 by Country Life Limited.
Reference : Just Swing The Clubhead By Grantland Rice with Ernest Jones, The American Golfer, February, 1934. Courtesy of LA84 Foundation.
And that is what Eddie Loos concludes too (see previous 'Insight'): "to let the club swing" as explains here again Ernest Jones and Vivien Saunders.
"Lastly, let me remind you of the ballistics of impact. You know, the ball, that's the best instructor of all.
It can't lie. Whatever this does, it gives you an absolute, steadfast reflection as to what your club is doing when it hits it...
Wherever the ball starts its flight, is a direct reflection on your swing path.
Let the ball be the greatest help to you."
Reference : John Jacobs' Doctor Golf John Jacobs, The Full Swing DVD video. Introduced by Sean Connery. Written and presented by John Jacobs. Edited by David Hankin. Produced and Directed by Michael Seligman. Copyright © 2005 Green Umbrella Sport and Leisure.
"Body weight, in both ground strokes and in service, is transferred to the forward position before impact. Because of this a player can follow through the ball farther without checking the racket speed.
If the body weight, being thrown in at impact, were the reason for additional power, the experts would have to keep their weight back in order to transfer it at impact.
The motion picture camera shows that this does not happen. The illusion that the body weight is thrown in the service stroke is due to the fact that the body gives more violently to a fast swing.
The eye cannot detect this moment of weight transfer. 
Until the camera proved differently, tennis players believed that the body weight was thrown in at impact.
Now that this theory has been disproved, the power to hit is generally regarded as racket speed.
The body simply gives easily to the swing. Then why transfer weight at all?
Players transfer weight in order to get a longer backswing and a longer follow through.
Over the long distance, more speed can be generated more smoothly. This is especially important in the service, for the ball has no speed in it."
Reference : 'Design for Tennis' by Mary K. Browne A. S. Barnes and Company New York. Copyright © 1949 A. S. Barnes & Company, Inc. Foreword Helen McKinstry, LLD President Russel Sage College. Mary K. Browne is one of the great women tennis champions of all times. She has been three times National Singles Champion, five times National Ladies Doubles Champion, of the United States; as well as Wimbledon Ladies Doubles Champion of England and twice Captain of the International Wightman Cup Team.
Mary Kendall Browne (June 3, 1891 – August 19, 1971) was the first American female professional tennis player, a World No. 1 amateur tennis player, and an amateur golfer.
She was born in Ventura County, California, United States. Browne was included in the year-end top ten rankings issued by the United States Lawn Tennis Association in 1913 (when the rankings began), 1914, 1921, 1924, and 1925. She was the top ranked U.S. player in 1914. Browne was inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame in 1957.
American tennis champion Mary Browne had been playing golf for only a few years when at the 1924 U.S. Women's Amateur, she was runner-up to champion Dorothy Campbell Hurd.
'As They Think' by Mary K. Browne, The Mental Attitudes of Casual Players Compared with Those of Champions, The American Golfer, June 1926.
"The professional player of golf may achieve his results in an infinite variety of ways, as witness the methods of Alfred Perry, Henry Cotton, Bobby Jones and Harry Vardon, but he cannot always clarify these methods to make them intelligible to the man in the street.
Indeed in many cases the player is himself unaware of the exact nature of his movements during the swing.
It is therefore to the teacher of golf to dissect the styles of the masters, setting apart their idiosyncrasies, sifting out the vital principles that are common to all, comparing the results of one method against those of another.
At this Mr Vaile has proved himself a master hand."
Reference : P. A. Vaile's book 'The Short Game, by P. A. Vaile With An Introduction by Henry Longhurst', page 10. Edited for the British Public by Henry Longhurst. Duckworth, London, W.C.2. First Published, 1936.
"The P. A. Vaile grip.
There are five ways in which a player may grip his clubs.
- FIRST - We have the "palm grip".
- SECOND - The plain finger grip.
- THIRD - The overlapping grip.
- FOURTH - The interlocking grip.
- FIFTH - The reverse "overlap" or P. A. Vaile grip is not considered so good for long shots, but is used by many golfers for putting.
The following is the detail of the above five ways of gripping a club..."
Reference : 'Understandable Golf' by Jack Gordon, Chapter 3. How to Grip. Professional Country Club of Buffalo Williamsville, N. Y. Illustrations By Hare, Buffalo. Copyright, 1927 By Jack Gordon
"As a leading sports psychologist I have the privilege of working with some of the best golfers in the world as well as some of the upcoming amateurs.
In this Pocketshots™ edition I aim to share with you some of their secrets and how they practice in the right way to improve their game.
Ask Yourself?
Am I going to continue practice in such a way that I play great golf on the range or am I going to start to practice in such a way that I become the best player that I can be on the golf course?
Ask Yourself?
Are my patterns and habits giving me what I truly want and deserve, or am I just running around the wheel doing a variation of the same thing, getting the same results and the same frustrations?
Ask Yourself?
Am I prepared to act now to develop new habits and patterns that will take my game in a new positive direction?
Actual Size 7.8cm x 10.8 cm
Effective Practice
Effective practice contains the following ingredients:
- An element of consequence
- Is more difficult than the game
- Has a degree of emotional impact
- Is backed by statistical proof.
In this edition Dr. Karl Morris explains:
- Why your current practice regime doesn't improve your game
- The importance of effective practice
- Developing a practice routine
- Effective practice drills
- Effective mental tools and techniques for practice and play.
Reference : 'Dr. Karl Morris Mental Game - Effective Practice' Pocketshots™ Edition. Includes 'Before golf - mental practice. During golf - concentration. In-between shots. After Golf - self assessment. 4 mental quadrants'. Copyright © Pocketshots™ and Dizzy Heights™. As a consultant to the PGA of Great Britain and Europe he has presented seminars all over the world and has worked with players such as Darren Clarke, Paul McGinley, Graeme McDowell, Alison Nicholas and Trish Johnson, Karl holds a PhD in Sports Psychology. He is a qualified Master Trainer of NLP and is also a qualified PGA Professional.
Available on Amazon : Pocketshots - Mental Game - Effective Practice
"Centrifugal force is an interesting factor in golf.
I was told just after the 1972 World Series at Firestone Country Club, by someone who should know, that in a powerful swing the clubhead speed deriving from centrifugal force becomes so great by the time the club is about hip high on the forward swing that the golfer's problem is not really to accelerate the club further, but simply to go along with it in such a way that he doesn't check its velocity.
I told my scientific informant that even if this is true I distinctly have the feeling that I do accelerate the club right through the ball on full shots. He felt this was correct, in that if you don't at least feel you are accelerating throughout the forward swing there's a possibility you're actually holding something back.
But this theory seems to explain a shot I hit at the par-3 fifteenth in the second round at Firestone.
The choice of club lay between a two-iron and three-iron, and I decided to go with an easy two-iron. Coming into the ball I was deliberately "soft" with my hands.
I've never hit a better two-iron in my life! The ball finished over the green.
Maybe this explains what happens on those good drives where I often have a "soft" feeling in my hands through the ball.
You could say that my hand action on such shots was merely a reaction to the earlier accelerative effects of centrifugal force on the clubhead generated by proper leverage.
My hands went along for the ride.
It's an interesting possibility.
All I know is I wish it happened more often."
Reference : Jack Nicklaus' book 'Golf My Way The Instructional Classic, Revised and Update' Jack Nicklaus with Ken Bowden. Illustrations by Jim McQueen. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks Copyright © 1974, 2005 Jack Nicklaus Copyright renewed © 2002 by Jack Nicklaus.
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