Chapter X: The Flight of the Golf Ball (3)

Now although it is possible to apply an infinitely greater cut to the slice than one can possibly do to the wind-cheater, the deflection from the line, except on a very windy day, is, comparatively speaking, gradual. That is to say that if, for the sake of argument, the trajectory of the slice could be turned upwards there would be no possibility whatever of the ball showing such a thing as a curl backwards towards the hole, which is shown by Professor Tait and, following him, by Professor Thomson. This is clearly so in any slice which is not an extremely exaggerated specimen, so it stands to reason that in the wind-cheater, where one's opportunity for applying cut is so restricted, and where the ball in its effort to climb upwards has to fight the direct pull of gravity, there is no possible chance of applying too much back-spin to the ball.

At page 239 Braid says: "It may be of interest to mention that Professor Tait found that a well-driven ball turns once in every 2-1/2 feet at the beginning of its journey." If Professor Tait found that a golf ball, obtaining this back-spin in the way in which he thought it did, turns "once in every 2-1/2 feet at the beginning of its journey," he would probably have found, if he had realised how back-spin really is obtained, that the number of revolutions at the moment that the ball is leaving the club are at least three or four times as many as he asserted. It is unnecessary to enlarge upon the fact that this would mean a lifting capacity infinitely beyond anything that Professors Tait and Thomson ever ascribed to back-spin in the drive.

Braid continues:

We have so far only been considering the effect of the
spinning of the ball in the case of long shots with wooden
clubs. As a matter of fact, and as suggested at the outset,
it has also very great influence on the play in the case of
the shorter shots with iron clubs, as may be understood after
a very little consideration of the circumstances. It is the
excessive under-spin that is given to the ball by the angle
at which the face of the club is laid back, and the peculiar
way in which the stroke is played, that make the ball rise so
quickly and so high in the case of a short pitched approach,
and then make it stop comparatively dead when it comes to the
ground again.

It is obvious here that Braid is under the impression that the loft of the club is largely responsible for the back-spin in the approach shots, but this is quite an error, for not one player in a hundred does apply back-spin to his lofted approaches unless he has been specially taught how to do it, for, curiously enough, the more lofted the club is, the greater chance is there that the player will at the moment of impact impart into his stroke that little bit of "upward concavity" which Professor Tait says, and truly says, is the enemy of back-spin. The fact is that very little under-spin, or, as I always prefer to call it, back-spin, is obtained from the loft of the club unless the blow is delivered as the club is travelling downward. That is the whole essence of the secret of back-spin, but it is not mentioned by Professors Tait or Thomson, or by James Braid. Any attempt whatever to obtain back-spin from the loft of the club will be practically useless. It must be obtained by the method of playing the shot, and the only way to obtain it effectually is to hit the ball before the club has arrived at the lowest point in its swing. By this means, and this means alone, is it possible to obtain the beneficial back-spin of golf, and I cannot say too often or too emphatically that anyone who trusts to the loft of the club to produce back-spin will be disappointed.

Braid seems to have a glimmering of this, for he says:

However much a club were laid back it would be impossible to
play these shots properly if no under-spin were given to the
ball, and it seems to be a great advantage of having the
faces of iron clubs grooved or dotted that it helps the club
to grasp the ball thoroughly while this under-spin is being
imparted to it, so that the full amount is given to it, and
none is wasted through the ball slipping on the face.

This is unquestionably sound mechanics. But even here, although Braid is so close to the heart of the matter--although he says, as I have shown repeatedly in many places, that "however much a club were laid back it would be impossible to play these shots properly if no under-spin were given to the ball," thus stating explicitly that something more remains to be done to produce back-spin than merely to hit the ball with a lofted club,--he does not get really to the essence of the stroke and show that it must be played by the club _as it is descending_.

There is a very important matter which Braid refers to in this chapter on the science of the stroke. Speaking of the follow-through and the impact, he says:

One or two other calculations that were made by Professor
Tait may be briefly mentioned at the close of this chapter,
each of them seeming to convey an idea to the golfer. The
first is, that owing to the speed at which the ball leaves
the club, the total length of time during which ball and club
are in contact with each other is between one five thousandth
and one ten thousandth of a second, and the total length of
that part of the swing when the two are together--the length
of impact--is half an inch. It has been pointed out that it
by no means follows from this that because the time and space
of impact are so short that follow-through is of no real
account, after all, in the making of the drive. When the
follow-through is properly performed it shows that the work
was properly done during that half an inch of the swing that
was all-important. If the follow-through were short and wrong
it would indicate that the work during the impact was wrong
too. What it comes to is this, that it is impossible for any
man to swing his club round with so much force and regulate
exactly what he will do, and be conscious of the fact that he
is doing it as he regulated, during such a short space of
time as from one five thousandth to one ten thousandth of a
second. That is quite clear. What the golfer has to do, then,
is to make sure that his swing is right at the beginning,
that is, in the back-swing and the down-swing, and also in
the follow-through. He knows from instruction and experience
that if all these things are properly done the ball will go
off well; and what it amounts to is that the beginning being
right and the end being right, control being exercised over
each, the middle is right also, though in this case there is
no control over it.

This quotation emphasises strongly the fact which I have always insisted on, that the matter of impact with the golf ball is an incident in the travel of the head of the club, and that it is practically impossible for the player to consciously perform anything which will affect the flight of the golf ball during impact. Braid has insisted upon this in other places, and it should quite settle any idea which many people have, of juggling with the golf ball during impact, but it is a remarkable thing to see James Braid claiming that at the moment of impact there is "no control over" the swing although there is both in the downward swing and the follow-through! I need not criticise this.

The point, however, which I wish to refer to here specifically is in connection with the follow-through. Braid says, finally:

What the golfer has to do, then, is to make sure that his
swing is right at the beginning, that is, in the back-swing
and the down-swing, and also in the follow-through. He knows
from instruction and experience that if all these things are
properly done the ball will go off well; and what it amounts
to is that the beginning being right and the end being right,
control being exercised over each, the middle is right also,
though in this case there is no control over it.

This, it seems to me, is a very bad presentment of the case. Although we admit that the impact is merely an incident in the travel of the club head, it is the most important incident, and it is on that incident that the mind should be concentrated, so that the idea of cumbering one's mind with any thought of the follow-through is very bad golf. The only portion of the stroke which should be on the player's mind at all is that which leads up to impact, for it is obvious that if that has been correctly performed, one need not trouble much about the follow-through, as that will come quite naturally. Also we will observe that Braid says here "control being exercised over each." This, of course, includes the follow-through over which Braid now speaks of exercising control, but it will be fresh in our minds that in describing the moment of impact, he says "Crack! everything is let go," and that really is what should happen after impact has taken place. There should be no thought whatever of the follow-through. That should produce itself, if one may so express it, and the player who encumbers his mind by any thought whatever as to how his club is going to end is simply adding another anxiety to his game.

This plate shows Sherlock's stance and address in his
favourite iron-shot. He addresses the ball so that it is
nearly opposite his right heel.]

Braid explained most graphically how the follow-through should be allowed to take care of itself, so that I cannot understand why he should now endeavour to split his pupils' mental idea of the golf stroke into halves with the golf ball in between. This is surely a bad conception of the stroke, and one which is likely to lead the pupil into grave error, for it shifts his mind forward on to the finish of the stroke, whereas it has no business to be anywhere else but on the ball.

Before concluding this chapter I must refer to what Braid has to say with regard to a topped stroke. At page 238 he says:

A final thing to remember in connection with this question of
the rotation of the ball is, that when the ball is what we
call topped, the stroke is applied in such a way that a
motion exactly the reverse of under-spin is applied to it,
that is to say, the front part of the ball is made to move in
a downward direction. On the principle already explained,
there is then an extra air-pressure upon that ball from the
top, pressing it down, so that even if the ball that is
topped is somehow got up into the air from the tee, as
happens, it cannot stay there long, but comes down very
suddenly--"ducks," as it is called. However, a ball that
ducks for this reason nevertheless gets some benefit from
this over-spin when it does come down, for the spin acts in
just the same way as "top" does in the case of a billiard
stroke, that is to say, it makes the ball run more. If there
were no rough grass and no bunkers between the tee and the
hole this over-spin might be an exceedingly useful thing, and
the principles upon which the game of golf is played might be
entirely different from what they are; but as there is rough
in front of the tee, and generally a bunker at no great
distance from it, topping and over-spin are more frequently
fatal than not, the ball coming to grief either in the rough
or the bunker.

This quotation makes it quite evident, I think, that James Braid is not very well acquainted with the principles which govern the flight and run of the golf ball. If this were his "knowledge" which we are considering, I should be more loath to deal with it so plainly as I am doing, but as he expressly states that he is indebted to another for much of his "knowledge" on this subject I have no hesitation whatever in criticising it and showing that it is absolutely impracticable from a golfing point of view.

It is not too much to say that top-spin has absolutely no place in golf, for it is there utterly useless, and would be so were golf links like billiard tables, for no ball with top on it can travel any appreciable distance through the air, and to speak of a ball being driven with top is simply to show one's utter ignorance of the game, for even if there were no rough grass and no bunkers between the tee and the hole, this over-spin could never be "an exceedingly useful thing," nor could it ever, by the greatest stretch of one's imagination, alter the principles upon which the game of golf is played, for no stroke in golf could ever supplant the drive with back-spin.

It is nonsense such as this which does much harm to the game. To speak of the possibility of over-spin being such that the "principles upon which the game of golf is played might be entirely different from what they are if the course had no rough grass and no bunkers" is one of the greatest absurdities which I have ever seen put in any book, and when one finds matter of this sort in a book called _Advanced Golf_, it calls for the severest possible criticism.

The nearest approach to top-spin which exists in golf is the spin of the pull, and there because the axis of spin is turned over to a certain extent, we get the beneficial run at the end of the drive, but anyone who knows the first principles of the flight and run of the ball would know that if the golfer in his drive obtained pure top instead of this much modified over-spin, his drive would be entirely ruined, for the thing which produces the low flight of the ball is that the ball does its ducking sideways, if we may so express it, and the chances are that quite frequently the shock of landing alters the plane of its spin, so that it is converted into pure running, but this latter point, of course, is a matter which we can only theorise about and regard as almost proved from the nature of the run of the ball on many occasions.

We need not here bother about top-spin. The only place where top (not top-spin) is of any use in golf, so far as I can remember, is on the putting-green, and there it is unquestionably useful, and it is not used so much as it should be. The point of outstanding importance, which I venture to think is made fairly clear by this chapter on the flight of the ball, is that the beneficial back-spin of golf is by far the most important spin which it is possible for a golfer to apply to his ball, and that that spin is not obtained in the manner stated by Professor Tait and, after him, by Professor Thomson, but is obtained by the method which I have indicated, viz. by a downward glancing blow, and, so far as regards this statement, we have the corroboration of James Braid to the extent that he says that "no matter what the loft is upon the club, it is impossible to obtain by loft alone the back-spin which one requires in golf."

It may seem that I have been unnecessarily emphatic in dealing with this question, but as a matter of practical golf it is absolutely impossible to lay too much stress upon the value of a complete understanding of the method of obtaining this most valuable and serviceable spin, and unless a player most perfectly understands the theory of the stroke, it is the greatest certainty possible that he will waste many years of his life endeavouring to acquire the practice, whereas if he knows perfectly well what he is trying to do, he may acquire it in as many months as he would otherwise waste years in not getting it.