GOLF REMEDIES

Evening Star, Issue 19786, 9 February 1928, Page 5

GOLF REMEDIES

AN ANTIDOTE FOR SLICING [Written by Hakkv Vabijon, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] Not long ago 1 met a very good golfer in an ecstasy about his game—always a pleasant thing to do, because good golfers arc apt to become miserable if they miss two or three drives in a round, whereas the ordinary mortal is deliriously happy if he hits two or three nice ones.

This particular individual was effervescing with joy because lie had just discovered a golden remedy tor a long-standing tendency to slice his shots. It consisted in turning the toes of his left foot inwards in the stance — just as a pigeon does—and lo! the effects wore wonderful, lie declared that this expedient braced up the left side of his body so strongly as to bring the club-face square to the ball at the impact and check a habit which he had developed of coming in too slackly tor the blow and cutting across the ball. People are constantly lighting upon discoveries which, seizing the imagination, act temporarily as cures for ills to which, the golfing flesh is heir. No doubt many of them depend largely upon faith for their effect, and, sooner or later, they are usually abandoned by their originators. The problem is to sort the good from the merely plausible. The scheme of standing pigeon-toed as an antidote for slicing may have something to recommend it. Mr Cyril Tolley was its pioneer. He introduced it several years ago, and for a time prospered exceedingly on it. He adopted this stance when, in 1924, he won the French open championship at Versailles with rounds of 73, 73, 71, and 73, beating Walter FI a gen by three strokes. He has since forsaken it, but that does not mean that it is without its value as a transient remedy and confidence-reviver. A PUTTING INSINUATION. It is only from such experimentations that methods of definite and lasting value to the golfer are evolved. _ A ease in point is the system of reversing the ordinary overlapping grip for putting. As every player knows—or ought to know—the "normal overlapping grip is so arranged that the little finger of the right hand rests on the forefinger of the left. I think it was Mr W. J. Travis, of New; York, winner of qnr amateur championship in 1904, who introduced the plan of reversing this order for the putting grip by placing the fore linger of the left hand on the little finger of the right. His theory was that the left hand thus became a guide which enabled the right—the hand which actually made the stroke—to take the club-l'aco hack straight behind the ball and square ail the while to the intended lino of. the putt. Wondrously though ho putted, people were inclined for many years to regard Mr Travis’s grip as a little ecccntricitv which made him a law unto himself; but it is the fact that nearly all the leading American golfers, beginning _ with Mr Bobby Jones ; now have faith in it. It is accepted by everybody who is in a position to judge that the Americans are more deadly and more consistent than the British at putting, and, since there must be some explanation of this state of affairs, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the Americans may have the better system. Of that system one of the most notable features is the adoption of the reversed overlapping grip for the nutter. Yet it is almost unknown here.

The only other outstanding; trait in the American way of holing out is to dispose the arms so that the elbows are pointing outwards, thus creating a condition in which the club ran be swung to and fro like a pendulum. This, being the more conspicuous feature, has a good many adherents in Britain; but it is at least possible that the unobtrusive peculiarity of grip has as much as anything to do with the success of the Americans in the most delicate department of the game. HAPPY-GO-LUCKY. It is one of the curious aspects of golf in this country that there never lias been any nationally accepted method of putting, nor any prescribed way of teaching it. For the drive, the iron shot, the mashie shot, the niblick recovery from places of retribution — and, indeed, all the strokes up to the green—there have "been definitely established forms of instruction. Putting has been left to look after itself. Hundreds of thousands of players have had their countless hours of instruction in drives and iron shots and approaches, but one might search far and long without finding anybody who had had one solid hour of teaching in the art of putting. The late Tom Ball, who was a remarkably good putter, did once tell me of a patron who engaged him to travel from London to St. Andrews' to give three lessons of an hour each in his special line. There is obviously' something wrong in this'state of affairs. Is it the lack of a national cult in putting? Even the small, select band of champions and other first-class players are to be seen shaping in every conceivable position

for their putts—some standing nearly bolt upright, and others stooping with their noses nearly touching the ball ; some straddle-legged, and others with their heels nearly touching. It might not be a bad idea if some representative British team, either a Walker Cup team or a Ryder Cup team, were to confer and decide upon a definite method of putting.