BRITAIN'S FIRST GOLF CHOICE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXIV, 3 January 1931, Page 3

BRITAIN'S FIRST GOLF CHOICE

MY IDEA OF ABE MITCHELL’S GAME (By Harry Vardon, Six Times Open ' Champion) (Specially Written for “The Mail”; If public opinion were consulted, only about four men would be nominated as certain choices for the team of nine or. ten British golf professionals who must visit the United States in I 93 1 to defend the Ryder Cup and play in fhc American open championship. And I am sure that the first name to spring to most lips would be that of Abe Mitchell. It seems lo me that always the keynote of Mitchell's golf is bis driving. He is by nature the best driver I have ever seen, with the possible exception of Mr Bobbie Jones. Other men may have hit the ball a little farther (although very little farther) than either of these two, but none has equalled their capacity to combine accuracy with length.

'And the first quality that- leaves Mitchell when ho is not at his best is tliis pungency that one expects to find in bis driving. The other attributes depart later, presumably because it is very difficult for anyone to retrieve witn iron what be has lost with wood, and also because lie lias neither the style nor the temperament to make putting easy. I’hc only way be can make putting easy is by giving himself very little of it to to do. During the years m which -Mitchell lias struggled disconsolately in the doldrums, his driving has sometimes looked positively' short. That is not bis natural way. Even have I known it to _be crooked, which is even more unlike him. llis ups and downs go to show that the average golfer is guided by a sound instinct when lie says that, if only lie can learn to hit good tee shots, lie will play the rest of the game with enough confidence to he satisfied with himself. How does Mitchell do it? Hero is a question worthy of examination, for the, model is after .our own hearts' in the sense that he does not appear to possess any 1 marked physical advantages. Most very big hitters have been tall broadshouldered.. and in every way built for the part. They include Mr Edward Blackwell. Mr Cyril Tolley, Douglas Holland, and the longest hitter ever seen although very few people have heard his name) a Frenchman named Maurice Daugee. . . Any one of these might justifiably have been offered fortunes to play the part of Hercules for the films. Mitchell is not of that type. He is the ordinary man with an 1 extraordinary secret in the art of long driving. IN THE BEGINNING It appears to me that the methods which achieve this result are different from those cmploved by anybody else. I once asked Mitchell whence. he obtained bis power and accuracy in driving. He replied that it all came from the strength and pliability of his back muscles, which bad obtained a- valuable training during his younger days in gardening and roadmending. This maybe true as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough, and certainly does notaccount for the straightness of direction which is allied to distance. It. seems to me tlint> there is nothing unusual about the up swing, which is of normal pace and length. All the power is put into action by a movement which takes place at the start of the down swing. I dare swear that, at this juncture. Mitchell “tucks in his tummy”-- as Sandy Herd once told the Prince of Wales to do for the drive—and pushes out the back of his plus-fours to such a degree that bis bead comes clown some five or six inches nearer the ball. The consequence is that he has to straighten both arms in order to come through at his object. There is no other way of reaching the ball now that bis •body has buckled towards the rear and liis head has moved down as a natural corollary towards the ball. It is not a question of a straight left—or, for that matter, a straight right. Both aims. aic straight, and the back is in a position to exercise all the power that can bo obtained from this fulcrum.

PISTON-RODS Thus Mitchell hits with the muscles of his back. His arms are so straightened as a consequence of the way in which he “tucks in his tummy” and lowers his head, that he does not use them as other people do. They serve to create a very wide sweep of the clubhead and to communicate the power of the back muscles to the blow. They are like piston-rods. I suppose it is because his arms are so rigid that Mitchell does not follow through. Ho cannot. His arm muscles cannot go much beyond the down swing, for which they have been stiffened. When they start on another track they protest, and so he has to stop the club. The main point is that, in his way, he gets the face of the driver square to the ball, and all the power of his back into the impact. n I sometimes wish that Mitchell could be endowed with the aggressiveness of Compston or the sang-froid of Hagen. What a world-beater lie would be with a little bit of each of theso men in his character. ;