In summer journeys through the woods we have admired (as what forest
pilgrim has not) the ax work of our guides; and there is little to choose
between the best white artist and the best Indian. Bill was perhaps our
favorite, and it was always a pleasure to watch him work—especially if
the day was warm. His execution was precise, no matter how precarious the
stance—as, for example, when he placed one foot on the bow of the canoe
and the other on a floating log, and tackled the river barricade which
the Chippewa calls “ge-bok-wah.” Bill grasped his ax with the o. f. palm
grip. We tried to induce him to use the Vardon grip, explaining that the
two hands would function more nearly like one, but Bill couldn’t see it;
nor could we make him visualize the motion of the ax as a sweep, rather
than a hit. We had better luck when we got on the subject of the left
being the master hand. Bill agreed to give that the once over. He did,
and nearly cut his feet off. After that we could do nothing with him.
“AM I TO SET MY LIFE UPON A THROW?”
Omar Khayyam, the well-known wine agent, related musically that when
young he eagerly frequented the company of the well informed, and
listened to cubic miles of heated air; and that, so far as unravelling
the plot of the universe was concerned, he might as profitably have spent
his time in digging holes in the desert. And so it is that while we hear
“great argument” about the golf swing, it remains to the majority (and we
fear it must continue to remain) a royal and ancient arcanum.
Take some recent punditial ponderings put forth by men who, as Editor
Behr has said, can never be satisfied with their perceptions until they
have translated them into thought. A writer in “The American Golfer”
illumines the arcanum with this lightning flash:
“The ideal timing consists in gradually increasing the speed of
the swing from the start so that the maximum will be attained
when we connect with the ball.... We should try to put the
final effort into the stroke when the clubhead is about two
feet away from the ball.”
It seemeth to us that any one who tries for a final effort when the
clubhead is two feet from the ball is endeavoring to encompass the
improbable, and is getting away as far as possible from the idea of
“throwing the head of the club at the ball,” as advocated by leading
academicians. We asked Mr. George O’Neil to explain the throw, and he
replied that “the clubhead must lead in the movement, and pull after
it the shaft of the club and the player’s hands, arms, and body.” This
dictum may, to some mentalities, be packed with significance, but it
means little in our mental life. A throw’s a throw. We, too, essay a
throw, but we throw what is in our hands to throw, which is the other
end of the club. What becomes of the head of it we do not know, but we
are sustained and soothed by the unfaltering trust that if it continues
attached to the shaft it will take care of itself.
After all, the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee is more
fancied than real. Both of these heroes drive a long ball. It is only
when they attempt to translate their perceptions into thought that they
slice to the rough.
* * * * *
Our gossip, C. B. Lloyd, who has taken miles of moving pictures of the
golf swing, writes us that, in the case of many celebrated players, the
pictures show that the clubhead does _not_ leave the ball before the
hands and arms are set in motion. That coincides with our observation, C.
B., and applies particularly, we conjecture, to upright swings.