THE POWER OF THE LEFT
The fetich of the left is, amongst golfers, only second, if indeed it
is second in its injurious nature, to the idea that the weight should
be put on the right foot at the top of the swing. It is very hard
indeed to trace the origin of the idea that the left hand and arm is
of more importance in the golf stroke than the right, but that it is a
very rooted idea there can be no doubt whatever.
To those who are not acquainted with the literature of golf and the
remarkable ideas which many golfers have of the nature of their game,
it would seem almost superfluous to go very fully into this matter,
for one would think that it is sufficiently obvious that the right
hand and arm are the dominant factors in producing the golf stroke. It
is, however, useless to deny that there is a large body of opinion,
backed by most influential authority, in favour of the left hand and
arm being more important than the right.
Let us see, before we go any further in the matter, what the leading
professionals have to say about it.
Harry Vardon, it is true, does not explicitly state that the right
hand is the more important, but by implication he does assert so right
throughout _The Complete Golfer_. Let me quote a few of his remarks
with regard to the left hand. On page 61 Vardon says:
The grip with the first finger and thumb of my right hand is
exceedingly firm, and the pressure of the little finger on
the knuckle of the left hand is very decided. In the same way
it is the thumb and first finger of the left hand that have
most of the gripping work to do. Again, the palm of the right
hand presses hard against the thumb of the left. In the
upward swing this pressure is gradually decreased, until when
the club reaches the turning point there is no longer any
such pressure; indeed, at this point the palm and the thumb
are barely in contact.
We see here clearly that, as indeed Vardon has stated elsewhere, at
the top of the swing the grip of the right has opened up until it may
almost in a measure be said to have ceased to direct operations.
Vardon continues:
This release is a natural one, and will or should come
naturally to the player for the purpose of allowing the head
of the club to swing well and freely back. But the grip of
the thumb and first finger of the right hand, as well as that
of the little finger upon the knuckle of the first finger of
the left hand, is still as firm as at the beginning.
From this it will be seen that the grip at each side of the hand is
apparently as firm as it was at the beginning of the stroke, but in
some mysterious manner it has eased up in between the forefinger and
the little finger. We need not, however, go any further into that
matter at the present time, but we may continue the consideration of
Vardon's statement here. He goes on to say: "As the club head is swung
back again towards the ball, the palm of the right hand and the thumb
of the left gradually come together again. Both the relaxing and the
retightening are done with the most perfect graduation, so that there
shall be no jerk to take the club off the straight line. The easing
begins when the hands are about shoulder high and the club shaft is
perpendicular, because it is at this time that the club begins to
pull, and if it were not let out in the manner explained, the result
would certainly be a half shot or very little more than that, for a
full and perfect swing would be an impossibility. This relaxation of
the palm also serves to give more freedom to the wrist at the top of
the swing just when that freedom is desirable."
We might, for a moment, leave this statement, and turn to page 126.
Speaking here of the approach shot with the mashie Vardon says: "This
is one of the few shots in golf in which the right hand is called upon
to do most of the work, and that it may be encouraged to do so the
hold with the left hand should be slightly relaxed"; and again at page
147 in dealing with putting Vardon says: "But in this part of the game
it is quite clear that the right hand has more work to do than the
left."
In these statements it is quite evident that Vardon wishes to express
the idea that, generally speaking, the left hand is in command of the
stroke.
Reverting for a moment, and before I proceed to consider what the
other authorities have to say on this subject, to Vardon's remark that
"This is one of the few shots in golf in which the right hand is
called upon to do most of the work," I may say that Vardon does not,
in the whole of _The Complete Golfer_, explicitly describe any one
stroke wherein he shows that the left hand "is called upon to do most
of the work," nor, for the matter of that, does any other professional
golfer or author, although the statement is common to nearly all books
on the game.
James Braid, on page 55 of _How to Play Golf_, says:
A word about the varying pressure of the grip with each hand.
In the address the left hand should just be squeezing the
handle of the club, but not so tightly as if one were afraid
of losing it. The right hand should hold the club a little
more loosely. The left hand should hold firmly all the way
through. The right will open a little at the top of the swing
to allow the club to move easily, but it should automatically
tighten itself in the downward swing.
Here again we see the idea that the left is in charge, because
although we are told that in the address the left hand should "just be
squeezing" the club, yet we are told clearly and definitely that "the
left hand should hold firmly all the way through." It is somewhat
difficult to reconcile these directions, and it is obvious that if the
right is going to "open a little at the top of the swing" the club
will certainly move easily--in fact it will move so easily that the
accuracy of the stroke will be very considerably interfered with.
Let us for a moment turn to _Advanced Golf_. There, James Braid,
speaking of the top of the swing, says: "Now for the return journey.
Here at the top, arms, wrists, body--all are in their highest state of
tension." Let me pause here for a moment to ask how it is possible for
"arms, wrists, body" all to be "in their highest state of tension," if
the right hand is to "open a little at the top of the swing to allow
the club to move easily"; and how is it possible for the right hand to
"automatically tighten itself in the downward swing" if it was already
in its "highest state of tension" when it was at the top of the swing?
It will be apparent that it is utterly impossible for the arms and
wrists to be tighter than they are when they are "in their highest
state of tension." Therefore, we must take it that James Braid's
advice at page 55 of _How to Play Golf_ is over-ridden by his advice
at page 57 of _Advanced Golf_, for I think that we are entitled to
consider that _Advanced Golf_ represents Braid's last word with regard
to the science of golf.
Quoting still from the same passage, page 57 of _Advanced Golf_, Braid
says: "Every muscle and joint in the human golfing machinery is wound
up to the highest point." It is impossible to get away from that. We
are told that at the beginning of the downward swing "every muscle and
joint in the human golfing machinery is wound up to the highest
point."
Now the student of golf who desires to start his swing on a firm and
sure foundation must mark this statement well. I repeat it for the
third time: "Every muscle and joint in the human golfing machinery is
wound up to the highest point," and let it be remembered that Braid is
now speaking _of the start of the downward swing_.
We will now turn to _Taylor on Golf_. At page 193 Taylor says:
My contention is simply this: that the grasp of the right
hand upon the club must be sufficiently firm in itself to
hold it steady and true, but it must not be allowed on any
account to over-power the left. The idea is that the latter
arm must exercise a predominant influence in every stroke
that may be played. As regards my own position in the matter,
my grip with either hand is very firm, yet I should hesitate
before I told every golfer to go and do likewise.
Here we see that Taylor distinctly says that "the idea is that the
latter arm (_i.e._ the left) must exercise the predominant influence
in every stroke that may be played," and although he says explicitly
that his own grip with both hands is very firm, he puts the utterly
false idea of the predominance of the left into the minds of those who
are influenced by his teaching.
Taylor, at page 107 of _Great Golfers_, says in dealing with the
"Downward Swing":
The club is brought down principally by the left wrist, the
right doing very little until the hands are opposite the
right leg, when it begins to assert itself, bringing the full
face of the club to the ball.
It is almost unnecessary to say, especially in view of Taylor's
statement that he holds very firmly with both hands, that he does not
carry out this dangerous teaching. Harry Vardon says to attempt it is
fatal, and I am pleased to add my corroboration.
This amazing fallacy is wonderfully deeply rooted. A friend of mine
some time ago was in trouble about his iron shots. He consulted a
professional, who endeavoured to cure him by telling him when playing
his stroke to hold so lightly with his right hand that at any time
during the stroke he could slide it up and down the shaft.
Oh no! He is not a duffer, nor is he mentally unbalanced. He is merely
a professional golfer who plays for England and suffers from the
hallucination handed on to him by more famous players than he.
What could be stronger than this? Let me quote Taylor again. At page
90 of _Taylor on Golf_ he says:
The right hand is naturally the stronger of the two--much
more powerful in the average man than the left--and the
learner is just as naturally prone to use it. But in the game
of golf he must keep in front of him at all times the fact
that the left hand should fill the position of guide, and it
must have the predominating influence over the stroke.
That this is rather unnatural I am perfectly willing to
admit. Its being unnatural is the basis of its great
difficulty, but it is a difficulty that must needs be
grappled with and overcome by any man who desires to play the
game as it should be played.
But Taylor will not give in to this idea himself! Is not this
wonderful?
Harry Vardon says of the grip that one should "remember that the grip
with _both_ hands should be firm. That with the right hand should not
be slack as one is so often told." This is valuable corroboration, for
it must be remembered that Vardon only subscribes to the fetich of the
left _by implication_. Nowhere, I think, can we convict him of
actually preaching it.
Now let us turn to the volume on _Golf_ in the Badminton Library
contributed by Mr. Horace G. Hutchinson. At page 85 Mr. Hutchinson
says:
Since, as will be shown later on, the club has to turn in the
right hand at a certain point in the swing, it should be held
lightly in the fingers, rather than in the palm, with that
hand. In the left hand it should be held well home in the
palm, and it is not to stir from this position throughout the
swing. It is the left hand, mainly, that communicates the
power of the swing; the chief function of the right hand is
as a guide in direction.
At page 87 Mr. Hutchinson continues:
So much, then, for the grip. Now, when the club, in the
course of its swing away from the ball, is beginning to rise
from the ground, and is reaching the horizontal with its head
pointing to the player's left, it should be allowed to turn
naturally in the right hand until it is resting upon the web
between the forefinger and the thumb.
We see here that this distinguished amateur is an out and out adherent
of the fallacy of the left. He tells us distinctly that it is the
"left hand, mainly, that communicates the power of the swing, and that
the chief function of the right hand is as a guide in direction," but
notwithstanding the fact that "the chief function of the right hand is
as a guide in direction," we see that at the top of the stroke it
turns loosely in the hand until it is "resting upon the web between
the forefinger and the thumb."
[Illustration: PLATE VII. HARRY VARDON
The finish of the drive--a little later than in Plate VI.,
showing the weight completely on the left foot.]
Of course, in the circumstances, it will be very hard indeed for us to
follow out James Braid's idea of everything at this point being in
supreme tension, but it is interesting to see what Mr. Hutchinson
thinks about the matter.
We have here the opinions of the three most distinguished
professionals in the world, backed by that of one of the distinguished
amateurs in the game, a man who has distinguished himself both by his
play and his writing. In the face of this weight of authority it may
seem rash to venture to state plainly and explicitly that as a matter
of practical golf the right hand and arm is the dominant partner, and
that it is the duty of every normal golfer to have this idea firmly
implanted in his mind when he settles down to his address.
As the right is the dominant partner in the golf drive, so must the
predominance of the right be the dominant idea in one's mind, but the
domination of the right must not be abused, as we shall show later on.
It is, of course, proper for a golfer to have clearly fixed in his
mind the fact that the right is the more important member of the two,
but when he has once got that fact carefully and well stowed away in
his mind, it will be no more trouble to him than it is at present to
every normal person to use his knife in his right hand with which to
cut his meat, for it is an absolutely natural proceeding. The trouble
with the fetich of the left is that not only is it a perfectly
unnatural proceeding, but it is also, on that account, something extra
for the golfer to cumber his mind with during his swing. If he plays
his stroke naturally and without any thought of the mismade maxims of
unpractical persons, he will inevitably let the right hand and arm
take charge of the stroke, but the right will not at any time
endeavour to do more than its proper share, and therefore the left
will be given every chance to do a fair amount of the work. It is the
interference with Nature by putting the left forward into a place
which it has no right to occupy, which ruins so many golf strokes.
Let us now turn to _The Complete Golfer_. Here, at page 60, Harry
Vardon says:
We must now consider the degree of tightness of the grip by
either hand, for this is an important matter. Some teachers
of golf, and various books of instruction, inform us that we
should grasp the club firmly with the left hand and only
lightly with the right, leaving the former to do the bulk of
the work and the other merely to guide the operations.
It is astonishing with what persistency this error has been
repeated, for error I truly believe it is. Ask any really
first-class player with what comparative tightness he holds
the club in his right and left hands, and I am confident that
in nearly every case he will declare that he holds it,
nearly, if not quite, as tightly with the right hand as with
the left. Personally, I grip quite as firmly with the right
hand as with the other one. When the other way is
adopted--the left hand being tight and the right hand simply
watching it, as it were--there is an irresistible tendency
for the latter to tighten up suddenly at some part of the
upward or downward swing, and, as surely as there is a ball
on the tee, when it does so there will be mischief.
If we sum up the advice of Vardon and Taylor, and of Braid as shown in
his latest work _Advanced Golf_, we see clearly that although they
subscribe to the idea of the predominance of the power of the left
hand and arm, they do not themselves carry it out in practice. Taylor
says that his grip with both hands is very firm, yet he should
hesitate before recommending other people to follow his methods. I
think we may take it for granted that a method which has resulted in
four open championships may be considered good enough to follow.
Vardon, as we have seen, only subscribes to this notion inferentially,
and nobody could be more emphatic than he is with regard to the
distribution of force in the grip. His words "Ask any really
first-class player with what comparative tightness he holds the club
in his right and left hands, and I am confident that in nearly every
case he will declare that he holds it, nearly, if not quite, as
tightly with the right hand as with the left," present the case
exactly. Any man who plays golf properly will find it impossible to
tell you how he distributes the force of his grip on his club, and
what proportion of power the grip of the left bears to the right. As a
matter of fact, the man who plays golf properly has no time to think
of such nonsense as this. This is a matter which is regulated for him
by common sense and nature.
The trouble steps in when he is advised to interfere with the ordinary
course of Nature, and to put the left hand in a position of authority
which it has no right whatever to try to exercise. I say advisedly
"try" to exercise, because it never can exercise the power which it is
supposed to have. It stands to reason, therefore, that any attempt
whatever to make it exercise a power superior to the more powerful arm
must result in interfering with the proper functions of the hand and
arm which should be naturally in command of the stroke.
We have seen that James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ has quite altered the
opinions which he expresses in _How to Play Golf_, and he also agrees
that at the top of the swing, and until the stroke is played, it is
right to grip the club as hard as one can with both hands--in fact,
he says as plainly as it is possible for anyone to say anything, that
during the whole of the downward swing the muscles are in a state of
supreme tension, and fortunately he does not repeat the common error,
the error which he himself makes in _How to Play Golf_, of advising
the player to encumber his mind with any idea of regulating the
increase of speed of the club head.
Vardon puts the matter splendidly when he says:
Personally, I grip quite as firmly with the right hand as
with the other one. When the other way is adopted--the left
hand being tight and the right hand simply watching it, as it
were--there is an irresistible tendency for the latter to
tighten up suddenly at some part of the upward or downward
swing, and, as surely as there is a ball on the tee, when it
does so there will be mischief.
This is such an important statement that I must, in passing, emphasise
it, although I hope to deal with it again later on, for Vardon here
strikes a deadly blow to the absurd nonsense which most books lay down
about regulating the grip during the upward and downward swing. As
Vardon truly says, any attempt to apportion the respective power of
the grip of the left and right during the golf swing must inevitably
result in disaster, for there will unquestionably be, as he well
remarks, a pronounced tendency to tighten up at some part of the swing
in a jerky manner. The only way to guard against this is to be, as
James Braid says in _Advanced Golf_, in a state of supreme tension
from the moment the downward swing starts.
It must be remembered that Vardon himself advocates easing up with the
grip of the right at the top of the swing, although he says that he
grips as firmly with the right as the left. It stands to reason that
if Vardon does ease up with his right at the top of the swing, he
must during his downward stroke restore the balance of power. It seems
perfectly clear that in doing this there is a very great danger of
what he describes as an "irresistible tendency for the latter," that
is the right hand, "to tighten up suddenly."
I cannot see that, because Vardon starts with his grip equally firm
with each hand, and then relaxes the firmness of his grip with his
right hand at the top of the stroke, trusting to regain his firmness
by the time he has reached the ball again, he removes from his swing
the danger of the sudden tightening-up which he shows will threaten
the swing of anyone who attempts to let the left hand have the
predominant grip. It seems to me perfectly clear that this danger must
be even in Vardon's downward swing, but we know quite well that
Vardon, as a stroke player, is a genius, and that even if it is not a
danger for him, it would be for ninety-five of every hundred golfers.
The truth is, with regard to the golf grip, although none of the
leading professionals or authors are courageous enough to state it,
that for the ordinary golfer--aye, and even for the extraordinary
golfer--there is only one way to apportion the force of the left and
right in the grip, and that is _not to think about it at all when one
is doing it_, but to grip very firmly with both hands, and leave any
apportionment of force which may be necessary to Nature, and the
golfer who follows this advice and instruction will find that Nature
can attend to it infinitely better than he can.
In golf we frequently find that one fallacy is built up on another,
and it is quite an open question if the fallacy of the power of the
left hand and arm is not founded on another fallacy, namely, the
fallacy of the present overlapping grip. Now this sounds like rank
heresy, and I may as well say at once that I am not prepared to
assert that the present overlapping grip is a fallacy, but it is at
least open to argument if it is the best grip which can be taken of a
golf club.
There is no such thing as standing still in golf or any other
game--either we are progressing or we are going backwards. In golf,
notwithstanding the vast amount of false teaching which is published,
we are unquestionably advancing. It must not be thought from this that
it is of no importance that most of the matter which is published
about golf is entirely misleading, for that is not so. This misleading
matter is followed by an enormous army of golfers who are not able to
think out the matter for themselves, but there are a very great number
of golfers who absolutely disregard the published tuition of the
greatest experts in the world and play golf as it should be played,
and in no case is this more pronounced than in the persons of leading
professional golfers, for they write one thing, but do absolutely the
other themselves.
In the old days, when Vardon and all the other champions used the
two-handed grip, it would have been rank folly for any person other
than Vardon to have asserted that it was better to get the grip of the
right hand off the club, as the overlapping grip does to a very great
extent, but this grip was tried by Vardon, and it very soon became
almost universal. However, I think we are justified in asking if this
grip is undoubtedly the best that it is possible for us to get. Before
the overlapping grip became fashionable both hands had their full grip
on the shaft of the club, and in those days men played great golf, and
there are many of them who still play great golf with the same hold,
which they have refused to alter.
At page 194 of _Taylor on Golf_, speaking of the grip, Taylor says:
To sum up the matter, I should describe the orthodox manner
of gripping with the right in the following words: The
fingers must close around the club in such a way that
provision is made for the thumb to cover and cross the shaft,
the first joints of the fingers, providing this is done,
being just in sight. Nothing more or nothing less. This is
the grip generally accepted as being orthodox, and the one
generally favoured by the majority of those who decide to
follow up the game properly. But, as is the case with
everything which is favoured by any considerable number of
enthusiasts, there are those who, untrammelled by tradition,
break away and hold the club differently, with one hand at
least.
Take, as for instance, the case of Mr. John Ball, jun. This
gentleman--one of the leading golfers of the day--holds the
club firmly, not to say tightly, in the palm of his right
hand. Well, he has discovered that this does not
detrimentally affect his play, so I presume that may be taken
as a satisfactory proof that the orthodox way may sometimes
be departed from. Then, after Mr. Ball, I might mention the
name of Mr. Edward Blackwell. He is almost certainly the most
consistently good long driver we possess now, and his
unorthodox method of grip with the right hand has not
affected his play.
Taylor, of course, uses the overlapping grip, which is to-day the
orthodox grip.
Taylor speaks here of "those who, untrammelled by tradition, break
away and hold the club differently, with one hand at least," but it
seems to me that the two golfers quoted are not those who are breaking
away from the traditional hold. Rather does it seem to me that it is
we of the orthodox grip of to-day who have broken away from the best
traditions of golf, and taking best and best of those who have adopted
the modern grip and those who have maintained the old grip, there is
practically "nothing in it." Looking at the grip of men like Mr. H. H.
Hilton, Mr. John Ball, and Mr. Edward Blackwell, it would, I think,
to-day, require a person almost bereft of intelligence to imagine for
one moment that the power of the stroke in the play of these golfers
is obtained from their left arms and hands, and I do not suppose for a
single moment that any one of these players would dream of asserting
that he gets his length or direction from the left arm.
We are now confronted with the fact that one at least of these players
with the two-handed grip is at practically no disadvantage against the
best golfers in the world, and we must take it for granted in the face
of what we have said, that his power of stroke and his command thereof
is obtained from his right hand and arm. Now that being so, let us say
for the sake of argument that he desires to improve his play by
bringing the action of his wrists into greater harmony by adopting the
overlapping grip. Surely one is confronted with this question--should
one overlap the left hand with the right, or should one overlap the
right with the left. In the present overlap the left hand takes the
first grip of the club, and the right hand overlaps it, and in so
doing is taken, to a very great extent, off the shaft of the club.
The question now arises, Should not one first take one's grip with the
right hand, the dominant hand, the guiding hand, and the hand which is
operated by the stronger arm, and having got this grip, proceed to
overlap with the left, always allowing, of course, for the necessary
insertion of the thumb of the left between the shaft and the palm of
the right hand?
This may sound revolutionary, but I assure my readers that it is not
one half so revolutionary as the change from the old two-handed grip
to the present overlapping grip, for in that change the right hand
was, to a very great extent, deprived of its pride of place. I think
there is very little doubt that a player who became accustomed to the
right-handed grip with the left overlap, would find that he produced a
better game than he was able to do with the present overlapping grip.
The fact is that we are inclined to take a much too complimentary and
optimistic view of our exploits. Golf has now come to such a pass that
it is played almost perfectly by a few of the best players, so that we
have come to consider a five by a leading player as a serious lapse;
but we must not judge the great body of golfers by the perfect
players. These men would probably play very well under any conditions
which could exist in the game. We have to consider the greatest good
of the greatest number--in other words, the object of our search is to
ascertain and understand perfectly what is the best way, and although
I am stating this proposition with regard to the golf grip quite
tentatively, and am laying it down as a subject for argument, I have
very little doubt indeed that it will be found in the future that the
right-handed grip is the best grip for playing golf.
I think there is very little doubt that the most important change in
the next decade will be in the right hand and arm coming into their
kingdom. It need not be thought that this will happen in a day, or a
month, or a year. For very many years the great game of golf was
played, and was well and truly played by men who never dreamed of
putting part of one hand beneath the other--who would have scouted the
overlapping grip and the levering of the right hand off the shaft as
sacrilege--but some one introduced the idea, because it brought the
wrists closer together so that they worked more in harmony than with
the old grip. Harry Vardon tried it and found it good, and it went
into the game of golf and the history thereof.
And to see Vardon use it, one might well say, "What more can you
want?"; but that is not argument. Probably the one who asked that
question would have asked the same question had he seen Vardon playing
when he was using the old grip, when one wrist was fighting the other;
so we must not be deterred from our speculation, from peering into the
future. Of course, the essence of the overlapping grip is that it
reduces the conflict of the wrists, and so conduces to greater
accuracy and to less interference with the rhythm of the swing. It
stands to reason that in the old days of the two-handed grip this
conflict was worse than it would be now, for then the fetich of the
left had not been weakened, and it was a distressful thing to have a
hefty left in possession of the end of one's shaft and interfering
with the proper functions of the right in an unwarrantable manner.
Scientific golfers have, however, now come to the conclusion that the
right hand and arm are the dominant partners in the production of the
golf stroke, although there are many of the old school who still
pathetically retain and exhibit their allegiance to the old tradition
of the left being the master.
If we have established the fact that the right is the dominant factor
in the production of the drive, it seems to me that it follows quite
naturally that the place of honour on the shaft should be allotted to
it, and that it should be allowed the full grip, and not as it is at
present, pushed off the shaft so that the grip of the dominant hand is
practically reduced to that of the thumb and the first and second
fingers. If this point is conceded the right hand obtains the full
benefit of its undoubtedly superior power, for it obtains a firm and
natural grip, whereas the present overlapping grip is a most unnatural
hold and a difficult one for beginners to acquire, although very few
players who have once used it return to the old grip.
Not only is the proposed grip more solid and natural, and productive
of greater power and accuracy than the present overlapping grip, but
it unquestionably carries the main idea of the overlapping grip to its
logical conclusion, as it reduces the stroke much more to a one-wrist
shot than does the present grip.
There will always be found many people who are prepared to condemn
utterly anything which they do not understand. Some of these are sure
to exercise themselves on this subject, so I shall give them some
additional food for thought. Some time ago, a golfer who was capable
of removing Mr. John Ball from the Amateur Championship Competition,
lost his left thumb at the second joint. After his misfortune he took
to driving a much longer ball than he had been in the habit of doing
before his accident.
Now there must have been some reason for this. The only one which I
can suggest is that his accident put the right hand more into its
proper and natural place on the shaft than it had been before.
Curiosity led me to try to reproduce this grip as much as possible. I
used the ordinary overlapping grip, with the exception that I allowed
my thumb to remain out and to rest on the back of my right hand in a
line with the knuckle of the little finger. I was astonished to find
how closely it seemed to bring the wrists together. The injured golfer
would probably have the ideal golf grip if he overlapped his right
with his left forefinger instead of using the ordinary overlap, for he
would have a perfectly free and full right-hand grip, no interference
by the thumb of the left hand, and a natural overlap with the left
forefinger on the little finger of the right hand.
There is surely food for thought in these considerations, and I am
sure that many who take to golf late in life could do much better with
this grip and the short swing than they do with the grip which is most
in vogue, and with much striving after an exaggerated swing. It is not
wise for us to think that there is nothing to discover or to improve
on in the grip. There is in this suggestion much room for experiment
and argument, and unless I am very much mistaken we shall, in the
future, see the relative position of the hands on the shaft altered.
I may here refer again to the remarks made on the power of the left by
Mr. Horace Hutchinson. It will be remembered that he said:
Since, as will be shown later on, the club has to turn in the
right hand at a certain point in the swing, it should be held
lightly in the fingers, rather than in the palm, with that
hand. In the left hand it should be held well home in the
palm, and it is not to stir from this position throughout the
swing. It is the left hand, mainly, that communicates the
power of the swing; the chief function of the right hand is
as a guide in direction.
Notwithstanding Mr. Horace Hutchinson's statement with regard to the
function of the right hand, there is given on page 86 of the Badminton
_Golf_ an illustration entitled "At the top of the swing (as it should
be)." Here we see a player in about as ineffective a position for
producing a drive as one could possibly imagine, for the right elbow
is considerably above the player's head and is pointing skyward. It
would be an impossibility from such a position to obtain either
adequate guidance or power from the right hand, and it is a matter of
astonishment to find the name of such a fine player and good judge of
the game as Mr. Horace Hutchinson attached to an illustration which
must always be a classical illustration of "The top of the swing (as
it should _not_ be)."
We may here for the time being disregard the fundamentally unsound
position of the right arm, for Mr. Horace Hutchinson has apparently
altered his mind since, as we find him in _Great Golfers_ photographed
at the top of his swing with the right elbow in an entirely different
position. We see there clearly that he had come to realise the
importance of keeping his elbow well down and as much as possible in
the plane of force indicated by the swing and the shaft of the golf
club. These photographs are very interesting. Mr. Horace Hutchinson
says that the golf club "should be held well home in the [left] palm,
and it is not to stir from this position throughout the swing," yet at
the top of Mr. Horace Hutchinson's swing illustrated on page 296 of
_Great Golfers_ we see clearly that at the top of his swing the club
is barely held in the fingers of the left hand--as a matter of fact
the forefinger of the left hand is raised and the club is merely
resting in the three other fingers, which appear to be curved on to
the club and hardly exerting any pressure whatever.
It is abundantly clear from this photograph that Mr. Hutchinson, who
is the most pronounced adherent to the fetich of the left, is driving
his ball with a grip which is, to all intents and purposes, a
right-handed stroke. This photograph was taken in action and at the
rate of about one twelve-hundred-and-fiftieth of a second, so that
there cannot be much doubt as to the fact that Mr. Horace Hutchinson
is merely another exemplification of the fact that the golfers who
write for the public tell them one thing, while they themselves
practise another.
Before concluding this chapter on the power of the left, I may mention
that Mr. H. H. Hilton in Mr. John L. Low's book _Concerning Golf_,
subscribes to the idea of attempting to regulate the force of the
grips taken by the hands. He says on page 78 of that book:
When the main object of a shot is to obtain length, hold
tight with the left hand. The left hand will then do most of
the work in taking up the club. The right hand comes in on
the down swing to add force to the shot, and all parts of the
player's anatomy cohering together, the impetus will carry
his shoulders round, and unless he arbitrarily checks the
motion, he will finish his shot with his arms and club thrown
forcibly away from him; in short, he will have followed
through.
It will be seen that this fine player distinctly advises a stronger
grip with the left than with the right hand when one's object is
distance. In the drive the object, of course, generally is distance,
and we are distinctly advised by Mr. Hilton to play our stroke in a
manner which Harry Vardon has clearly laid down as almost certain to
lead to irretrievable disaster, for starting with a firm grip with our
left, which we are to put practically in command of the club on the
upward swing, we are then to bring the right into play "on the down
swing to add force to the shot."
It will be clearly seen here that Mr. Hilton is under the impression
that the left is performing the more important portion of the work,
for he speaks of the right hand as coming in to add force to the shot,
whereas, in fact, the main portion of the force is provided by the
right, and if there is any question of either hand and arm _adding_
force to the shot, that will be done by the left hand and arm, and not
by the right.
I do not think it is necessary for me to go any further in order to
show how deeply rooted and how widespread is this delusion about the
power of the left. It is another one of those pernicious fallacies
which absolutely strike at the root of the game of the great body of
golfers, and it is impossible for one to take too much trouble in
discrediting it to such an extent that it will soon be recognised as
not being practical golf.
I can hardly close this chapter better than by a quotation from a
letter received by me from the professional of an American club as far
afield as San Antonio, Texas. He writes:
It has taken me years of persistent effort to bury the many
prejudices against the proper use of the right arm, but they
must go, and I am glad to see you voiced sentiments strong
enough to make men stop and think over the situation. Let us
hope they will act.