THE ACTION OF THE WRISTS
There is no doubt that a proper wrist action in the drive is of very
great importance, and it is just as undoubted that the real secret of
wrist action has been enshrouded in mystery by anyone who has in any
way attempted to deal with it. Indeed, so great a master of the game
as James Braid, absolutely confesses that he does not know where the
wrists come in during the drive. As Braid has already stated that it
is almost impossible to teach putting, it really looks as though there
is quite a considerable gap in golf which must be left to his pupils'
imagination, but this is not really so. These great golfers really
know golf and teach it much better than their published works would
lead one to believe, and as a matter of fact in very many instances
the matter which I am criticising so plainly is, I believe, not their
own. I cannot believe that much of the ridiculous nonsense which is
published in association with the greatest names of the world would be
upheld by them in an ordinary lesson--in other words, I am firmly
convinced that they suffer in the interpretation by persons whose
knowledge of golf is extremely limited.
It will, however, be interesting to see what the great golfers have to
say with regard to wrist work. Let us turn first to Harry Vardon at
page 70 of _The Complete Golfer_. There he says:
Now pay attention to the wrists. They should be held fairly
tightly. If the club is held tightly the wrists will be
tight, and _vice versa_. When the wrists are tight there is
little play in them and more is demanded of the arms. I do
not believe in the long ball coming from the wrists. In
defiance of principles which are accepted in many quarters, I
will go so far as to say that, except in putting, there is no
pure wrist shot in golf. Some players attempt to play their
short approach with their wrists as they have been told to
do. These men are likely to remain at long handicaps for a
long time. Similarly there is a kind of superstition that the
elect among drivers get in some peculiar kind of "snap"--a
momentary forward pushing movement--with their wrists at the
time of impact, and that it is this wrist work at the
critical period which gives the grand length to their drives,
those extra twenty or thirty yards which make the stroke look
so splendid, so uncommon, and which make the next shot so
much easier. Generally speaking, the wrists, when held
firmly, will take very good care of themselves; but there is
a tendency, particularly when the two V-grip is used to allow
the right hand to take charge of affairs at the time the ball
is struck, and the result is that the right wrist, as the
swing is completed, gradually gets on to the top of the shaft
instead of remaining in its proper place.
There are several important statements in this paragraph. Vardon says,
"I do not believe in the long ball coming from the wrists," and I say
that there is no doubt whatever that in the ordinary acceptation of
the term the long ball no more comes from the wrists than it does from
the feet, for as Vardon indicates here, in a drive of perfect rhythm
there is no such thing as getting the wrists into the work at, or
about, the moment of impact, as is so frequently advocated by authors
who preach what they do not themselves practise.
Vardon says that "except in putting there is no pure wrist shot in
golf." I have already shown that not even in putting is there such a
thing as a pure wrist shot in golf, unless, indeed, the player should
be playing with a putter which has an absolutely perpendicular shaft.
In this case, and in this only, is it possible to play a pure wrist
shot in golf if one follows out correctly the instructions which are
recognised as being the soundest guide in good putting.
Before quoting from James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ I must draw
particular attention to what Vardon has said about the "snap" of the
wrists at the moment of impact. He says that "there is a kind of
superstition that the elect among drivers get in some peculiar kind of
'snap'--a momentary forward pushing movement--with their wrists at the
time of impact, and that it is this wrist work at the critical period
which gives the grand length to their drives." It is surely not to be
wondered at that this, as Vardon terms it, "superstition" exists, when
we read in a book such as _Advanced Golf_, which was published several
years after Vardon's _Complete Golfer_, statements to this effect:
Then comes the moment of impact. Crack! Everything is let
loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is
struck, and goes slightly forward until the player is facing
the line of flight. The right shoulder must not come round
too soon in the downward swing but must go fairly well
forward after the ball is hit. If the tension has been
properly held all this will come quite easily and naturally;
the time for the tension is over and now it is allowed its
sudden and complete expansion and quick collapse. That is the
whole secret of the thing--the bursting of the tension at the
proper moment--and really there is very little to be said in
enlargement of the idea. At this moment the action of the
wrists is all-important, but it cannot be described. Where
exactly the wrists begin to do their proper work I have never
been able to determine exactly, for the work is almost
instantaneously brief. Neither can one say precisely how they
work except for the suggestion that has already been made. It
seems, however, that they start when the club head is a
matter of some eighteen inches from the ball, and that for a
distance of a yard in the arc that it is describing they have
it almost to themselves, and impart a whip-like snap to the
movement, not only giving a great extra force to the stroke,
but, by keeping the club head for a moment in the straight
line of the intended flight of the ball, doing much towards
the ensuring of the proper direction. It seems to be a sort
of flick--in some respects very much the same kind of action
as when a man is boring a corkscrew into the cork of a
bottle. He turns his right wrist back; for a moment it is
under high tension, and then he lets it loose with a short,
sudden snap. Unless the wrists are in their proper place as
described, at the top of the swing, it is impossible to get
them to do this work when the time comes. There is nowhere
for them to spring back from.
Here it will be seen that in a work of James Braid which is entitled
_Advanced Golf_ and which was published several years after Harry
Vardon's _Complete Golfer_ and by the same firm, we have advice and
information given to us which is diametrically opposed to the ideas of
Harry Vardon. There can be no doubt whatever that Vardon's opinion
with regard to this matter is much sounder than Braid's, and in order
that I may assist anybody who is in doubt as to which opinion to be
influenced by, I shall analyse Braid's statement.
We must, before we begin to consider Braid's advice, remember that he
himself admits that he does not know where the wrists come in.
This reminds me of an incident which occurred a short time ago. An
unfortunate golfer who had an idea that a golf ball should be hit in
much the same manner as a cricket ball, or any other common sort of
ball, came to me in my office one day and asked me to show him what
was wrong with his swing. I put down a ball for him on a captive
machine, handed him a golf club and said: "Let me see you hit it?" He
proceeded to hit it, but the instant his club head moved away from the
ball it was apparent to me that he had not a rudimentary idea of the
golf stroke. His left wrist began to turn outwards instead of inwards
and downwards. I showed him at once how wrong he was in the
fundamental principles of the golfing stroke, for, as is quite usual,
he had no idea whatever of the proper distribution of his weight,
having been taught by his professional that it must, at the top of the
swing, be on his right leg. But the main point to which I want to draw
attention is contained in his plaintive remark to me:
"Yes, that is all right now you show it to me, and I can feel that it
is better, but it is when I come to play the ball and have to remember
all these things that I make a mess of it."
My reply to him was: "My dear fellow, the man who understands how to
teach golf does not teach you how to remember all these things. He
teaches you how to forget them--in other words, he so instructs you
that everything you do between the moment that you address the ball
and the time that you hit it, is done practically without any strain
on your mind whatever. It is done by habit or second nature. Anyone
who teaches you in such a manner that you have to remember each of the
things which you think go to make up a perfect drive _while you are
making that drive_ is no use whatever to you as a teacher," and he was
immensely relieved even at the bare idea of this revolutionary
teaching.
Nevertheless, in effect, this is the only true and scientific tuition
for the golfing drive. We want to make the golfer handle his club in
such a manner that all these things which the ordinary book tells him
about as being necessary to be done and to be considered seriatim,
fall into their places as naturally as one foot comes after another in
a walk. To do this we have, unquestionably, to go through an enormous
amount of elimination of utterly false doctrine, and the quotation I
have just given from _Advanced Golf_ is an excellent illustration of
what a true teacher has to do in the way of beating down and clearing
away harmful doctrine.
Here we have published with the authority of a great player like James
Braid, and in absolute opposition to the advice of an equally great
player, Harry Vardon, a statement to the effect that the wrists come
into the drive and influence the stroke for eighteen inches before and
after impact. We are told that "at this moment the motion of the
wrists is all-important, but it cannot be described." We need not
wonder that the action of the wrists cannot be described, for at the
moment referred to by James Braid, there is, as a matter of practical
golf and undoubted fact, no wrist action whatever. If one had any
doubt whatever about this, one would only have to look at Braid's
photographs in _Advanced Golf_ showing how he plays for a pull and a
slice respectively.
In both of these strokes Braid uses identically similar photographs to
show his stance and address. Personally, as I have already stated, I
consider that he is, from a golfing point of view, utterly wrong in
doing such a thing, for there can be no doubt that the positions are
extremely different. Indeed, it would be quite ridiculous to suppose
that they were not so, but taking these photographs as Braid's mental
picture of what he does at the moment of impact, we see there clearly
that the wrists are, at the moment of impact, in exactly the same
position as they were at the moment of address.
Taking this in conjunction with the fact that Braid says in the
extract which I have just quoted "Where exactly the wrists begin to do
their proper work I have never been able to determine exactly, for the
work is almost instantaneously brief," we are quite justified in
coming to the conclusion that Braid himself does not, in this critical
portion of the swing, use any wrist work whatever.
Now Braid says that he has never been able to determine exactly where
the wrists begin to do their proper work, so I must explain for his
benefit, and for the benefit of the great body of golfers, where the
wrists really begin to do their work, and where they do the most
important part of their work, and that is absolutely at the beginning
of the downward stroke. It is here that the wrists have the greatest
life and "snap" in them, for the weight of the club and the strain of
the development of the initial velocity fall across the wrist-joints
in that position which gives them their greatest resistance--that is,
in the way in which the wrists bend least; but it must not be
forgotten that although the wrist bends least sideways, still, the
bend that the wrist is capable of in that direction provides a
tremendous amount of strength. This is particularly evident in all
games which are played with rackets.
I must here give an illustration of the power that is obtained in this
position. I have before referred to Mr. Horace Hutchinson's
illustration of the proper position at the top of the drive which he
gives in the Badminton volume on _Golf_. Here the player is shown with
the right elbow pointing skywards, and the left, if anything, too much
out the other way.
An unfortunate golfer who had tried to put these principles into
execution came into my office one day, and told me that he could get
no length whatever in his drive. I handed him a club and said: "Let me
see you swing?" At the top of his swing he got into this position
which is now considered the classical illustration of how it should
not be done, and after I had allowed him to swing several times from
this position I said to him: "Now swing again, but stop at the top of
your swing." He stopped at the top of his swing, and I then went and
stood behind him almost in a line with his right shoulder and the hole
and about a club's length from him, and I addressed him as follows:
"Will you kindly forget for the moment that that thing which you have
in your hands is a golf club, and will you also consider, ridiculous
as it may seem, that for the nonce my head is a block of wood, and
that you have in your hands now an axe instead of a golf club, with
which you desire to split my head in two. Would you now, if you had to
strike this block of wood, use your arms as you are doing?"
"Why, no," came the answer instantly. "I should do this," and down
dropped both elbows underneath the club. Then I said to this searcher
after the truth:
"I do not think I shall ever again have to tell you where to put your
elbows," and he answered, apparently overwhelmed by my supernatural
cleverness:
"That is a wonderful illustration. I never thought of it like that
before."
I am giving this as an illustration of the vagueness with which people
treat an utterly simple proposition such as this. This man was a
chartered accountant, and really, in his way, a particularly clever
fellow, but he was overwhelmed with admiration because I was able to
show him that with his golfing club he was doing, or trying to do, a
thing which no one but an idiot would have dreamed of trying to do
with a hammer or an axe. This is the kind of thing for which we have
to thank the people who write vague generalities about things which
they do not understand.
Let us analyse this most important pronouncement of Braid's a little
further. He continues:
Neither can one say precisely how they work, except for the
suggestion that has already been made. It seems, however,
that they start when the club head is a matter of some
eighteen inches from the ball, and that for a distance of a
yard in the arc that it is describing they have it almost to
themselves and impart a whip-like snap to the movement, not
only giving a great extra force to the stroke, but, by
keeping the club head for a moment in the straight line of
the intended flight of the ball, doing much towards the
ensuring of the proper direction.
The real truth of this matter is that there is no portion of the arc
of the drive wherein the wrists exert less influence, or are _so
completely out of business_ as they are in that portion of the drive
wherein James Braid _says they are predominant_.
The wrists have a tremendous amount to do with the development of the
speed of the stroke, but particularly in the initial stage of the
downward stroke. This will be most clearly seen by a study of George
Duncan's wrist action at plate 64 of _Modern Golf_, wherein the wrists
are shown turning over when the club has gone about half-way on its
downward swing. Of course, they begin to turn over much sooner than
this, but the truth is that the turn-over of the wrist or, more
correctly speaking, the roll of the forearms in the downward swing is
such a wonderfully gradual and natural process that it would be
utterly impossible for anyone to say at what particular period in the
downward swing it happens, and if anyone can say, or, rather, does
say, at what particular period the wrists come in to the downward
stroke, he is not only an ignorant golfer, but an enemy to golf, for
it is a matter which cannot be described except to say that the wrist
action begins absolutely with the beginning of the stroke, and is then
a continuous and natural turn until the club gets very close to the
ball, by which time there is practically nothing left for the wrists
to do, as the club has reverted to the position in which it was at the
moment of address, or perhaps I should say that it ought to have
reverted to that position, as indeed, in so far as regards the club
itself, is properly shown by James Braid in his photographs of stance
and address and impact.
We have now to deal with the space of eighteen inches in the
follow-through, wherein James Braid asserts the wrists still have it
all to themselves. This eighteen inches is in all properly executed
straight drives, and by straight drives, I mean drives which are not
intentionally pulled or sliced, taken up by a clean follow-through
down the line of flight after the ball, and this follow-through is, of
course, associated with the forward movement of the body on to the
left leg which is so well and clearly shown in the instantaneous
photographs of James Braid and Harry Vardon, but is, by Braid in
_Advanced Golf_, stated to be inadvisable in his text, but clearly
shown as advisable in his photographs.
There can be no doubt whatever that any attempt to introduce into the
drive for eighteen inches before and after impact, anything whatever
in the nature of a "whip-like snap" would absolutely ruin the rhythm
of the swing, for it is evident that the introduction of a "whip-like
snap" into something which we have been told is "a sweep," would
absolutely upset the general character of that "sweep." It is
impossible to have a sweep, and in that sweep to sweep the ball away
and at the same time to get the ball away by a "whip-like snap."
Either we have the sweep or we have the whip-like snap, admitting for
the sake of argument that either of these statements is correct, which
is not the fact, as the ball is hit away and neither "swept" nor got
away with a "whip-like snap," but the would-be learner is presented
with this mass of confused thought, instead of having nothing whatever
to think of with regard to hitting the ball more than he would have in
his mind if he stood still in the road and tried to smite an acorn
with his walking-stick.
Let me make this matter perfectly plain. We will consider that the
beginner has taken his stance and addressed his ball perfectly. Let
him now take his club back from the ball in the manner which the
text-books describe for an ordinary drive. Let him swing it thus back
from the ball for a foot and let him swing it back against that ball
and for a foot on the way to the hole. Let him do this once, twice,
ten times, a hundred times, aye a thousand times, if so many be
necessary for him to get absolutely and firmly settled in his mind the
fact that this swing of one foot back and one foot forward is almost
an exact replica of what happens every time he hits a good straight
drive in actual play; that it is approximately a correct sample of the
club action in that section of the swing back, downward swing, impact,
and follow-through. This idea, and this idea only, is what the golfer
must have in his mind, and when he has got this into his mind he will
see clearly that the whole importance of using the wrists properly in
golf is to get them to do their chief work in the early development of
the power of the golf drive, but that by the time the ball is reached
by the club head they have absolutely gone out of business and do not
again come into operation until in the natural order of things they
turn the club over, and pull it off the line of flight to the hole in
the follow-through.
[Illustration: PLATE X. HARRY VARDON
Finish of a drive, showing Vardon's perfect management of his
weight.]
Braid is wonderfully hazy in this matter. He continues: "It seems to
be a sort of flick, in some respects very much the same kind of action
as when a man is boring a corkscrew into the cork of a bottle. He
turns his right wrist back; for a moment it is under high tension and
then he lets it loose with a short sudden snap." This really is very
sad. We are repeatedly told that the golf stroke is a swing or a
sweep, and that it must be of an even character from beginning to end,
and yet we have James Braid in _Advanced Golf_ telling us that the
impact in the drive "seems to be a sort of flick." Well, all I can say
is that I wish any golfer who goes into the flicking business much joy
and great improvement, but I have not much hope that he will get it
until he finds out that flicking is no portion of the game of golf.
Braid's idea of this most important portion of the drive is most
remarkable. His haziness in connection with the matter extends even to
his illustration. He says that this wrist action is "in some respects
very much the same kind of action as when a man is boring a corkscrew
into the cork of a bottle. He turns his wrist right back; for a moment
it is under high tension and then he lets it loose with a short sudden
snap."
This is, mechanically, a marvellous statement. I do not profess to be
a great authority on the subject of corkscrews, bottles--or their
contents, but even in this respect I may confess to being a trifle
more than theoretical, and I may say that I have inserted many a
corkscrew into many a cork, but I have never yet used a corkscrew
wherein I turned my wrist over as the right wrist turns over in the
downward swing of the golf club. As a matter of fact, I never inserted
a corkscrew into a cork where I did not turn my wrist from left to
right. All the tension in putting a corkscrew into a cork is on the
backward journey, or that which corresponds to the upward swing in
golf. There is no tension whatever on the return, or that portion of
the screwing process which corresponds to the downward swing in golf,
whereas in golf the main portion of tension is in the downward swing;
but I believe Braid is a teetotaller, so we may forgive him if in this
respect his theory is unsound, and I think we can say that although he
may be entirely theoretical in this, his theory is, in this instance,
not more unsound than it is in regard to what he professes to describe
as the wrist action in the golf drive.
Braid says that "unless the wrists are in their proper place, as
described, at the top of the swing, it is impossible to get them to do
this work when the time comes. There is nowhere for them to spring
back from." This is correct and absolutely sound; the wrists must,
unquestionably, be in their right place at the top of the swing, the
right place being, as I have already indicated, and as indeed
practically every respectable book on golf, with the exception of the
Badminton volume, shows, underneath the shaft of the club at the top
of the swing, but it is quite wrong to speak of any such thing as
there being no place "for them to spring back from."
There must be no "spring." It is more a question of swinging than
springing, although, as my readers know, I am opposed even to the idea
of a swing in the golfing stroke. The stroke in golf is one of the
finest hits in the whole realm of athletics, and I object entirely to
it being called a swing or a sweep, or anything but that which it is
legitimately entitled to be called.
Braid says at page 62: "After impact and the release of all tension,
body and arms are allowed to swing forward in the direction of the
flight of the ball." This sentence gives us pause. We have seen,
according to Braid, that for the space of a yard, that is for eighteen
inches before and after impact in the drive, the wrists come into the
swing and do something with a "whip-like snap"--something that is a
sort of a "flick." We see that this "whip-like snap," and this "sort
of a flick," are kept up for eighteen inches after impact, but we are
told a little farther on that at the moment of impact "everything is
let loose, and round comes the body immediately the ball is struck."
How is it possible to imagine this kind of thing taking place within a
swing of perfect rhythm? It is evident that Braid has a very rooted
notion about this wrist movement. I must quote again from him, this
time from _How to Play Golf_. On page 54 he says:
The initiative in bringing down the club is taken by the left
wrist, and the club is then brought forward rapidly and with
an even acceleration of pace until the club head is about a
couple of feet from the ball. So far the movement will
largely have been an arm movement, but at this point there
should be some tightening-up of the wrists, and the club will
be gripped a little more tightly. This will probably come
about naturally, and though some authorities have expressed
different opinions, I am certainly one of those who believe
that the work done by the wrists at this point has a lot to
do with the making of the drive.
Personally, I believe that Braid is wrong in speaking about the
initiative in bringing down the club being taken by the left wrist. I
believe that the left wrist has no more to do with it than the right
wrist, and I do not believe that one practical golfer in a hundred
could tell which wrist he uses, and the chances are that if he could
tell he would not be a very good golfer, for these are things with
which a golfer has no right to cumber his mind. They are things which
can quite well be left to Nature. It is an act of supreme folly for
the ordinary man to think in the slightest degree of apportioning to
either hand the share of its work in the drive. That absolutely must
never be on his mind when beginning his stroke.
Braid here emphasises his idea that the wrists come into the golf
drive at about two feet from the ball. In _Advanced Golf_ he says
eighteen inches. In this matter I must unhesitatingly be with Harry
Vardon, and if I had not Harry Vardon's support,--if I stood against
the authority of the world of golfers--I should still be just as
positive as I am with the important corroboration which Vardon gives
me, for there can be no doubt that as a matter of practical golf,
there is no portion of the stroke in golf wherein the wrists are more
quiescent than in the impact. I must not be misunderstood when I say
this. It is obvious that the wrists at the moment of impact will be
braced to receive the shock of the blow, but the speed of the blow has
been developed long before impact, and the wrists have approximately
resumed their normal position as at the moment of address.
Although Harry Vardon is so positive in combating the notion of the
wrists coming into the drive at the moment of impact, I find him at
page 53 of _Great Golfers_ saying, when writing of the downward swing
with the driver and brassy:
In commencing the downward swing I try to feel that both
hands and wrists are still working together. The wrists start
bringing the club down, and, at the same moment, the left
knee commences to resume its original position. The head
during this time has been kept quite still, the body alone
pivoting from the hips. When the left knee has turned, I find
I am standing firmly on both feet and the arms are in
position as in the upward swing, before the left knee started
to bend. From this point the speed of the wrists seems to
increase, and the impact is thus made with the club head
travelling at its highest velocity.
I would here draw attention to the fact that Harry Vardon says: "The
wrists start bringing the club down." This, I consider, is very
important. I have already referred to Braid's statement about the left
wrist taking the initiative. It is of very great importance for the
golfer or would-be golfer to know that the left wrist has not any
right whatever to claim precedence of the right wrist at this critical
moment in the development of the power in the drive.
The other point in this extract to which I desire to draw attention is
that Vardon says, speaking of a point in the swing which he describes,
and which is practically the same spot wherein Braid says the wrists
exert their influence, that is to say, two feet from the ball: "From
this point the speed of the wrists seems to increase, and the impact
is thus made with the club travelling at its highest velocity." It is
quite possible--in fact, it is nearly certain that the speed of the
wrists will increase from that point, and that the impact will be made
with the club travelling at its highest velocity, but in describing it
in this manner Vardon is very nearly guilty of falling into the same
error as James Braid has; for this reason, that he is directing the
mind to the speed of the wrists at a critical portion of the stroke,
whereas there is only one point whose speed has to be considered, and
that is the point that does the business, which is the centre, if one
may call it so, of the face of the golf club, and it stands to reason
that if this is coming down at an ever-increasing speed, what Vardon
says of this point would be as true of any other point in the downward
swing, but it is bad golf to direct the attention of the student or
the golfer to the speed of his connecting link instead of to the
business end of the club, at any period during his swing. The golfer's
mind must be centred on his ball and his club head.
Taylor, so far as I remember, does not fall into this very grave
error, but he, in common with most of the great professionals, is
under the impression that the wrists are largely used at the moment of
impact to influence the stroke. This is one of the gravest errors in
golf. Speaking of lofting a stymie Taylor says: "Then, exactly as the
club strikes the ball, the wrists must be turned in an upward
direction smartly. The result of this is that the ball is lofted over
the other, and if hit properly it will run on and go out of sight as
intended." It is a very curious thing that nearly every author or
great golfer thinks that in lofting a stymie the best way is to turn
the wrists upwards, whereas in fact, and in practical golf, absolutely
the best and most certain way of lofting a stymie is to turn neither
the wrists, nor, as naturally follows, the face of the club, upwards,
at the moment of impact. That must always tend, in a stroke of very
great delicacy, which is a natural characteristic of many stymies, to
put too much power into propulsion instead of elevation. The best
stymie stroke which can be played, is played without lifting the
mashie or the niblick by so much as a fraction of an inch after the
ball has been hit. I have illustrated this stroke very fully, both by
diagram and photograph in _Modern Golf_, and it is unquestionably
superior in every way to the ordinary method of playing a stymie.
Let us now glance at the Badminton _Golf_ and see what Mr. Horace
Hutchinson has to say with regard to this wrist action. At page 90 we
read:
Now as the club comes near the ball, the wrists, which were
turned upward when the club was raised, will need to be
brought back, down again. It is a perfectly natural movement,
but where many beginners go wrong with it is that they are
too apt to make this wrist-turn too soon in the swing, and
thereby lose its force altogether. The wrists should be
turned again, just as the club is meeting the ball--otherwise
the stroke, to all seeming perhaps a fairly hit one, will
have very little power.
It is quite evident that Mr. Hutchinson is an adherent of the
"whip-like snap" and the "flick" theory at the moment of impact, for
he tells us that the wrists must be turned again just as the club is
meeting the ball.
I need not deal fully with this statement, for I have already
sufficiently analysed the same idea which is held by James Braid. The
only difference is that Mr. Horace Hutchinson's is very much worse
than Braid's, in that he thinks the turn-over of the wrists should be
executed at the moment of impact, which of course would import into
the golf stroke a very much greater risk of error than already does
exist in it, and it is unnecessary for me to assure golfers that there
is already quite sufficient chance of error without our endeavouring
to add to it in any way whatever. But I should like to pause to raise
one question.
Mr. Hutchinson, like nearly every other writer on golf, is a disciple
of one of the most pronounced fallacies in the game, viz.: "As you go
up, so you come down," naturally, of course, all things being
reversed. Let us then consider this point. We are informed by Mr.
Horace Hutchinson that the wrists should be turned again just as the
club is meeting the ball. Following our hoary fallacy of "As you go
up, so you come down" I presume from this that immediately the club
leaves the ball, the wrists begin to turn backwards. This would indeed
give us a peculiar start for our drive.
From an anatomical point of view I think there is very little doubt
whatever that the wrists have finished their distinctive function much
earlier in the production of the golf stroke than is generally thought
to be the case, and what is commonly miscalled wrist action is, in
effect, merely the natural roll of the forearm, as it is, I believe,
called, at any rate in the case of the left arm, its supination. There
can be no doubt that in the majority of cases where writers refer to
wrist action, they are confusing the natural turn of the forearms with
wrist action.
Before closing this chapter I may perhaps be excused if I refer again
to that remarkable volume _The Mystery of Golf_. At page 167 we are
told:
At the bottom of the swing, therefore, the club head is, or
should be, moving in a straight line. Probably it is when the
greatest acceleration in the velocity of the club, and the
strongest wrist action in the swing of the arms occur in this
straight portion of the stroke, that the follow-through is
most efficacious.
For one who essays to explain the mystery of golf, this is a very
marvellous statement. Probably at no portion whatever of the golf
stroke is the club head proceeding in a straight line. It may be taken
for an absolutely settled fact that it is always proceeding in an arc.
Also it is quite clear that the author is making the sad mistake,
which has been made by so many other people, of thinking that the
wrist action is most in evidence immediately before and after the
period of impact. Most of the leading golfers fall into the error of
stating that cut is obtained by something which is done by the wrists
at the moment of impact, but this is unquestionably an error. I have
dealt with that already in other places so fully that I think that it
will not be necessary for me to do more here than to state that in all
good shots the cut is decided upon practically the moment the club
begins its downward journey, for the amount of cut which is
administered to any ball depends entirely upon the speed, and the
angle at which the club head passes across the intended line of flight
of the ball, provided always, of course, that the club is properly
applied.