Chapter 2. Erroneous Theories of Golf

It is regrettable that

1. The thrills of a great game,
2. The wonderful companionships that are available in golf,
3. The recreational advantages that are a part of golf,
4. The healthful benefits that automatically accrue and flow from participation in the game

are out of the reach of so many players, because the game is played so badly. And it is played badly, not because of any physical incapabilities but because of improper understanding.

This situation is all the more regrettable because there is so little one has to know or learn in order to play a good game of golf.

What could be more simple than golf? There lies a perfectly quiet, still ball, ready to be dispatched to the desired spot. The player can take as much time as he wants and he has a whole kit full of clubs specifically designed to produce whatever effect he desires. All the golfer has to do is to swing the club.

Again I must inject my comparison-tennis, compared to golf, is difficult. In tennis, the ball is moving, it never comes to the same spot, it's in front of the player, it's behind the player, it may be low, it may be high, and the poor tennis player has just one racquet to do the job. To play the ball in its various positions, the tennis player must learn and perfect several different strokes. Not so the golfer. All the golfer needs is the one perfect stroke- and let the club do the work.

But confusion and contradiction are rampant in golf. There are more theories and more ideas on golf than any single subject in the world. Here is how these numberless ideas have developed.

Originally, in trying to explain the various clubs and their uses in golf, an impression was created that each club in golf required a certain technique. In other words, there was a certain way to use the driver for the long shots, the use of wooden clubs for fairway shots was something different, long irons required another technique, short irons something different again, and so on through the pitch shots and the chip shots. When it came to putting, the experts had run out of ideas and techniques, until today the notion prevails that putting is something that cannot be taught.

What a silly situation! Putting can be taught and learned just as any other shot in golf. But more on putting later.

On top of this contradiction about using the different swings for each club in golf, there is another theory in golf, to wit: that no two people can or should swing a golf club in the same way. There is a belief that each player must develop a golf swing designed to suit his own specific needs. From this school of thought we are swamped with ideas of how the tall, the short, the thick and the thin should play the game.

However, a serious consideration will soon prove that there are certain basic physical mechanics that exist in the human body and all persons-thick, thin, tall or short -must conform to that basic setup.

As if the above idea, of a different swing for each player and a different swing for each club in golf, has not developed enough confusion and conflict, there is still another prominent school of thought that has inhibited and restricted the naturalness in golf and the enjoyment that flows from such naturalness.

I refer now to the school that insists there should never be any body action in a golf shot. This school does admit that on the longer shots with the driver and other woods there may be some body action; but when it comes to the iron shots there must be none. Of course, when putting, complete rigor mortis should set in.

If ever one wanted to develop an unnaturalness in a physical endeavor, the way to do it is to eliminate or restrict all body action. Nothing could be more unnatural because the basis of all athletics is a full, free use of the body. For example, whether one is throwing, kicking or punching-whenever one is trying to get power into a hand or a foot-it is with a sense of body action. In fact, it is only with a full, free sense of body action that the desired effect of throwing, kicking or punching is accomplished.

Because of the confusion, contradiction and conflict that the above three theories developed, because of the inhibitions and restrictions that the three theories have created, because of the inefficiency that has resulted, because of the ineptness that must result from this conflict and confusion and because this ineptness caused countless players to give up the game in sheer disgust, I wrote my first book, Par Golf in Eight Steps, several years ago.

It was recognized that the greatest need of people learning the game-and the greatest need in producing a consistency of play-was the need of a pattern, a clear-cut program whereby a player not only knew what he should do, but by knowing exactly what he should do he automatically learned exactly what not to do.

That is what Par Golf in Eight Steps set out to do for the player. It is a perfectly natural step-by-step procedure that indicates not only what to do, but it also indicates how to do it and when to do it. Only by having such a plan can the player act positively and aggressively. With such a plan the player will be able to correct wayward tendencies and to recognize his errors and his weaknesses. By being able to recognize them he will be able to avoid them, and then and only then he will be able to play good golf.

By having an understanding of what is right and what is wrong, the player will be able to teach himself. Only with this basic understanding and an ability to evaluate his own efforts will he be able to check and correct his errors. Once this basic pattern is established, and an ability to conform to the pattern developed, there will be an understanding from which a natural sense of confidence will develop. With this confidence will come a natural sense of relaxation; and with this relaxation will come greater efficiency. Golf will become easy and natural, and only when it is easy and natural is it the real true fun it can and should be.

The discussion up to this point has been more or less of a negative nature, what one should not do. This is an endless, hopeless endeavor. Let's consider golf from the positive standpoint, and from this positive standpoint simplicity and conclusiveness can and will be reached.

The first point of understanding that one must have in regard to golf is that various clubs were designed and added to the golfer's bag in order to automatically produce different shots or different effects. Having these different clubs reduces the game to the simple task of using the same swing on each and every club.

If the player has a good swing he will play well; if he has a bad swing he will play badly. The perfect golf swing is something that is basically done with the body. Naturally, the arms and hands enter into a golf swing most importantly, but the actual swing of the club, the actual movement of the club, is done with a movement that originates in the body.

Bobby Jones, the great golfer, once expressed it as follows: "My golf swing is a something that starts within me." I thoroughly agree with this notion-that the golf swing starts within the player-it is a something that is done with the body.

However, in every golf stroke there are two swings: an upswing and a downswing. The upswing is accomplished by using the right side of the body, and the downswing is done by using the left side of the body, and therein lies a catch.

To use the right side the player must be balanced with his weight on his right foot. To use his left side he must be balanced on his left foot. And this is the first lesson in golf. A player cannot use his body any better than he can shift or transfer his weight to the right foot, so that the upswing can be made with the right side, and then back to the left foot so that the downswing can be made with the left side.

Once the player has learned to handle his weight so that the right side can be utilized to raise the club to the top of the swing, and the player has learned to reshift his weight to the left foot so that the left side can be utilized to pull the club down into and through the ball, he will be in a position to learn lesson 2, the only other lesson he has to learn.

Lesson 2 pertains to the hands.

As the player swings the club up and down, he will soon discover that there is a need to keep the club in the proper position as it is being swung up and swung down. This keeping the club in position is something that is done with the hands, but they can never be utilized to perform this important function unless the player has first established the ability to use his body as the basic means of motivating the club.

That, in a nutshell, is what the golf swing is all about. Just as there are two basic requirements to every golf shot -distance and direction-so, likewise, are there two things to learn. First, a sense of body control and body action with which to swing and motivate the club, and it is with this that the power or force in a golf shot is determined and controlled. Second, the direction of a golf shot is regulated and determined by the position of the club as it contacts the ball, and this club position is something that is created and controlled by the action of the hands.

Actually, this business of club position is the crux of each and every shot in golf. As the club is positioned, so the ball flies.

As a matter of fact, every good golfer can, in the same simple manner that a billiard player tilts his cue up or down in order to produce different effects on the cue ball, turn a golf club in or out, to make the golf ball hook, slice or go straight.

A golf club turned in towards the player is known as a club in closed position. This technique is used to curve or pull the ball to the left. If the position of the club is turned out away from the player, the position is known as open and is used to curve the ball to the right.

If the club is kept square, absolutely at right angles to the line of the shot, then the ball will fly absolutely straight.

The business of acquiring a good golf swing becomes the simple process of training oneself to use the body to swing the club, and if this body-type swing is established, then the hands are free to exert the proper and necessary sense of position control over the club so that the ball will fly true.

So much for what has to be done. Let's start to produce the perfect golf swing for everyone.