8 LOOKING UP
Golf is recognized as one of the more difficult games to play or teach. One reason for this is that each person necessarily plays by feel, and a feel is almost impossible to describe. Another reason is because certain things necessary to be done cannot be attacked directly, but must be made right while directing the attention to something else. It has been my experience that the admonition to hold the head still and keep the eye on the ball in most cases comes under this latter heading; for almost anyone, attempting to fix his eye upon the ball or to hold his head immovable, soon finds himself so full of tension that he is helpless.
I have occasionally run across a person who said that he was helped by selecting a particular point on the surface of the ball at which to look. But the pros and better amateurs will always tell you that they do not consciously fix their gaze upon any particular point nor, indeed, upon the ball at all. They are merely aware of the location of the ball. They are, no doubt, seeing it during the entire stroke, but they do not stare at it.
This is carried a step further by some of those who have noticed that the first-class player, in playing a normal stroke, keeps his head down for a perceptible interval after he strikes the ball. Some interpret this as an indication that there is an effort to keep the gaze upon the spot from which the ball has departed, in an effort to avoid looking up too quickly. Yet this is hardly ever the case. I doubt if one of these men would ever be aware that he had not the ball in sight from the moment his backswing began until the flight of the ball had ended or had carried beyond an obstruction where it was no longer visible.
The danger of looking up apparently becomes greater as the length of the shot becomes less. Rarely do you see an indication of looking up when the player is driving or playing an iron shot. Sometimes the head comes up and the shot is spoiled, but I think this is caused more by a resistance elsewhere in the stroke forcing the head away, than by failing to look at the ball. In other words, the head-lifting itself results from a mechanical fault, and does not itself start the trouble.
In chipping and putting there may be this difference. Within the hitting area is where the club is most likely to distract the eye; when playing a full shot, the club head is moving so fast that little interference is likely to result. On the putting green, however, the player’s chief concern just before he begins his stroke is to align the face of his club exactly; and the head of the putter remains always before his eye. There is danger then of distracting, not so much his eye or gaze, but his attention from the ball.
I experienced a spell of bad putting that I finally determined was due solely to a habit of following the putter blade with my eye as it moved away from the ball Of course, the only cure was to refuse to allow my gaze to be drawn away, but even then it was more a matter of refusing to worry about the putter than of looking at the ball. It would have been the same if the hole or the line had been drawing my attention. There is nothing more necessary for good patting than to make two entirely separate operations of deciding upon the line and of striking the ball. It is best always to have the first job out of the way so that the entire attention can be given to the second.
CHAPTER FIVE
1 COMMON SENSE AND SHORT SHOTS
2 MECHANICS OF THE PITCH
3 THE NATURE OF BACKSPIN
4 WHAT DISTINGUISHES THE CHIP
5 CHOOSING THE CLUB TO FIT THE SHOT
6 AN ESSENTIAL FOR SHORT SHOTS
7 THE PROPER PROCEDURE JUST OFF THE GREEN
Halfway Down
CHAPTER FIVE
1 COMMON SENSE AND SHORT SHOTS
Once I was playing with a man who was scoring in the high nineties; yet, to give a sample of his play, on each of two holes, five hundred yards in length, his second shot stopped within forty yards of the green. When anyone who has played golf for any time at all scores much above ninety, the reason can be found in his work around the greens. Of course, older men, who cannot get the needed distance, and the wild fellows, who knock the ball entirely off the course from every tee, are exceptions. Most of the others who play regularly manage somehow to get the ball within short pitching distance of the greens in two shots. It is only then that they really begin to throw away strokes.
An important part of the short play is judgment; selecting the right club and the right shot. Many unnecessary losses are incurred because the player attempts shots that are too exacting—pitching too close to bunkers, and trying to chip cleanly from sand. Not content with a fair average result, too often he will try something that he has not one chance in a hundred of bringing off.
The short shots ought logically to be the easiest to play; in fact they are, if the player can only keep relaxed. The mechanics are simpler, and the effort considerably less; but the closer one gets to the green, or to the hole, the more difficult it becomes to keep on swinging the club. Those who have no trouble lashing out at a full drive with a fine free swing tighten up in every muscle when confronting a pitch of twenty yards.
In playing a pitch, chip, or shot from a bunker near the green, there is one significant difference to be noted between the method of the expert player and that of the duffer; in one case, the swing is amply long, smooth, and unhurried; in the other, it is short and jerky, because the club has not been swung back far enough.
It is a mistake to attempt a steep pitch with backspin when there is ample room for a normal shot. The more spectacular shot may be more exhilarating when it comes off, but the average result will not be so good. Every added requirement of timing, control, and precision will tell in the long run against consistently good performance.
It is demonstrably more difficult to control a shot with a club of extreme loft than with one of moderate pitch. Therefore, the clubs of extreme loft should be left in the bag until the need for them becomes well defined. Nevertheless, whenever it becomes necessary to pitch over a bunker or other hazard, the lofted club must come into play. It is always safer to play a normal shot with a club of adequate loft than to get fancy with a club with a straighter face. But the player who always pitches up to the hole might as well have a hazard in front of him all the time; he does not know how to take advantage of his better position.
There were two circumstances that would induce me to haul a nine-iron out of the bag for use from a lie in the fairway. One was the necessity for pitching over a bunker or other obstruction, when I could not stop the shot with any other club played in a normal manner; the other was a heavy lie from which I knew the ball would take a lot of roll, no matter what I did to it.
Of course, the lie is always a circumstance of importance when one is deciding how much roll to expect. The proper order of procedure is to visualize the shot, to determine where the pitch should drop and how much roll it should have; then to select the club and attempt the shot that should produce this result. Always favor a straightforward shot, and go to a more lofted club only when the necessity for stopping the ball makes this necessary.
2 MECHANICS OF THE PITCH
The pitching stroke, even for the shortest distances, should never be attempted with the wrists and hands alone, nor even with the arms in conjunction with these two. Proportionate to the length of the shot, the turning of the body and shoulders and the use of the legs should be the same as in any other stroke. Indeed, it is my feeling that it is, if anything, more important here than elsewhere, to swing the club head. The swing should be leisurely, of ample length, and with a perceptible crispness as the ball is struck.
The very short pitch, usually made necessary because of the necessity for dropping the ball just over an intervening bunker, is one of the hardest shots for the ordinary player to master. Because of the delicacy required and the high degree of accuracy needed for success, this kind of shot, it seems, results in complete disaster more often than any other. In failing to acquire some proficiency in this department, a player sacrifices one of the greatest stroke savers he could have at his command. Nearly every green on a well-designed course is guard
ed on the sides by bunkers, so that whenever an approach misses the green by enough to escape the guarding hazards, one of those short pitches is left to play.
I think the most common fault among those who fail with this shot is crouching over the ball. The shot is so small and the player appreciates so well the delicacy of the situation that his first desire is to take every precaution possible. Approaching the shot in this cautious frame of mind, it is not unnatural that he should grip the club short and stoop over as close to the ball as possible, with exactly the same intentions as if a short putt had to be holed.
The best players play this little pitch while standing almost as erectly as they do when playing a full five-iron shot. One notable feature in the method of all is that, even in so short and gentle a stroke, the left arm is fairly straight. The shorter club requires some bend of the body at the waist, but this is, in a measure, offset by the fact that the ball is played much nearer the feet than is the case with the longer irons.
For these little pitches, I can recommend nothing better than a long, leisurely stroke, with the face of the club laid off slightly, and the attempt being made—I hope successfully—to nip sharply at the very bottom of the ball as it rests upon the turf. When it comes off, it is the loveliest shot in the game.
3 THE NATURE OF BACKSPIN
It is a common belief that in playing a backspin shot with a short-iron, the club must be swung in a way that will permit the face of the club head to go through entirely open—that is, looking skyward. Another way of expressing the same thought is that the back of the left hand should be upward. The supposed object of such instruction was to prevent any roll or turn of the wrists, a notion which was thought to produce overspin and a break from right to left in the flight of the ball.
Truly, an open club face at impact produces a slicing spin, and an accentuated roll of the wrists usually results in a hook. But it has been demonstrated, to my satisfaction at least, that neither the hook nor the slice has anything whatever to do with backspin. Jock Hutchison, I suppose, was able to stop almost any kind of shot more quickly than any man living. I watched him several times bring his ball backward five and six feet with a fierce spin that was amazing. Yet Jock always favored a perceptible draw upon every shot to the green. Hutchison could give all proof necessary that a hooking shot may still carry backspin.
Backspin is not sidespin, and it is not obtained by drawing the club face across the ball. The spin that causes the ball to stop is the natural result of contact with a lofted club. If the club had no loft—that is, if its face were vertical—every bit of the force of the blow would be directed toward the center of the ball, and no spin would be imparted.
But an eight-iron has about forty-five degrees of loft, and when it strikes the ball, even in a perfectly normal way, a goodly portion of its force is exerted along the circumference of the ball, and so starts it spinning. The maximum spin would, of course, be imparted by a club of 180 degrees loft, which would to the fullest extent cut the feet from under the ball. The eight-iron is a compromise that impels the ball forward, as it gives it backspin.
The difficulty with the open face idea is that in attempting to carry it out there is danger of taking the ball on the upward arc of the stroke. The face of the club then is moving in a path more nearly at right angles to the plane of its face, and begins to approximate the hypothetical club with no loft at all. Instead of a crisp, firm punch into the ground—a stroke which will produce spin—the shot becomes merely a lob wholly beyond control.
It has helped me a lot to gain this conception of a short-iron pitch. Placing dependence upon the loft of the club, and realizing that I myself was not obliged to do it all, added much on the side of confidence. The chief considerations are a clean contact between club and ball, and a good firm hit.
I am sure every golfer at one time or another has been surprised by a half-topped short-iron that is brought up quickly on the green, stopped by a powerful backspin. This, of course, is the extreme case, where the club meets the ball a descending blow just below center. A greater proportion of the force is exerted on the circumference, and hence a more vicious spin is produced. A lower trajectory accounts for the difference in range.
4 WHAT DISTINGUISHES THE CHIP
For years I provided myself with a run-up club, an old-fashioned cleek with a short shaft, that was to all intents and purposes a lofted putter. I began to use this club for all chipping and run-up shots, and always attempted to swing the club exactly as I was in the habit of swinging a putter; but I found in time a number of reasons why a chip shot cannot be regarded and played as an extended putt.
In the first place, almost all important putting takes place within a radius of forty feet from the hole, and this usually over a keen green, where delicacy and meticulous accuracy are needed. For this reason, a light, sensitive grip must be cultivated, and in the position of address considerations of accuracy must be allowed to prevail over the accommodation of extended motion. In other words, the putting style and grip are developed to suit best the shorter ranges, rather than to facilitate a stroke from the outermost edges of the green. The player naturally handles his putter more easily within forty feet than from outside this limit.
The element of backspin is sometimes important in chipping. It is occasionally desired to play the shot with a slight dragging spin in order to limit the roll of the ball. This, of course, cannot be accomplished by the gentle, sweeping stroke of the putter but must be effected by a longer, more crisply delivered blow. The club must be held in a more capable grip, and the posture must be such that unlimited movement can be accommodated easily.
It is difficult to say when a chip outgrows its classification and becomes a run-up or a pitch; there is no sharp dividing line where one leaves off and the other begins; but there is a very definite separation of putting from anything else in the game; and the player will do well to observe the distinction. He may consider, if he likes, that in chipping he is merely reducing the iron stroke to miniature, but let him not attempt to extend his putting to embrace anything else.
5 CHOOSING THE CLUB TO FIT THE SHOT
A range of shots that twenty years ago had to be played with one club and three variations of method are now played with three clubs and no variation; and it has been found to be a far simpler matter to change a club than a swing.
The value of these additional clubs has been readily appreciated by the average golfer in his play through the green. He no longer needs, and no longer attempts, to shorten the range of a club by cutting the shot or shortening the swing except within very narrow limits. He has a club for almost every distance and, in the long game, he uses them.
Nevertheless, it has been my observation that a further possible simplification on the mechanical side has been neglected, for it is not generally recognized that the wider assortment of implements can be helpful in the short game as well. Just as the varying lofts can be made to take care of the different ranges with little alteration in the swing, so they can also be useful in adjusting the relation of pitch to roll in the very short approaches, without the need for the clever little cuts and delicate backspin shots that introduce so much difficulty.
This is so obviously bad that it sounds foolish; yet it is amazing how many players attempt to play every kind of chip or short approach with one club. You probably know the man well who, as soon as he sees his ball near the green, straightway hauls from his bag some sort of sawed-off five-iron or three-iron. He has already made up his mind to use that club because he has always done so, and he will use it no matter what kind of lie he may have or where the hole may be cut.
Some sort of cleek or run-up club with a short shaft and little loft can be very useful from just off the edge of the green; a club of much loft is uncertain in such a case. The shot to be played is very close to a putt, with only the necessity for lofting the ball over a foot or two of longer grass. But as the ball moves away from the edge of the green and the hole comes closer to that edge,
the shot becomes an entirely different proposition.
Except in unusual circumstances, it is always better to pitch to the edge of the green, over the intervening area, which is never so smooth as the putting surface, and it is also better to play every such shot with the same straightforward stroke, without attempting any sort of cut or backspin. This, of course, can almost always be done by changing to a more and more lofted club as the pitch becomes longer and the roll shorter.
I used anything from a three-iron to a nine-iron for shots that could properly be called chip shots. Often when playing to a keen downhill slope, it will be surer to pitch with a nine-iron over even a few feet of intervening space than to run the ball through it; and it is always simpler and safer to play a normal shot with a lofted club, allowing for a normal roll, than to attempt a backspin shot with a club of less loft.
6 AN ESSENTIAL FOR SHORT SHOTS
Billy Burke said that he deemed it important in playing chip shots to be certain to swing the club back far enough. The former Open champion cited his own experience and declared that in starting a round he tried to make certain of an ample backswing when making his first few chips; after he had struck the first two or three correctly he knew he could go on doing so.
There are at least two lessons in these words of Bill’s. The first, the long backswing, is always timely, particularly when golfers begin to talk of overswinging, and of the greater accuracy to be obtained from a more compact style; the second, equally important, stresses the importance in golf of getting off on the right foot.
I might say that the first lesson particularly appealed to me because it embodied my own pet idea that most of our short shots—pitches, chips, and whatnots—are spoiled by a backswing that is not long enough. The temptation as we near the hole is always to make the backswing too short and too fast, with the result that all rhythm and control vanish. In my opinion there has been entirely too much attention given to the conception that the length of the shot must be regulated by the length of the backswing, an idea advanced in an effort to insist upon always retaining the crisp, decisive quality of the hit. Every shot should be firmly struck; the importance of this must not be overlooked; but in striving to assure it we must not be led to the absurd conclusion that we must come from a hundred yards down to fifty simply by cutting the backswing in half and swinging with the same force as before.
Bobby Jones on Golf Page 8
