Bobby Jones on Golf

by Robert Tyre Jones

  If we allow the right hand to take hold at the very beginning of the downstroke, we are hitting too soon. The swing has not a chance to get started in the right groove, and the power is apt to be spent too soon; the wrists will have been uncocked before the stored-up energy can be expended upon the ball.

  Of course, so long as we swing a golf club with two hands, in order to swing it properly, both hands must be used correctly. But with most players the effort must be to subdue the right at certain important stages, rather than to direct it to positive activity. It has been said that the correct swing is a wholly artificial, unnatural procedure. In the sense that a naturally right-handed person must force the left side and discourage the right, this is certainly true.

  This alone is sufficient reason for stressing the left side most strongly; since it must be used, and yet it is unnatural to use it, it requires more conscious direction than the right. A right-handed person, swinging a right-handed golf club, will not need to think about hitting with his right hand; he will need only to make certain that he does not begin to use it too soon, or incorrectly. On the other hand, if he does not think about moving his left side, it will surely get in the way, and gum things up.

  My conception of the correct swing is built around the one thought of making the left side move, both in taking the club back and in swinging it through. This is the main idea. The use of the right hand, though important, is yet a subheading. It has to be thought of only in order to keep it from overpowering the left, and asserting itself in a disastrous way.

  The correct backswing originates with a turn of the body away from the ball, a movement which is controlled and actuated by the left side; as the body movement begins to pull the hands away, the left arm begins to push the club back. The average golfer, swinging the club in what for him is a natural way, picks it up with his right hand. Immediately, his club goes up over his shoulders. The left side, left arm, and the all-important windup of the hips are forgotten. The hips fail to turn because there is nothing to force, or even to encourage, them to do so. The lifting action, started in this way, can be continued almost indefinitely without the aid of the body turn.

  It is important to avoid this pickup with the right hand at the beginning of the backswing. This is one time when the right hand should do nothing but maintain an easy grip on the club, and respond to and assist lightly the movement of the left. If it does move, it will almost certainly cause trouble.

  8 CLOSED FACE VS. OPEN FACE

  For the last decade, golfers have talked and written much about the merits of the “open-face” style of play as compared, or opposed, to that which they designate as the “shut-face” method. All of us are familiar with these expressions; but I am quite certain that there is no general understanding of the details of the two strokes that would enable a person to make an intelligent choice between the two. In fact, I fear that the closed, or shut-face has been so generally discredited as a difficult and unreliable variation that few care to consider that it may have advantages; but some of the best players in the world, including two who have never been surpassed for brilliance when in the proper mood, deserve to be classed as exponents of the shut-face.

  I do not know who originated this means of distinguishing between the two methods, although I think it is as good as can be found. It is generally understood that the face of the club is open when, at the top of the swing, its toe points directly toward the ground; and that it is closed when, at the same stage, the face is looking skyward, and the length of the blade is horizontal. Of course, these are only the more obvious characteristics of the two methods that result from other more important differences. My friend, Elliot Cockell of London, an earnest student of the game, remarked, most pertinently, that he was never able to detect the least difference between the open- and the shut-face club at the instant the ball was being struck. The reason he has not discovered such a difference is that is does not exist. The difference lies solely in the series of motions necessary to bring the club to the top, either open or closed, and in the second series necessary to bring it from its position at the top to the ball, in proper alignment. Actually, to hit the ball while the club face is either open or closed would bring disaster; by this time, the open face must have closed sufficiently, and the closed face opened enough, to cause each to meet the ball squared to the line of flight.

  I considered Leo Diegel and Jess Sweetser the two leaders among those who employed the so-called shut-face method; and I think that because the play of each could be paralleled so closely—that is, their strong points and weaknesses were so nearly the same—as to provide good evidence that errors were inherent in the method in the hands of the very best. I do not mean to say that either was noticeably weak in any department, but merely that both did some things better than they did others.

  I think I remarked after playing a practice round at Hoylake with Diegel that there was no man living who could keep putting long shots as close to the flag as could Diegel, on his day; on second thought, I amended that by adding—except Jess Sweetser. That day at Hoylake, Leo started home 3, 2, 3, 2, all birdies on holes requiring shots to the green of from 140 to 190 yards; and each one kept going closer and closer until the last one, on the thirteenth, we could not ask him to putt. On another day at Brookline, Massachusetts, in 1922, while he was giving me an artistic beating in the National Amateur, I saw Jess Sweetser go out in 32 without holing even a fair putt. He holed a full pitch at the second hole, and hit two more pins in the nine holes. Sweetser’s spade-mashie had always been as accurate as a Springfield rifle, and just as comforting to the enemy.

  Apparently then, the shut-face method, causing the club head to travel longer on the line of play, and for a greater space looking at the ball, is admirably suited to accurate iron play. Neither Diegel nor Sweetser was an exceptional wood club player; that is, although both were good enough in this department, the driving of each was somewhat off the superlative excellence of his work with the irons. Diegel was an unusually long driver, but both he and Sweetser, if they went off at all, were inclined to err with the wood. I think that this is also characteristic of the shut-face method, which does not seem to be well adapted to the sweeping stroke of the full drive.

  A closer study of the shut-face style reveals a definite difference between it and the open-face method from the very moment when the backswing commences. I think that a reliable conception of this difference can be had by producing a mental picture of the action of the shoulders in each type of swing.

  The open-face player, in taking the club back, executes a simple rotation of his upper body around the spine as an axis; since this axis will be tipped forward a bit in the act of addressing the ball, the shoulders will move in a plane only slightly inclined from the horizontal; meanwhile, the left hand will turn a bit over the right. On the other hand, the shut-face player forces his left shoulder quite low on the backswing, so that his left hand will be shoved under the right. Said another way, in the early stages of the backswing, the open-face player will tend to pronate his left hand, the shut-face player to supinate his.

  Again, when the shut-face swing nears the hitting area, there is a perceptible difference, for in order to open the face before impact, this time the right shoulder must go under. In each instance, in the cases of Sweetser and Diegel, there is a rolling of the shoulders forward and backward that is not seen in the swings of those who open the face of the club.

  9 HITTING FROM THE INSIDE

  Our knowledge of the various movements making up the swing of an expert player is at best indefinite, especially when one tries to apply and adapt his general observations to his own game. Photography has made it possible for us to see with sufficient exactness what actually takes place when an expert hits a golf ball but we are as much in the dark as ever when we try to reproduce what we have observed. The player cannot see himself. He, therefore, must play and adjust his stroke wholly by feel, and unfortunately no two sensibilities react in precisely the same way
to like influences.

  I thought of this one year at Augusta just before the Southeastern Open. Mr. Alexander Revell was telling of taking lessons from Johnny McDermott and of McDermott’s advice to swing the club through the ball outward toward the right edge of the fairway. Mr. Revell stated that in his case the attempt to do this nearly always resulted in a straight drive.

  J. Douglas Edgar was the first man I remember to have enunciated the doctrine of the inside-out swing, although apparently McDermott had used the idea before. Edgar even devised what he called a “gateway” through which he made his pupils swing. I am not certain that his lessons with it were always successful, for I know numbers of his pupils in Atlanta who religiously followed him, and nearly all of them were chronic hookers.

  I have always thought that the ideal stroke propelled the club through the ball directly on the line of flight. I cannot conceive that a straight shot could be hit in any other way. Necessarily, the club cannot follow this imaginary line for any great distance, but it is only important that it do so during the time it is in contact with the ball, while the club head is traveling less than an inch.

  Methods differ in detail among individuals, but the mechanical requirements of a perfect drive do not vary. As Mr. Revell obtained good results by attempting to swing out toward the right edge of the fairway, so I, at Minikahda in 1927, managed to drive well employing exactly opposite tactics. All during the National Amateur Championship of that year, I was resisting a tendency to hook, evidently caused by hitting the ball too briskly from the inside. My straight shots resulted when I attempted to swing my hands toward the left edge of the fairway.

  In any event, the straight shot is accomplished by the straight hit. But the individual plays by “feel.” In applying the principle of correction by exaggeration, by trying to swing in one direction, he merely avoids swinging in another. In other words, by trying to hit from the inside, the player really does no more than avoid hitting from the outside.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1 POWER

  2 DRIVING FOR DISTANCE

  3 HITTING HARD

  4 FAIRWAY WOODS

  Swinging Through the Ball

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1 POWER

  There are more than a few golfers in this land who wonder why, and how it is, that even when they connect sweetly with a drive, it never goes as far as an ordinary shot by a youth of much less physical power. Most of all, it puzzles athletes who still possess brawn and muscle far exceeding that of any first-class golfer in the game today. They cannot understand how a little 120-pound kid can stand up all day long and wallop drives far beyond the very best efforts they could produce in a year.

  Physical strength does count for something in golf. It would be foolish to say that it does not, for although we may talk all we please about rhythm, timing, and whatnot, still the man who hits the ball hardest will achieve the longest drive. Rhythm, timing, and the other essentials of form merely determine which player can deliver the hardest blow.

  Long driving, up to a certain point, may be explained by good timing. By this I mean that the increased length obtained by the whole rank of first-class players over that obtained by the second-class can be largely attributed to better timing. The dub suffers because he rarely expends his power where it will do the most good. But within the group of players we refer to as first class, there are a few who are able to drive a good bit farther than any of their fellows. This increase, I think, is not explainable on the basis of timing, for all the better players are good in this respect; these extra yards obtainable by the few are traceable to form and not timing.

  Every now and then, even the average golfer will meet the ball exactly right—so far as timing and feel are concerned. When he does so, he reaches the ultimate for him; yet a more proficient player of much less physical strength has no difficulty in passing by many yards his longest drive. The things making this possible are to be found in the swing—the increased body turn, the hands high at the top of the backswing, the length and greater fullness of the arc.

  The longest hitters in my day were Charles Lacy, Charlie Hall, Cyril Tolley, Bill Stout, and a Frenchman, Marcel Dallemagne. A noticeable feature of the style of each was a fast pivot or hip turn as the club approached the ball coming down. They made the best use of the most powerful muscles of the body, those of the back and hips, and by doing so, they gained over the rest of the field those few extra yards that made them stand out.

  The average golfer uses his hips and body very little. He takes the club back mainly with his arms and he hits without making any great effort with the muscles of his back. The player who is a little better, but still not expert, turns more; he may even turn back quite nicely, but an observer will note that his turn into a ball is retarded—he may even stop his pivot before he hits the ball. The expert employs a full turn, and continues his turn forward uninterrupted through the hitting area—and the very long driver whips his hips around like a flash.

  Almost every first-class golfer turns his hips quite freely away from the ball during the backswing. In nearly every case, the back of the player will be presented squarely to the hole—that is, the upper part of the back between the shoulders, for necessarily the hips turn less than the upper portions. There is a noticeable amount of twisting above the waist.

  If this turn and twist are regarded just as the wrist-cock, as a source of power the problem is then to unwind in proper timing to deliver the maximum blow at the right instant. The expert golfer begins to unwind his hips at the beginning of his downswing. The turn back to the ball begins slowly, just as the downswing itself begins slowly, and the sudden powerful twist is reserved for hitting just as the wrist-cock is saved. It is important that the left hip should turn out of the way, but it is also important that the hips should not be twisted so quickly that the power of their unwinding will be used up in the first part of the downward stroke.

  The action of the left knee almost exactly parallels the correct wrist action. This knee bends forward—to the player’s front, not toward the hole—and swings to the right during the backswing. During the downstroke, it swings to the left, but does not straighten immediately; it actually becomes straight just before impact as the final powerful twist of the hips takes place. It is this twist that straightens the leg and throws the kneecap back and gives the impression, so often stated, that the player is “hitting against the left leg.” I dislike this expression, because it suggests that a resistance is interposed by the left side. It is far better to “hit with the left leg.”

  As a matter of fact, there is no question that the long hitters twist the hips through quite an arc, and they actually do so with a great deal of effort; I do not know how to describe it better than to say that it is a powerful wrench of the body.

  When playing well, I have the feeling that during the first part of the downstroke I am pulling against something. There really is nothing to pull against except the tension in my own muscles-set up by the effort of the stroke. More or less rapidly this is overcome, and finally wrists, body, arms, and legs all join to deliver their power simultaneously. The proper timing of these factors, with each one prepared to the limit, is the real secret of long driving.

  2 DRIVING FOR DISTANCE

  Years ago, I preferred a driver with very little depth of face, and I had a habit of tossing my ball onto the grass of the tee and driving it from there; but I noticed that in this way my usual shot began low and climbed quite rapidly toward the end of its flight, when it would drop quite lifeless to the ground.

  It was quite evident that this trajectory and lack of roll were due to excessive underspin produced by the downward direction of the stroke at impact. Beginning then, I made some experiments with clubs of greater depth of face, teeing the ball well up so that the stroke would not have to be so abruptly downward. I even designed and had built a driver of a face-depth of 1 7/8 inches. These experiments convinced me that, whatever might be developed in theory, there was actually mor
e length to be obtained from this combination of deep face and high tee, especially when I made an effort to hit the ball squarely in the back, with the club moving, as nearly as possible, in a direction parallel with the ground. Underspin is a virtue in the play of any approaching shot, whether off an iron or a wood club, because the spin tends to steady the ball in flight, and to control its roll after it strikes the ground. But where extreme length is desired, and the direction does not need to be precise, the aim should be to impart as little underspin as possible.

  Some years ago I had the satisfaction of seeing this idea tested upon a driving machine holding an actual golf club. In these tests, the ball was first placed so that it would be struck by the club head a fraction of an inch before it had reached the lowest point of the stroke. Several drives were made from this location, and after these distances were noted, the ball was teed so that the club head would make contact after it had passed the lowest point. All drives from the second position were longer than any from the first. All the while, of course, the machine was swinging the club with the same speed and force.

  For my own part, I want no more conclusive demonstration that our aim in driving should be to impart to the ball as little underspin as possible. Of course, the high tee and the deep face are not requisite, for the same stroke can be accomplished with a club of shallow face driving a ball from a lower tee; but the high tee unquestionably makes the stroke easier of accomplishment, and the greater depth of face gives the player confidence. As in everything else, we can overdo ourselves here, as I found with my specially constructed driver. After a certain point, as the depth of the face becomes greater, the use of the club becomes increasingly difficult. This one finally became too much for me. Although I hit with it some of the longest drives of my life, the club was too treacherous with the smaller, heavier ball, and hickory shafts. I might have done quite well with it had I had today’s ball and the steel shaft.