Concerning Spin
“There is no ball that will run more straightly to the hole than an ordinary putt,” deposes one pundit, meaning a ball to which no spin has been imparted. On the o. h., a physicist tells us that the cut ball will hold the tenor of its way more evenly than the uncut ball. The reason, we conjecture, is that the deflecting material on a green exhausts itself in opposing the spin on the ball, and so has little chance to interfere with its forward motion. One may ascertain in practice what line a ball will take, curved or straight, with any given spin, and he may then hew to that line in full confidence that the spin will keep it in its course, whether the shot be a pitch or a putt.
“THE PSYCHOLOGY OF GOLF.”
We were smoking a pipe in the laboratory of Dr. Sike, the eminent student of the soul and less eminent golfer. All about us were queer looking instruments for measuring the mental processes of the so-called human race. We indicated one contraption and asked its use.
“That,” said Dr. Sike, “is the well-known Poggendorff illusion.”
“Never drove into Pogg. What’s his club?”
“The Styx Country Club, if any.”
“And what was his illusion, that the flag moves after you shoot?”
“You are nearer the mark than you think,” said the Doctor; and taking up a pencil he drew two perpendicular lines (as represented in Fig. 1). Then he added the oblique line, and pushed the paper across the table. “Continue that line across the ditch,” he instructed.
We did so, and the result is indicated by the dark line in Fig. 2; the real line is the dotted one. The illusion is corrected by looking down the oblique line.
Dr. Sike lit an introspective cigarette.
“Suppose that a fairway,” said he. “If a ditch or road cuts the line of play at that slant, the player should aim a bit to the left.”
“Unless the ditch runs northeast-southwest. Then he should hold to the right.”
“Exactly so.”
We poked the ashes in our pipe with a deep contemplative forefinger, and remarked that the illusion would not seriously affect the play of the average golfer, but that it might mean the loss of a match to an accurate approacher like Mr. Chick Evans or ourself.
“But hold on,” we second-thoughted. “The player is not, as in this test, looking down the ditch, but down the line that crosses it. Wouldn’t that correct the illusion?”
“A slight illusion would remain, if the player established his line of play by looking along the ground, and if the ditch were wide enough to disclose two lines.”
“Otherwise the Poggendorff person contributed nothing of permanent value to the psychology of golf.”
“Exactly so,” said Dr. Sike, and plunged into a revery. Presently he emerged. “Still,” said he, “the majority of shots would fly to the right.”
“Because of the cosmic tendency to slice?”
“Exactly so. Will you pass the matches?”
“How is it,” we asked Dr. Sike, as we passed the matches, “that after one has taken the line of his putt and transferred his attention to the ball, he still can view the line with ‘that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude’?”
“Eye-pull,” said the Doctor, lighting a laconic cigarette.
“What an alibi!” we whatted. “A gentleman who blows a five-foot putt has only to remark to his partner: ‘Sorry. My eye-pull isn’t on straight to-day.’”
“Exactly so,” said Dr. Sike. “To some persons, like myself, the line of the putt is clearly defined, as a darker green in the grass; to others the line is not present, but these locate the target just as accurately. All this is quite apart from the visual imagery referred to in the Wordsworth poem. The eye——”
What followed was highly technical, and we regret that our memory failed to imprison the Doctor’s exact words; but we gathered that the eye is a mawxstrawnry organ, which can do everything except talk. The technical explanation would, of course, be a-b-c to a reader like Max Behr, who looked in “A Critique of Pure Reason” for a definition of amateurism, and is now working on the Hegelian Hypothesis of Professionalism; but we fear the average reader would be puzzled by such phrases as “accommodation pull,” “convergence pull,” and “binocular disparity.” Therefore, to put it as simply as possible, we will say that when a man takes the line of his putt the muscles of his eyes set themselves, his head and neck muscles co-ordinate, and there is probably co-ordination in the semi-circular canals. The eye-pull once established, it remains after attention is transferred to the ball—how long we cannot say, but long enough to serve the purpose of all except those extremely deliberate persons who fall asleep over their putts. We should advise, therefore, putting as rapidly as is consistent with an unhurried stroke.
“Strange to say,” mused Dr. Sike, “although innumerable experiments in eye-pull have been made and recorded in laboratories, there has been no attempt to relate them to golf, which is the proper study of mankind.”
“But science is coming round,” said we. “The last two or three years have brought a great deal of speculation and research.”
“Yes, yes,” yessed the Doctor. “Even the watchers of the skies are beginning to admit that Canopus, Aldebaran, and the Pleiad Seven are only exaggerations of a golf ball, which is the symbol of the universe.”
“Now, if we imagine amateurism as a great sea, and in the midst of it a little island....”—Mr. Behr, at the annual meeting.
Why, then, on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, at any country club, we can define an island. An island is a professional entirely surrounded by dubs.
“Did you ever take up the game?” we asked Arthur Whiting, the musician. “I took it up and put it down,” said he, and mentioned two shots that were memorable. The first was made with a driver, the pet club of the lady who was showing him how to wield it. The head broke off and wound itself around the lady’s neck. “And your second shot?” we inquired. “Ah,” said he, “the second shot—” An interruption at this point put the game out of his mind. It was undoubtedly a remarkable second shot.