“Am I to Set My Life Upon a Throw?”
Omar Khayyam, the well-known wine agent, related musically that when young he eagerly frequented the company of the well informed, and listened to cubic miles of heated air; and that, so far as unravelling the plot of the universe was concerned, he might as profitably have spent his time in digging holes in the desert. And so it is that while we hear “great argument” about the golf swing, it remains to the majority (and we fear it must continue to remain) a royal and ancient arcanum.
Take some recent punditial ponderings put forth by men who, as Editor Behr has said, can never be satisfied with their perceptions until they have translated them into thought. A writer in “The American Golfer” illumines the arcanum with this lightning flash:
“The ideal timing consists in gradually increasing the speed of the swing from the start so that the maximum will be attained when we connect with the ball.... We should try to put the final effort into the stroke when the clubhead is about two feet away from the ball.”
It seemeth to us that any one who tries for a final effort when the clubhead is two feet from the ball is endeavoring to encompass the improbable, and is getting away as far as possible from the idea of “throwing the head of the club at the ball,” as advocated by leading academicians. We asked Mr. George O’Neil to explain the throw, and he replied that “the clubhead must lead in the movement, and pull after it the shaft of the club and the player’s hands, arms, and body.” This dictum may, to some mentalities, be packed with significance, but it means little in our mental life. A throw’s a throw. We, too, essay a throw, but we throw what is in our hands to throw, which is the other end of the club. What becomes of the head of it we do not know, but we are sustained and soothed by the unfaltering trust that if it continues attached to the shaft it will take care of itself.
After all, the difference between Tweedledum and Tweedledee is more fancied than real. Both of these heroes drive a long ball. It is only when they attempt to translate their perceptions into thought that they slice to the rough.
Our gossip, C. B. Lloyd, who has taken miles of moving pictures of the golf swing, writes us that, in the case of many celebrated players, the pictures show that the clubhead does not leave the ball before the hands and arms are set in motion. That coincides with our observation, C. B., and applies particularly, we conjecture, to upright swings.