Drag the mop

[Daryl]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yoda View Post If you can walk and swing your arms from side to side (in perfect timing with your 'walking' motion), you can learn to swing a golf club the same way. In doing so, you can learn to swing it the the same way the pros do -- the same way they learned to do it as kids. You won't hit the ball as far as they do -- nor as straight -- but you will hit it with the same authority, and you will begin to post scores you heretofore only imagined.

No offence D, but this is why the green one is GREAT!

.....................And you believed him?..........................

Perhaps you should read the Preface to the Book where the exercises were borrowed.
Golf, by Bob MacDonald, 1927.

Preface

It is probably beyond argument that the golf stroke, apart from the putt, is the most highly technical method of hitting a ball in the whole realm of sport. Notwithstanding this there are innumerable people who expect to attain proficiency without considerable study and practice.

"There is no royal road to learning" and nowhere is this truer than in golf.

Golf, in so far as its mere mechanics are concerned, is really a simple game. It is the supreme demand of golf for mechanical accuracy, plus the very variable human factor, that makes .. it actually a very difficult game at which to excel.

The reasons for this insistent demand for mechanical perfection are fourfold.

Firstly, the striking surface of the club is the smallest that is used in field sports. Secondly, the ball is the smallest used in any outdoor game. Thirdly, as the ball, except, generally speaking, in the tee-shot, lies snugly on the ground, the mar¬gin for error between the centre of the ball, beneath which the player must always hit, in order to obtain an effective stroke, and the earth is extremely small. Fourthly, with the exception of polo, the ball is farther from the line of sight than in any other game.
After one has duly considered these points it will not be necessary to insist further on the extreme importance of reducing the stroke, as much as possible, to a settled form of mechanical production, that will enable one to reproduce at will the same mechanical effects, in order efficiently to duplicate similar shots.

Over twenty years, spent in golf tuition and playing the game, have caused me to make an exhaustive analysis of the golf-strokes, for it would manifestly be impossible effectively to improve a pupil's game without discerning the errors. And these very errors have been, on numerous occasions, of great benefit to my own game. All golf-players of experience know how often it will fall to their lot to go completely off some particular stroke. Many times, in correcting the fault of a pupil, I have had revealed to me the reason for a temporary, but nevertheless annoying, failure to produce in the most efficient manner, some shot with which I was ordinarily quite familiar and effective; which is. merely another way of saying that one of the most valuable means of acquiring good form is to watch carefully the good methods and style of others and to try to avoid any of their errors.

This, of course, presupposes a certain amount of knowledge of the golf stroke, but this will come very soon to the earnest student of the game, who is not looking for the "royal road" to proficiency.

The best way to acquire this knowledge is, naturally, from expert tuition and assiduous practice, but an exceedingly valuable aid is a careful study of the motion pictures in this book showing the actual playing of the stroke, for the eye is undoubtedly of far more importance in conveying the science of golf to the mind than the ear.

One often hears the statement "He is a natural golfer." This is a very misleading expression, for the only "natural" golfers are the dubs, and they are dubs, generally speaking, because they are trying to play golf "naturally" and the true golf stroke is most unlikely to come to anyone in that manner; What would seem to be an exception to this rule is the really remarkable aptitude of some mere children in playing the game in very good form. Children are very quick at imi¬tating and, when they are fortunate enough to have a good player, whom they can imitate, they often pick up the finer points of the game quickly and unconsciously; but it is a mistake to think that they attain their proficiency "naturally." Caddies often show the same facility and they acquire it mainly by watching the best players they know and by imitating them.

The expert player has nearly always acquired the game "by the sweat of his brow" and by study of the methods of other good players and this must be the usual lot of those that really desire to play the game as it can be played.

We have already referred to that very variable factor, the human equation. No matter how expert the player is, it is practically impossible for him to duplicate two consecutive strokes. The demand of golf for mechanical accuracy is so insistent and extreme that nothing except a machine could do this and, indeed, it is arguable that a machine could not do it. From this consideration of the matter it will be seen that it would be unwise for one to set up too high a standard of attainment; to make too exacting a demand on one's physical and mental powers, for this would result in a needless discouragement. One must, especially at the beginning, be satisfied with results, comparatively speaking, within a wide range short of actual perfection. This is a much more helpful state of mind and will soon lead to a gradual lessening of the margin for error and lack of accomplishment, that one who follows the more exacting line of thought, will have allowed oneself.

Nor must one expect to obtain one's results exactly as another does. Of a hundred or more players, of approximately similar capacity, and taught by the same instructor, it is safe to say that no two will swing alike. One has to take into consideration physical conformation and mental idiosyncrasies and they provide extreme variation in form. One player is tall and lithe, another short and stocky; one has big hands and long fingers, another small hands and short fingers; one, an alert active mind, the other a phlegmatic temperament, and so on.

It would obviously, in people so dissimilar in mental and physical makeup, be ridiculous to look for identical methods. They must be allowed the fullest opportunity to express their individuality in their style, provided their form, that is, the correct mechanical production of the stroke, be sound, and this form can only be acquired by what must be common to all of them and that is a rigid adherence to the fundamentals of the golf stroke.

lt is the purpose of this book to inculcate those fundamentals in the easiest possible manner for those, who really desire to know the game, and, in addition, to show the full technique of the stroke, whereby those fundamentals may be welded into a homogeneous unit, that represents what the golfer so ardently desires, a good game.

Occasionally in the explanations of the various positions there will be found some repetition. This is not unintentional tautology. In teaching one must iterate and reiterate until the pupil finally grasps the point sought to be inculcated and this has to be done much more frequently in actual teaching than is necessary or desirable in written instruction.

While one is trying to do something with the arms one must not forget what the feet ought to be doing or when one is doing something with the feet one must have in mind what the head should, or should not, be doing, and it is only by welding one explanation into another that one can hope to weld one movement into another and so to produce a correct and harmonious whole.

82 years later, handicaps have barely improved.