Chapter 1 - The Method – It’s Objective

Positive teaching Fundamentals Shaping the swing Delivery of the club head Every ball is driven forward Dangerous clichés

What is the point of curing a slice by planting the germ of a hook which erupts within the next few days? The wretched golfer, overjoyed at losing his slice, is soon in despair again as he struggles on the left-hand side of the course instead of the right.

Solving one problem by creating another simply adds to the pupil's confusion and depresses his morale. It is NEGATIVE teaching which can never lead to lasting progress.

The method of instruction to be outlined in this book is not built upon a vague series of hit-or-miss experiments one or other of which may give temporary tidiness to a pupil's game. My aim is a POSITIVE one to build a sound and lasting technique in which all the fundamentals which go to make consistent stroke-making are fitted together into one cohesive swing unit.

What precisely are these fundamental parts of the movement ? How are they applied to the precise task of controlling and building up power in the club head? That you will discover in the course of this book.

In settling upon them I drew on a close and lengthy study of the strongest features of the swings of outstanding players over the years such as Abe Mitchell before the Second World War and Ben Hogan since.

Let me make it clear that I am not concerned with individual characteristics and mannerisms, only with common factors some of which were, and are, more distinctly demonstrated by one player than by another.

I am not prepared to waste time on gimmicks or smart tricks, and I will admit at once that I know of no short cut to success at this fascinating game. It demands hard work and practice before one even begins to master the precise art of delivering the centre of the club-face firmly and squarely to the back of the ball and on through along the line of flight.

There is positively no secret tip which can turn a mediocre player into a good one overnight. Yet there are players struggling vaguely along, pathetically looking out for this elixir of a new golfing life in the upper strata of the game.

I have in mind a pupil who came into my school for the first and only time some two years ago. He really had no swing worth the description. He moved the club head sharply backwards and forwards in a series of wristy jerks the Crown Prince of Snatchers.

I set him to work on the first and elementary stage which leads in due course to the shaping of a serviceable swing. I had quickly seen that this player lacked the ability to become good at the game, but I could have worked a definite improvement in him had he been prepared to listen to my first instructions.

I never saw that pupil again though. And this is why. Meeting the person who had introduced him to me he said with unconcealed amazement, "Do you know, he treated me as if I were a beginner!''

I was genuinely sorry to lose him as a pupil, notwithstanding that I always have more work than I can fit in. My secretary is regularly working on my appointments book for weeks ahead and claims a constant headache as a result.

But I could have given him a sound foundation and helped to build on that foundation a modest but none the less rewarding game. This player, however, quite obviously had a sadly inflated assessment of his own ability and potential. In this attitude of mind he came to me expecting to impress with what he already knew, requiring me to provide the subtle (or simple) tip which would shoot him straightaway into the single-figure handicap class.

He flattered not only himself but me as well. I could work no sudden miracle. I had to treat him as the beginner that he was desperate to run before he could walk.

In sharp contrast is the case of Ian Caldwell, 1961 English Amateur Champion who came to me at the beginning of i960 in an unhappy frame of mind about his game.

I decided that his swing needed re-shaping on a major scale, and I set to work on him in exactly the same way as I had done with the pupil I have just referred to.

Caldwell, be it noted, was already a good and experienced player with a very fine international record behind him. Yet, in a sense, he was more humble than the other man, the raw novice.
He did not expect a golden tip which would solve his problems overnight. And he was not disconcerted when I warned him that what I proposed to do would take some time but would bring about some marked degree of improvement within a few months.

So it proved. Four months later, in the Spring of i960 he reached the semi-final of the English Amateur Championship, where he went down to Douglas Sewell.

We kept at work and the following year he won the English title. Even then I had not completed my task. I was certain that Caldwell could be a still better player. Yet, for all his golfing gifts, he had his own complex problems of approach to master, and the measure of his ultimate progress must depend on the extent to which he overcomes these problems.

However, the headway he made under me following a long period of uncertainty was most revealing. He has put his swing into my hands and shown a readiness to work over a period, while the player at the other end of the scale of golfing class had expected me to produce a gimmick which would turn him into a golfer overnight. That sort of miracle simply cannot be worked.

Even a noted professional tournament player like the South African Harold Henning was prepared to accept my blunt assessment of his swing. At the suggestion of a friend he came to my school a few years ago and I told him quite frankly that he had a terrible loop in his backswing which kept his right shoulder riding high as he came into the ball.

He took my advice and when I went up to Royal Birkdale to observe the practice prior to the 1961 Open Championship I saw at once that Henning had smoothed out his backswing and so given himself a very fine club-line through the ball. If he can regain his old remarkable putting touch he must have a wonderful run of success.

Henning at Birkdale remembered how I had advised him and came up and thanked me for what I had told him two or three years earlier when we had last met.

This book offers no trick transition from rabbit to tiger class. Its theme will be the gradual shaping of a sound, smooth swing which, once acquired, will stand up under pressure if given the chance.

Such is my objective with every pupil who comes to me. I set out to implant in his mind a picture of the shape he needs to acquire, taking him along, stage by stage, until he can sense the shape developing.

Let it be understood that I teach a definite method based on years of experience and proven principles. Various people have their own particular problems arising from characteristics of bone-structure and general build. I note these and prescribe accordingly. But the fundamentals laid down in this book will apply in the main to anyone capable of swinging a golf club through an arc.

The shaping of the swing is all-important. Once you have it keep it. Don't bend it out of shape by tinkering. This is where many a better than average performer, in fact many a very good one, leads himself still further off the rails when his game goes temporarily sour on hemi

What happens? He looks for a remedy all along the route of the movement everywhere but where he should look. Soon he is pushing the shape out of the swing.

Professionals, assistant professionals and leading amateurs, after striving in vain to recapture form in this groping fashion, come to my school for advice. It is at once clear to me that they have not given themselves a real chance. They have failed to dwell, as they should have done, on the matter of timing and consolidating the DELIVERY OF THE CLUB HEAD TO THE BALL.

Naturals like Dai Rees, Christy O'Connor and Douglas Sewell do not tinker with their movement. When their game shows signs of sagging they give their attention to the delivery.

Convincing proof that this is the way in which the more or less mature player must approach the problem of temporary loss of form is provided by an experience of my old neighbour Archie Compston, one of the truly great golfers of the pre-1939 era, a personality with an extensive knowledge of the game.

Archie confessed that he went so stale towards the end of a trip to America that, making his way through the crowd on to the first tee at the start of a match against the celebrated American, Macdonald Smith, he didn't know whether he would hit the ball or miss it.

He decided then and there to devote all his attention to "delivering a firm wallop through the ball and let the rest take care of itself". It did. He hit the stick three times in the round and trimmed Mac. Smith.

Compston, you see, kept faith in the shape of his swing, a shape which had matured with years of training and experience. "Watch the delivery" was his answer to the challenge.
You will be introduced in this book to terms you may not have heard before, such as the "apex" of the swing (which more clearly than anything else tells me a golfer's class), "upper-arm-leverage" (Ben Hogan is a wonderful exponent of this feature which I have believed in and taught for years).

And you will be warned to take no heed of dangerous clichés like, "Make sure the wrists are fully cocked at the top of the swing", "Take the club head back on the inside", "Keep the club head close to the ground on the backswing." There are inherent dangers in these well-meant theories. But more of this in due course.

There is just one more point I want to press home at this juncture.

The whole of my teaching is founded on the fact that every well-struck ball from the full tee-shot down to the approach putt is DRIVEN FORWARD. Let me repeat the operative word DRIVEN not flicked or slapped which is the manner of striking of ninety-nine per cent of golfers.

You do not, or you should not, flick that simple approach shot from, say, one hundred yards out. You drive it forward.

Driving the ball forward you blend power with control, keeping the club-face on the ball along the line for that vital fraction of time which ensures firm, accurate shot-making.

If you are already a good player you will notice in dry weather that a large splodge of paint becomes imprinted on the face of the lofted iron club after a firmly struck full shot. Now take a ball and place it against the face of the same marked club. The area of contact is only a fraction the size of the splodge of paint.

The splodge got on to the club-face because the ball, in being driven, had been spread across the metal by the speed and force of impact. It needs little imagination or knowledge of ballistics to realize that this ball had a better chance of holding its course and biting the green than a ball which had more quickly parted company with the club-face.

The method I am about to expound is the master-key to good golf, the best golf YOU are capable of playing, which is the golf you would like to play.

It is the master-key to all the doors in the labyrinth in which so many desperately keen but frustrated players grope and stumble not knowing where to turn.

Some pass easily over one threshold and the next, and the one after that until they find further progress checked.

This method which I teach has proved itself many times. I am convinced that if you read this book as it is meant to be read those doors which have hitherto been closed will begin to swing open.

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