Chapter 10 - The Short Game

Feet variations Why the stance is opened Be decisive  The simple bunker stroke Putting

Unlike many books of golf instruction this one contains no sections confined to the playing of wooden clubs and the various irons. There is no need. The same swing principles are applied in the playing of all clubs from the driver down to the wedges.

Adjustments to lie, loft of club-face and length of shaft which have been made in the factory before the clubs reach you will steepen the arc or widen it according to the club selected for the stroke.

Your responsibility is to swing the club on the principles I have outlined. The difference lies in the simple modifications in the stance for the more lofted and shorter shots. These, of course, are made before you attempt to swing the club.

However, the short game makes certain specific demands and right at the outset I want to stress a point about the follow-through in the shorter shots.

You must not allow the club to carry through into or near the horizontal at the finish of even a full stroke with the pitching irons. But this does not mean you must in any way restrict the free follow-through of the arms. Far from it.

You will appreciate that the arc through which the club is swung must necessarily be smaller with these shorter clubs, and a loose hand-action which lets the club finish round your neck at the completion of the stroke is unmistakable evidence that there has been too much play on the hands in the impact area and not enough "carpet-beater" action.

You may have swung the club well enough, despite this excessive finish, to drop your ball on one side of the green or maybe just off the target. But with the necessary hand-control maintained through impact the hands would still come through high in the finish with the pitching club held around the vertical. With this firmer action you will be dropping the ball closer to the pin far more consistently.

This may seem a trivial point to you. It is nothing of the sort and by acquiring this free but controlled finish you will not only add accuracy and precision with the pitching irons but you will automatically improve your hand-control in the bigger shots.

The finish with the shaft of the club nearer the vertical than the horizontal is especially important from the five iron down. The position I want is shown in Figs. 2^a and b, 26a and b, and 29. Work to achieve it with the five iron down to the wedge. As you develop mastery of it so your game generally will take on greater firmness and accuracy.

Now to the adjustments. The first thing you need to watch is the position of the ball in relation to the feet. Obviously you will be standing nearer to it when you sole your steep-lie, short-shafted lofted iron than you would stand when playing the driver or brassie which are flatter in the lie and longer in the shaft.

The variation you must attend to relates to the position from which the ball should be played, either from a central position (that is with the ball equidistant from both feet) or nearer one foot or the other.

I explained the positioning of the ball for the various clubs in the chapter on the stance. To make it quite clear let me repeat it in another form. For the medium irons, the five and six, centre the ball; for the longer irons and woods position the ball progressively left of centre, until with the driver the ball is so far off centre that it rests on the end of an imaginary line drawn at right-angles from the left heel.

The other side of centre concerns the lofted irons from the seven to the wedges. The ball is positioned progressively right of centre until you have it at the end of an imaginary line from the right toe for the playing of a low-flying wedge.

Bear in mind, too, that the stance becomes gradually narrower as you go through the club range from the driver to the wedge until the feet are only a matter of inches apart for the very short shots.

All these simple variations I have mentioned are what might be termed standard for straightforward shots in normal conditions. There are adjustments for playing from uneven lies, aiming for deliberate pulls or fades or when playing into a strong wind or from a tight lie. In the last two cases the ball will be played rather more back than normally, but at this stage it might be confusing to ask you to absorb too many detailed variations. With experience you will come to learn what is required.

With the shaped swing you are going to develop you should find no undue difficulty in coping with such situations. First acquire the shaped swing and learn how to apply it to the straightforward shots.

There remains one more point to attend to in taking up the stance for the lofted irons. From the seven or eight irons down to the wedges precisely where along the club range varies with the individual the stance is opened increasingly.

Figure 28

The compact swing with a wedge or nine iron. Less body-action than in the bigger shots.

Here let me warn you again to avoid exaggeration. Like any other part of the action or the preparations you make in setting yourself up for the shot, the opening of the stance is not to be overdone or you will be practically facing the hole for a wedge shot!

It is the simplest of movements which opens the stance. All you do is withdraw the left foot from the line of the square stance, only a matter of inches for the seven and eight irons, slightly more,

BUT NOT TOO MUCH, for the nine and the wedges. Don't shuffle into the open stance. Your preliminary actions in addressing the ball with any of the clubs should be neatly, not sloppily, done.

You will do well to consider working out for yourself a simple drill for these preliminaries, one which will become a habit. But let me not be misunderstood. There is no necessity for fussing or fiddling.

What is the reason for opening the stance in using the shorter clubs? Well, your swing is going to be shorter and more compact (Fig. 28). In the fuller swing for the bigger clubs the body turn is greater and consequently there is more time for the building up of power in the hands.

Figure 29

The compact swing. Note the angle of shaft at the finish of the stroke. Yet the arm movement has still been free and unchecked.

Even the playing of a half-shot or spared shot with the nine iron or wedge requires a certain degree of power at and through the ball if the shot is to be played firmly as it must be. Sufficient power no more, no less is wanted to drop the ball on the green or just in front, on whatever spot you have selected in sizing up the requirements.

The opening of the stance permits the minimum amount of body turn in this curtailed swing consistent with the degree of upper-left-arm-leverage and power which you must FEEL building up just as in the long shots. Unless the stance is opened there will be insufficient time between start and finish of the backswing for this feel to develop.

The general rule is: the closer to the green you come in the playing of a hole the shorter the backswing, the narrower and more open the stance and the less the body movement.

From just short of the green, when the run-up or the tiny, delicate pitch is called for, the body movement is nil. The club is moved solely by the hands and arms. That is why, as I stated in the chapter on the backswing, the swing with ALL clubs is set in motion with the hands and arms alone. As the swing  the same basic swing remember lengthens for the long shots as more power is required, so the body comes into the operation AFTER the initial movement of the arms, hands and club-head straight back from the ball.

The left heel in the shorter shots barely leaves the ground. Again the nearer you get to the green, say from seventy yards down, the foot-action decreases to the point where the left heel remains grounded throughout the stroke.

But note this carefully. Your feet and legs, like the hands, continue to remain active. Just because the action is reduced they should not be regarded merely as stilts.

Except for those very small shots there must still be a limited amount of give in the knees in the backswing and a proportion of lateral movement by the lower part of the body in the downswing. And see that it is all kept smooth and unhurried.

Also ensure that you move into the follow-through in the manner already prescribed for the full shots, keeping the hands active and the arms extended. Don't allow yourself to quit on the shot simply because the ball has but a short distance to travel.

Delicacy of touch and smooth timing are required for these vitally important pitch shots, pitch-and-runs and run-ups.

One of the finest pitchers in Britain when on his game is Harry Weetman, the rugged strong man who lashes into the ball so fiercely in the long shots. Weetman may be erratic with the woods but he is an artist with a wonderful "feel" of the shot when it comes to pitching and putting, and laying the ball right up close from a bunker. Ken Bousfield too, has a superb short game. His secret lies in the slow even tempo which he maintains under the severest pressure.

If you took a golf ball in your hand and tossed it up on to the green from, say, twenty or thirty yards, you would make a simple, effortless movement. There would be no sharp jerk such as a small child with no familiar feel imparts to the action when he first attempts to throw a ball. The adult, whether he plays golf or not, instinctively knows better.

You as a golfer will apply the same simple principles to the tossing of a golf ball on to the green from the face of a lofted club instead of from the hands. The main difference in depositing the ball on to the green with a golf club is that you need the control which is derived from the correct left arm action.

I will act as your caddie as you walk up to play a pitch to a green thirty or forty yards away. Together we study the ground and take into account the conditions, hard or soft, any fall or rise on the way to the green. There may be a bunker jutting across our direct route to the hole-side. We take note of it but are not frightened by it. With these points in mind we make our assessment. How far will the ball run when pitched on a selected spot? Our joint, but not lengthy, deliberations give YOU a clear mental picture of the shot you require to play, and how the ball will behave if you play it well and be it noted firmly. Tentative approach shots pay no dividends.

The shot demands firmness and resolution. That is what makes the Americans such fine pitchers.

You are ready to play the stroke which is now pictured in your mind. This mental picture of. where the ball will be dropped to coast up to the hole enables you to develop a "feel" of the length of the stroke as you prepare yourself to play it. Only one thing remains. Play the shot without further deliberation and with conviction.

You must now back your judgment. It is fatal to allow yourself to become prey to last-second doubts. Let no fear of failure enter your mind. Watch the ball and then look momentarily at the spot where the ball lay before allowing your head to turn slowly with the easing off of the arms in the unchecked finish. Uncertainty will mean that you either hurry the stroke in a belated endeavor to pitch the ball further up to the hole or you quit on it through a last split-second feeling that you need to drop it shorter.
In either case you have distorted the delivery of the club head to the ball. This is weakness. Make up your mind to go ahead with the stroke you have pictured. To change the picture half-way is out of the question.

Practice these vital approach shots, which open up the prospect of a birdie every time they are properly judged and correctly executed. Indeed practice in this type of shot can be doubly beneficial. You will develop a greater accuracy and confidence in your ability to attack the hole by firm, not diffident stroke-making. And by making the correct movement away from, back to, and through the ball in this compact stroke you will consolidate your action in the hitting area consolidation which will spread into your playing of the longer clubs.

The high pitch-and-run is played in similar manner to the pitch shot. The low pitch-and-run, giving less carry and more run (and usually the stroke to choose when the wind is blowing), is played with the club-face hooded, that is, with the hands more forward of the ball at address and the ball played more off the back foot. These considerations also apply to the run-up which is played with a straighter faced club, such as a five iron, but the club used is a matter of individual choice in the light of experience.

There is one factor which needs to be taken into account when playing from the rough particularly when near the green. You cannot apply the amount of back-spin from the rough as when "pinching" the ball against the turf of the fairway. Therefore expect more roll when the ball lands and allow accordingly.

Heather can be a nightmare to the average golfer. Tackle it by inclining more weight on the left foot. Resist the inclination to grip more fiercely when you address the ball in a nasty spot. This is one of the chief faults of the "hacker". Remember that too fierce a grip at address usually means too slack a hold at impact.

There remains the cut-up stroke and the bunker stroke, both similar in method of execution.

First, the straightforward bunker stroke the explosion from a well-conditioned trap with the adequate amount of fine dry sand. It is the simplest and most effortless stroke in the game.

Taking your heavy sand-iron you lay the face back slightly which is the reverse of hooding it. From an open stance, feet fairly close together and firmly planted in the sand to avoid movement during the playing of the stroke, you concentrate your eyes on the sand an inch or two behind the ball, depending upon how far you want the ball to carry.
On descending, the club head is going to contact this spot in the sand not the ball as in every other shot you play. Swing the club back slowly and smoothly OUTSIDE the line and then swing down normally to the entry to the hitting area.

From that point you simply drop the hands. The heavy headed sand-iron drops into the sand. Moving from outside to in, the club head comes through the sand and the ball is collected on a cushion of sand against the club-face. Allowed to go through into the follow-through unrestricted the club head will carry the ball clear and plop it lifeless on to the green.

Make no attempt to manipulate the club head in any way. As it comes out of the sand into the follow-through the hands and club-face should be as they were aligned in the address no wrist-roll whatsoever taking place. Guard against shortening either the backswing or the follow-through. This is a slow, effortless, flowing motion of the club head.

There are variations where wet or crusty sand is encountered. From such bunker lies you may have to take the ball cleanly or even skid it out, but these extremely precise shots are best learned in the bunker under personal supervision. First master the standard bunker stroke, so simple yet so effective.

The cut-up shot from turf, when you want the ball to rise sharply over a hazard, is played in exactly the same way as the standard bunker shot except that you strike the back of the ball instead of the sand. Soft sand has no resistance to speak of, and in the bunker shot you need to impart little or no drive to the delivery of the club head. Meeting the back of the ball sitting on resisting turf, you have to apply the drive in the hitting area which you did not require when the ball was in sand.

Therefore instead of dropping the hands and club head you keep the drive going through the medium of the hands to meet the resistance of ball on turf. In other respects there is no variation from the bunker stroke. You still keep it smooth, slow and unrestricted.

Putting. Here comes the most critical phase of the game  holing out on the green. It is often said that a man who can chip and putt is a match for anyone. This is true only to the extent that a chip and one putt means a stroke saved.

But the man who is MORE than a match for most is he who can hit consistently accurate second shots to the heart of the green provided he, too, can putt. This man is faced with the prospect not of saving a stroke against par but of gaining one by rolling down the putt for a birdie.

The top player must pick up more strokes than he saves, and to do this he must putt well to take advantage of the opportunities he has set up for himself.

The finest aid to putting is confidence which is derived in the main from walking up and picking the ball out of the hole! In putting, as much as anything, nothing succeeds like success. Confidence is also gained from the feeling that you are going to strike the ball as it should be struck. Several factors combine to achieve this end.

First, the putter must be lined up square to the line of putt. Then it must be taken along that line and kept square to the line. It must be returned to the ball and into the brief follow-through still on that line and still square.

Figure 30

The Putt. Head and body perfectly still throughout the stroke. Right elbow "inside" the left throughout the stroke (Figures 30-32). This same principle applies to all the standard shots of golf.

Figure 31                      Figure 32

The Putt. The putter-blade and the hands have been brought into line at impact and retained in the short follow-through (Figures 34 and 35).

Figure 34                                  Figure 35

The movement of the putter-blade must be economical either side of the ball. It must be made in the shallowest of arcs. In fact it should resemble as near as possible a slide rule action. The many good putters display a variety of methods in bringing about this behavior of the putter blade, for putting is very much an individual science. And the many more indifferent to bad putters show an equally wide variety of less successful ideas.

However, practically all the really good ones conform to certain common fundamentals.

The stance is balanced and comfortable and tension is not allowed to creep in at any stage of the stroke. The eyes are directly over the ball, the hands grip the shaft as lightly as possible, no tighter than is necessary for control of the putter, the back of the left hand and the palm of the right being square to the line of putt (Figs. 30-32). Both thumbs are on top of the shaft.

The reverse overlap grip is the most popular style. This is contrived by overlapping the forefinger of the left hand across the fingers of the right. But many fine putters use the normal overlap (little finger of the right over the forefinger of the left) while others employ the double-handed method. Each has proved successful and it is up to the individual to discover which is best for him. There are of course other methods.

The backswing is kept SLOW and the head and body maintained perfectly still throughout the stroke, except for the long approach putt when a limited amount of movement with the stroke may be required.

In that last paragraph alone may be found the answer to the troubles which many readers persistently suffer . . .

The brilliant Peter Alliss has missed more than a few big prizes by lapsing on the three and four-footers. He had a tendency to take the blade back too quickly on these short ones, while another exceptionally gifted player, Joe Carr, has his putting troubles when he becomes prone to move ever so slightly with the stroke on the ones he is expected to hole.

But Arnold Palmer, one of the finest putters I have ever seen, keeps the head and body perfectly still on the putt. He and other leading American golfers adopt a "knock-kneed" putting stance which helps greatly to keep the body motionless throughout the stroke.

Another feature of Palmer's putting technique is the way in which the blade is kept low, both back from the ball and in the short follow-through in the course of which the club head is not allowed to pass the hands.

Observing the fundamentals I have mentioned, you will find this style of putting simple and straightforward. With feet not too wide apart and toes parallel to the line of putt, address the ball off the left toe. The shoulders, too, will be parallel with the line, and I prefer the left arm to be clear of the body. The right elbow settles snugly against the right hip.

Take the putter-blade back on a slight hinge of the left wrist taking care to keep the back of the left hand square to the line (Fig. 33).

Now the putt of even a few feet requires a delivery of the club head. The secret of the return movement of the blade to the ball is to bring the blade and hands into one line at impact and retain it in the short follow-through as the right forearm just passes the spot where the ball was (Figs. 34 and 35).
Many players go wrong by failing to let the putter-blade catch up and come into line with the hands. They push the left hand through too soon and the blade is turned off-line. This is a failing to which too quick a backswing leads.

Work on this timed delivery and see that you strike the ball a firm deliberate blow bringing the centre of the blade to the back centre of the ball.

The Americans seek to reduce the mental strain of holing out by insisting that for every putt the player should concentrate on hitting it accurately along the first six inches of its path. Get the line and note a spot six inches ahead of the ball along that line. Then make certain of striking the ball so that it passes over that spot six inches away. The simple theory is that the player can do no more. After that first six inches Providence takes over!

I have observed that one way to build up confidence on the greens is to feel that you are striking the ball correctly. Here is a novel exercise which will enable you to check on the accuracy of your striking and help in the development of a firm putting stroke.

Place a new ball on a firm, even piece of carpet some three to four feet from the wall. Against the wall place a solid block with a hard smooth surface a heavy glass paper-weight or a smooth tiled hearth border will do but ensure that it is at right-angles to the carpet. Putt the ball against the paper-weight or whatever you have chosen, and if truly struck the ball will rebound and return to the centre of your putter-blade held in its follow-through position.

Side-spin will cause the ball to rebound at an angle. Back-spin will not give the ball sufficient impetus on the rebound to reach the putter-blade.

Finally a check to satisfy yourself that your eyes are directly above the ball in address. Hold the top of the shaft against the face between the eyes and it should hang directly above the ball if your head is properly positioned.

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