This site covers the basics of playing golf, from posture, swing, addressing the ball right through to putting. This is a comprehensive guide to playing golf for the novice player. If you're just beginning in golf, start by following the links below to find the section most appropriate for your needs.
Correct Golf Posture
It isn't just beginners that struggle with adopting the correct body position in golf.
The idea of being comfortable and doing things easily seems to be a hard one for many golfers to grasp. We hear so much about physique being so different with different people that players are apt to assume that theirs is one of the remarkable physiques without flexibility, and we hear them apologize for their lack of freedom by blaming it upon nature.
This is silly. Everyone is built pretty much alike as far as the frame goes, and there is about so much play to each hinge joint and each ball and socket joint in the body. The point where people differ most, as regards golf, is in their mental make up. One man grasps a principle easily that another man has to "saw wood" to master.
They say with a mysterious confidence: "it is mental," much 'as they would say : "it is a secret, let it go no further." They nurse a pet
idea with such persistency that they become infatuated with it. I have seen players stand for minutes, motionless in an effort to address the ball as though the address solved the making of the stroke.
I have often wondered what can be in such players' minds. To stand in front of the ball with every muscle set and not a trace of movement, even of an eyelid, is inviting almost sure disaster. It is not the way you keep your eye on the ball when you are "set" in the address which enables you to hit it accurately, but the way you keep it on the ball when you are in action that counts.
Doing things comfortably is the keynote of the whole swing. It is what gives the results, be-cause the strength is being properly applied. The instant you have to brace your muscles you should be warned that you are drifting away from the correct method of playing. If you will let comfort be the check upon any scheme of play you adopt, you will not go far wrong.
As I previously stated, only youngsters will ever be able to learn imitatively. If you get better results by your own method, that is the one to follow. Don't try to look like somebody else. Fix in your mind what you are really trying to accomplish, and let your common sense be your guide in solving the problem. Do not ask if you are rolling your wrists correctly, but ask what the object is, and get the player to show you what he has in mind in swinging in such and such a fashion.
If you can learn his reason or purpose, you can apply the knowledge. If you merely try to imitate his swing, you are not getting any permanent benefit from his teaching. You can only learn golf little by little, and the steps come one at a time. It is so with everyone.
The three steps in the order of their importance, which you must constantly bear in mind when working out the various details, are:
(1) keep the head still
(2) keep your club head traveling in a straight line while in contact with the ball
(3) do not "set" the muscles.
There are two circles or sweeps which, merged together, form the golf swing. One is imparted by the twist of the body (I call that the horizontal sweep) and the other is imparted by the arms lifting the club up over the right shoulder; this I call the vertical sweep. I desire to call the player's attention to a few facts concerning them which may be a guide in understanding the functions of each.
These two forces are the most important items in the stroke, and the mechanical problem they offer requires some nice calculation to work out properly in the player's mind.
To begin with, I do not consider that many players realize the importance of the bearing of these two distinct forces upon the swing, and what the function of each is. As our pivot or center must remain fixed in order that we may be able to see the ball clearly, as well as to have that pivot remain constant with reference to its distance from the ball, we must remember that the pivot is located between the shoulders, as it is through the shoulders and arms that the power is immediately transferred to the club.
We will now consider the vertical swing or circle, for that is the one which causes the greatest amount of trouble to players, as it is the preponderance of it which results in pulling in the hands. To make this point perfectly clear I suggest that you try the following experiment: address the ball in your usual manner and eliminate everything which does not pertain to a vertical swing in making your stroke; that is to say, every item which has anything in the nature of a horizontal or parallel-with-the-ground movement.
You will find that you will merely raise your club up over your head and bring it down again. If you will notice carefully you will observe that in order to keep from slapping the ground you will have to draw in your hands. You will observe that the club head goes out beyond the ball as you raise your club away from the ground, and you will also observe, on your downward swing, that the vertical sweep is making your club cut the line along which you wish to send the ball, at right angles. To complete the vertical circle or swing you have to draw in your hands.
Golf hit me hard at the start. I had the fever as thoroughly as one could get it. I talked golf when I could and I dreamed golf when I could not talk it. Everyone I saw with a golf bag seemed a personal friend of mine.
I had only one day a week when I could play, as my business did not allow of any other time, but at odd moments I pored over vardon's articles in the golfing papers and also taylor's. Vardon was making his memorable trip through the country that year and I knew every wrinkle on his hand, as far as one could learn from photo-graphs. I had only vardon clubs, an enterprising maker having put out a line with his name on them. I bought all the papers which published golfing news and knew vardon's every move. I marveled at his skill, as many a golfer has done.
If I could play golf but once a week, that didn't prevent my practicing at home nearly every evening I went out in the kitchen after the maid had gone upstairs and I was at it. I had the photographs of great players on the kitchen table, and I was sure I was doing every-thing according to the book.
committed all the instructions for playing to memory and was dead certain I observed them all. Hour after hour I went through this practice, but when I got out on the links my finely-trained strokes wouldn't work. Mornings I would be beaten invariably. Afternoons I 'would give up form and get there any old way. I always did better afternoons.
During the following week when I got home at night from business I would start all over again to reconstruct my theories and develop form. Form was the only way to become a golfer. I made up my mind that I would cultivate the correct way to play if I never won a match. I persisted for over two years in this endeavor, with but a slight improvement in my game. The fellows I played with, who took up golf at the same time I did, were allowing me four and five strokes, and I was discouraged.
Finally I decided to discontinue trying to follow others and build up a method of my own, founded on sound mechanical principles. I was always a good mechanic, and the same application to my own ideas that I had given to others began to show in my play. My game steadied and my improvement was regular. I was on the same handicap basis as my friends in a few months, playing only when they did. In the fall I con-ceded three strokes to them. I have been improving ever since.
Addressing The Ball Addressing the golf ball correctly is of supreme importance in golf. I presume that my statement that there is perhaps one golfer in a hundred who knows how to look at a ball, will cause many smiles, yet that is an exact fact.
About one golfer in ten stands perfectly still in addressing his ball and really concentrates his attention on seeing the ball clearly. Most of the time is spent in a hasty glance in the direction it is proposed to drive and back again to the ball, before focusing the eyes on that point.
The club is being waggled over the ball with the head swaying as the weight is seesawed from one leg to the other and then before the eyes have been able to focus clearly upon the ball the attempt is made to hit it.
Golfers as a rule are too superficial and complacent to come to a realizing sense of their faults. They really believe that they do not need to be told so simple a thing as to stand still and look at their ball steadily and clearly in order that they can see it properly, and yet the number who can do that is mighty small.
The instant you shift your gaze on the ball during any part of the swing, that instant you invite disaster. More golfers hit their ball in spite of, and not because of, the way they look at it than is realized.
It is purely a lack of concentration that is responsible for most golfing errors, and it is of the very greatest importance that, as the mind can concentrate upon but one thing at a time, it should be the most important thing to which you devote your entire ability. I have shown that to be keeping the head still. In that way, only can you look at the ball properly. In that way only can you see the ball clearly. The only time when you are really accomplishing that is when you can see the ball at every point in your swing, from start to finish, clearly.
