Fatal flaw          Sunday duffer spin.
Awful results     Pull, slice, hook, smother, or shank.
Magic move      Lateral hip slide, with head back.
Check points     One knuckle of left hand visible, two of right hand; right arm touching side.

We have now reached the most important and critical area of golf—the first movement of the downswing. With it we uncover the most common and at the same time most devastating flaws.

The golf swing itself is probably the most difficult and certainly the most elusive action in all athletics. Beyond question it is the most frustrating, and nowhere more so than at this very point, where the club and the body make their first moves down toward the ball.

The peak of frustration is reached here because, no matter what has gone before it, this one move can make a greater difference in the result of the swing and the shot than any other.

We can have a perfect grip, start back from the ball properly, reach the top in faultless position—and then ruin it all by the next move we make. Not only can the swing be ruined by this move, it is ruined about 95 per cent of the time.

The Fatal Flaws

The deadly moves, the most fatal flaws, are these:

(1) Spinning the hips without moving the weight laterally, (2) with this spinning motion turning the right shoulder high toward the ball, and (3) trying to move the club head or slowing down the hands.

Figs. 26A, 26B, 26C. The fatal flaws of the downswing—the spin­ning of the hips without moving the weight, the turning of the right shoulder out high toward the ball, the lagging of the hands, and the early expenditure of the wrist cock. Result: a weak slap at the ball.

These moves bring quick disaster by causing two things. They make us hit too soon and they make us hit from the outside in. The first robs us of distance, the second of direc­tion—and what else do we want from a full shot?

Because we hit too soon, the drive that might have gone 220 yards goes only 190, and into that trap that juts out into the fairway.

Because we hit from the outside instead of from the inside, the ball is pulled, and, if the face of the club is not square, it will be hooked or sliced, or perhaps smothered or even shanked. The best we can hope for is that we will slice it only a little and that, after starting to the left, it will curve back into the fairway. Even if we are that lucky, we will know we have hit a weak and sloppy shot.

These are the actions and these are the shots that we see on every private course in the country, every public course, and in stall after stall of every driving range.

Figs. 27A, 27B, 27C. The magic moves. In A. notice how weight is moving to left as hips move laterally and don't spin. In B. observe how quickly right elbow returns to side, compared with the elbow in 26B. See how the right shoulder comes down: it is farther down in C than it is in 26C even though the hands have not moved as far. And notice how the wrist cock is retained. This player is coming down behind the ball; the player in Fig. 26 is coming out and over it. There is a world of difference.

It can truthfully be said that this is the natural way to hit a golf ball—with the Sunday duffer spin. It is also the principal reason that the scores of our millions of players remain so high. These actions in this one area of the swing produce bad shots in such astro­nomical volume that the short game, no matter how good it is, can't take up more than a little of the slack. We will say without fear of contradiction that a player who makes these moves and still gets around in 86 on a good day would cut ten strokes from his score if he made the right moves.

The Magic Moves

So what are the right moves, the magic moves? They are, simply: (1) Move the hips laterally to the left while (2) keep-ing the head back and (3) making no effort whatever To move the club.

We cannot emphasize too strongly that the movement of the hips must be lateral and not a turning motion. When the hips are moved laterally to the left from the top of the swing, they carry the weight (which has been mostly on the right leg) along. They move it toward the approximately equal distribution, at least, which we must have at impact.

That is the first reason we must move the hips laterally. The second reason is that, since we are twisted and wound up tightly at the top, any turning movement of our hips turns our shoulders too. It turns our right shoulder around high and toward the ball. Hence, when we bring the club down, we have to bring it from the outside in.

The hips will turn if they are moved laterally, but they are very liable not to move laterally if they are merely turned. You can prove this to yourself by standing up and moving your hips to the left as far as they  will go. As they near the limit of extension, they will turn and you cannot stop them. At the top of the swing, of course, the hips are turned some­what to the right, maybe 45 degrees, and as you move them laterally they will quickly begin to turn back to the left.

The trick is get them going to the left, laterally, before they turn too much. If you ask how much is too much, you become hopelessly involved. You might as well ask how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. You don't have to worry about that. Just he. sure you get, the hips going laterally and that you don't try to turn them.

A third reason for the lateral slide of the hips is that this is the movement which starts the club down toward the ball, by causing the shoulders to rock slightly as they turn. That movement of the hips—and nothing else—provides the first impetus for the downswing.

It might help you to visualize this action if you think of the spine as being the axis of the swing. Now think of the axis as being a T-square, with the shank as the spine and the crosspiece the shoulders. The end of the shank reaches down to the pelvis or hips.
Figs. 28A, 28B, 28C, 28D. You can picture to yourself the correlated actions of the hips and shoulders, with the bottom of the imaginary T-square being moved laterally by the hips. This causes the cross-piece of the square (the shoulders) to tip somewhat and bring the hands down inside instead of outside.

As we address the ball On the backswing the hips move slightly to the right, causing the crosspiece to tilt slightly to the left, as it turns, of course, with the turning shoulders. On the downswing (and here is the critical point), the low end of the shank (the hips) is moved sharply to the left. This causes an immediate and definite tilting of the crosspiece to the right—and that is what starts the shoulders, arms, and club moving down toward the ball. This will be true so long as the whole swinging system is twisted tight, so that a movement against the twist in any one part moves all the other parts. Make no mistake about it, the hips are what move the shoulders and club and start the downswing.

Our second injunction was to keep the head back. The head, at this stage, plays a vital role. You have often heard and read that the head is the anchor of the swing. Right here it is. If we keep the head back as we move the hips laterally, it keeps the upper part of our body from going with the hips and thus loosening or relaxing the tension we have been at such pains to build up with the backswing.

This tension that we had at the top of the swing must be kept as long as possible as the swing comes down to the ball. This is one of the chief factors that give power to the swing and speed to the club. If the head comes forward at this point, we lose the tension and get ourselves, in a manner of speaking, "over the ball" as we hit it.

If we keep the head back we do in truth stay back of the ball where we should be. That is what is meant by the advice to "stay back of the ball."

The head, as a matter of fact, has a strange little action of its own during the first movement of the downswing. Con­trary to the old principle that the head must be kept still at all costs, it moves. Pictures of our best modern golfers show that the head not only stays back but that it drops somewhat and, with most, even moves backward a couple of inches.

Almost sacrilegious, this seems. Yet there is a logical reason for it. As the hips move as far as they can to the left, and turn when they can move laterally no farther, and as the shoulders tilt, elevating the left and depressing the right, the foody bows out toward the target. If the head doesn't go forward with the body, it has to come down—unless we sud­denly grow a few inches during the downswing. An archer's bow may be used as an example of what we mean. The bow may measure five feet from tip to tip before it is strung. When it is strung it curves outward and the distance from tip to tip is less than five feet. When the archer draws it to shoot an arrow, the tip-to-tip distance is still less. When a golfer hits the ball as he should hit it, his body takes the place of the bow: It curves out toward, the target, and the distance from head to feet is less than when he stands up to the ball.

Another reason the head drops slightly as the ball is hit is that most of the better players develop a rather definite knee bend as they come into the hitting area. They make it a prac­tice to keep both knees bent all through the swing, as they should be, and when they bring the club down to the ball with great speed, the centrifugal force exerted by the flying club head seems almost to pull them down just slightly and hence bend their knees ever so little more.

Our third injunction in this first move from the top was, Make no effort to move the club.

The club, of course, will move. It will be moved by the shoulders. What we mean is that no effort should be made with the wrists, hands, or arms to make the club move. That is the important point. If we could turn the arms, hands, and wrists into wood for a fraction of a second as the downswing begins, it would be perfect. Then they and the club would be "frozen" into one solid unit and they would all start down together in one piece, motivated by the rocking, turning shoulders. Then if, with some electronic impulse, we could switch them back to life again as the hands got down to about the hip position, we would have the perfect movement.

The whole downward action is initiated by the lateral movement of the hips to the left. Since at the top we are in a tightly coiled position, this hip action causes the shoulders to rock to the right and turn. The rocking action, with the left shoulder coming up and the right going down, is what moves the arms and the club. If the right shoulder comes down (rocks slightly) as it begins to turn, it brings the upper right arm against the right side and the swing starts down on an inside line. It is when the shoulders turn, throwing the right shoulder high and out toward the ball, that the swing goes outside. Keeping the head back helps the slight rocking action which brings the right shoulder down.

One of the most important things in golf is making this .first movement from the top without letting the angle be- tween the shaft and the left arm open. The peculiar thing about it is that if the hip, shoulder, and hand actions are cor-rect, the angle will not open. If they are wrong, it will.

The instant the right shoulder starts to move out high to­ward the ball, the arm-shaft angle begins to open, even if no effort is made by the hands to swing the club.

Most of the time the angle is opened up because the hands are trying to do something with the club. But even without the hands doing anything the angle will still open if the wrong shoulder action is made.

The start down from the top can be visualized in several ways. You can think of it as the "wooden freeze" just men­tioned, a momentary period during which nothing happens except what is motivated by the hips.

You can also imagine a triangle, formed on two sides by the shaft of the club and the left arm, with the third side an imaginary line from the dub head to the point of the left shoulder. From the top this triangle must be tilted and brought down a ways without changing the length of the imaginary side. This we call the "eternal triangle," because it must be retained as long as possible. As the speed of the club head increases, the imaginary side of the triangle length­ens, of course, and the arm-shaft angle starts to open up. But the triangle should be kept constant as long as possible.

We have said several times that the arm-club angle should be held as long as possible. From our use of the words keep, hold, and retain, you may have gotten the idea that a con­scious physical effort must be made to hold this angle. This is not true. What we mean is, if the swing is right, the angle will automatically be preserved, until late in the downswing. So, when we say the angle must be held, we mean that you must work on attaining the correct hip, shoulder, and hand motion which will permit the wrists to remain cocked and the angle preserved. Do nothing, in any event, to get rid of the wrist cock.

The motion is essentially that of the hips. If you have read much about the technique of the swing, you have read that the left hip should lead the downswing.

Figs. 30A, 30B, 30C, 3QD. This sequence shows how the left hip and left side lead the hands and the club all the way down and through the bail. It also shows how the hips must go through all the way, to bring the weight far over to the left leg while the head and upper

You have read in this chapter that the first movement from the top is a lateral thrust of the hips to the left, eventually followed by an au­tomatic turning of the hips. This is true. But there is more than that (Fig. 30).

The hips must not only move to the left and turn, their  movement must be so closely tied to the left arm that it pulls. the arm and the club down and whips them through the ball.

There must be a definite, conscious feeling that this is hap-ening. It is the single most important movement that a good golfer makes. The effect is shown in Photo C.

This is not to be confused with the mistaken advice to start down with a pull of the left arm.

part of the body stay back. Finally, it reveals how the hips turn toward the target as they reach the extension of their lateral movement. Are your hips ever in this position when you hit the ball?

[Chapter Incomplete]

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