Fatal flaw                   Club-head obsession.
Awful results              Top, push, dead golf ball.
Magic moves             Hand-hit out of "eternal triangle," let­ting COAM take its course.
Check point                A good follow-through.

Once the swing gets down to the so-called hitting area correctly, the chance of its going wrong is very slight. That is because, as we have mentioned, the swing through the golf ball is only a continuation of the first movement of the downswing, the movement that brings us to the hitting area. By the same token a swing which reaches this area in the wrong position has no chance to get straightened out.

Yet, golf being the strange game that it is, there is still the possibility of the good swing going off the track at this late stage.

In both the good swing and the bad, though, when the flaws appear they appear for basically the same reason-trying to "help" the club head get to the golf ball.

They will appear in the good swing when the player loosens his left-hand grip slightly and collapses his left elbow. As the result of these actions there comes a peculiar body movement, a sort of heaving action, as though the player were trying, with the body, to help the swing or help hit the golf ball. It is a very strange contortion indeed. Women, especially, are given to it.

In this movement the loosening left-hand grip and the collapsing left elbow have the effect of bringing the club up sharply instead of letting it go down and through the golf ball as it should. The left elbow crooks and bends out to the left, toward the target. This suddenly shortens the radius of the swing, and since the straight left arm has been perform­ing the function of a constant radius all through the swing, there is nothing for the club to do but come up.

Fig. 34. The fatal flaw at the golf ball. Player is so obsessed with moving the club head that he has gotten it ahead of his hands. He has also loosened his grip, bent his left arm, and is "heaving" the club through. A good shot is impossible.

The horrible result is a badly topped shot. The club, coming up at impact, makes contact on or above the hori­zontal center line of the golf ball, the golf ball's "equator." How badly the shot is topped depends only on how much the club is brought up by the elbow action and the shortening of the radius. It is a dead certain way to bounce or dribble your shot into any brook, pond, or ditch that happens to be immediately in front of you.

If the swing happens to be from the inside, the loosening left hand and automatic strengthening of the right hand will cause the golf ball to be hit out to the right—a push. It may be a topped push or, if the club isn't brought up far enough to make it top the golf ball, just a push. There is usually trouble to the right on any shot, as every slicer knows, and it doesn't make any difference whether we slice the golf ball into that trouble or hit a straight golf ball into it. It still costs strokes.

A third possibility these flaws may lead to, if they are slight rather than pronounced, is a straight golf ball that doesn't go anywhere—a dead golf ball. This, of course, is caused by the loosening of the left-hand grip. The strong connection be­tween the motive force of the arm and the club that is being motivated is weakened. The connecting link (the hand) gives slightly at impact and force is lost.

We have played with club members who have made this very complaint: "I hit the golf ball square but it doesn't go anywhere. I must be getting weak."

They are not getting weak. George Bayer could get the same kind of a shot, relatively, if he loosened his grip as he came into the golf ball.

The Magic Moves

The magic moves for the good player, of course, are simply to keep his grip tight, hold the wrist position gained by the backward break, hit through with his hands, and let CQAM Jake its course. The first insures a strong, live connecting link between the arms and the club at impact. The second insures a square club face. The hard-swinging hands provide the speed. But COAM? What is COAM anyway?

COAM is the Conservation of Angular Momentum. In the golf swing it is the mysterious factor that makes the club head catch up to the hands, without any effort on the part of the player. Just a few more paragraphs and we will give you the full explanation.

Fig. 35. The magic move through the golf ball. The ideal impact position-weight over on left leg, head and upper body back, right shoulder coming down and through, left arm fully extended, back of left hand and palm of right moving toward the target. This is the result of all the good moves that have preceded.

For the poor or average player the same magic moves apply, but he must first learn to get himself into the position the good player is in as he reachers the hitting area. He will be in this position if he follows faithfully the instructions in the previous chapter—that is, if, as he starts down, he retains the hand and wrist position, slides his hips laterally to the left, permits no hand lag, and makes no effort to move the club. If he does these things he will keep unchanged the eternal triangle and he will be letting the body move the club. If he doesn't do these things he will never be in the right hitting position. There are just no two ways about it.

Let's take another look at the hitting position, the one the average player finds so difficult to reach (Fig. 36 and Photo A).

Fig. 36. That puzzling "hitting position." Here the player is coming down behind the golf ball perfectly. His hands have almost reached the golf ball, but his club head has a full quarter-circle to travel. How does it ever catch up?

The good player is moving most of his weight toward his left leg and his right heel has come up off the ground slightly. His body is beginning to bow out to the left, led by the hips. The upper part of his body, anchored by his head is still back, and his shoulders have not yet turned past the golf ball, though the left shoulder has risen and the right shoulder has dropped. His right arm is in close to his body. His hands are near his right leg but the club is still about horizontal and much of the wrist cock has been retained.

The good player here is coming down into a position behind the golf ball, so that he can hit it "out from under" and from the inside. He is not turning high and over the golf ball.

The most puzzling part of this picture is the position of the club, or of the hands and the club. The hands are so far down but the club still has so far to go, a full quarter-circle.

Pictures similar to this one have been printed by the thousands since the advent of high-speed photography. They are perfect for showing us how we should be at this late stage of the swing. But we believe also that they have caused more bad shots than any others ever printed.

Why? Because they have implanted—and if not implanted, strengthened—a terrible fear in the mind of the golfer. This is the fear that if he ever gets in this position he will never be able to make the club head catch up to his hands at the golf ball. Therefore, from this position he feels he would hit worse shots than he hits now, if indeed he were able to hit the golf ball at all. It looks, to him, impossible.

This is one of the fears that we dwelt on lightly in the preceding chapter—the fear that you will not be able to make the club head move fast enough. It is largely accountable for what we have termed the average golfer's eternal pre­occupation with the club head. He thinks of it as the tool that hits the golf ball, of course, and right from the top of the swing he starts to manipulate it to make it go faster. Or he retards his hands so the club head will catch up. Even though he knows he should not do these things, his sub­conscious takes command over his reason (as it always will), and he gets an action which has long been known as "hitting too soon," or "hitting from the top," or just plain "flipping."

The deep urge to do this is motivated not alone by the idea that he must make the club head catch up to his hands. Part of it stems from the mistaken idea that he must snap his wrists into the shot. We are not saying this snapping cannot be or isn't done by experts. We are saying that it isn't necessary for the average player. Even worse, it is sui­cidal. The average player, trying to do it, always gets the club head to the golf ball ahead of his hands.

The frightful result is shown vividly in Photo B. This fellow has succeeded in overcoming all possibility that his club head won't catch up with his hands. It has actually caught them already. It is from two to three feet farther along its orbit than it should be, in relation to his hands. Compare it with Photo A and notice (as soon as you recover from the shock) the differences not only in the club position but in the body, the head, the shoulders, the hips, legs, knees, and feet. The weight hasn't moved to the left as it should, the right foot is flat on the ground, the body shows no bowing-out tendency and the right shoulder is coming around high toward the golf ball. From this position nothing like the player's potential power is going into the shot. An inordinate part of it has been wasted in making sure the club head would catch up with his hands. A horrible example of what preoccupation with the club head leads to.

This is one of the greatest golf pictures the authors have ever seen for showing how not to swing the club. The best part of it, too, is that this is not a posed picture. The subject was hitting a drive during the course of a round and trying to carry a fairway trap about 170 yards from the tee. Funniest part of it is that he did carry it. All that proves, however, is how much farther he would have hit the golf ball (the trap never would have worried him) if he had had even the semblance of a good swing.

The instant you make the club head move faster than it normally is moved by the turning and rocking shoulders, the instant you make it go faster than the hands, the eternal triangle changes shape

Photo A. The correct hitting position that has puzzled golfers for so long: The hands are almost opposite the right leg. A few more inches will bring them directly opposite the golf ball, but the club head has a full quartercircle still to go. How does the club head catch up with the hands? The answer is COAM, the Conservation of Angular Momentum. Note the head back, shoulders rocking, right elbow tucked close in. The player, Joe Dante, is coming down behind the golf ball with the upper body, but the lower body is moving out to the left ahead of the golf ball. Hips, moving laterally, are starting to turn as left side gets out of the way, and right heel is rising.

Photo B. The wrong hitting position—and how wrong can you get? Com­pare the position point for point with position in Photo A. The hips are turning somewhat but are not moving laterally. Too much weight is on the right leg, leaving the right foot flat on the ground. The right elbow has not come in against the side. Worst of all, the player has lost all the wrist cock gained at the top of the swing. He has either thrown the club from the top or held back his hands to let the club head catch up. This it has done, although it is still nearly three feet from the golf ball.

Photo C. Impact. Notice how the hips have gone through and turned, and how much weight has been transferred to the left leg. The hips have led this swing all the way from the top, as they should. Note the distorted shape of the golf ball at impact. Player is Wes Ellis of the Mountain Ridge Country Club, former winner of the Canadian, Metropolitan, and Texas Open championships.

Photo D. The plane of swing in the inside-out swing (above) and the outside-in swing (below). Path of club is traced by electric light on toe of club head. Note position of body, weight on left leg, and head back for inside-out swing; weight on right leg, with shoulders and head turning, in outside-in swing. Player is James J. Dante.

Harold £. Edgerfon

Photo E. Conservation of Angular Momentum proved with multiflash photography. Notice how far the cuff on the player's left wrist travels from one flash to the next in area A, and how the cuff images draw closer together, overlapping, in area B (indicating a decline in speed of the hands), just before the club hits the golf ball. In area B momentum is feeding out of the arms and into the club, causing it to catch up to the hands as they move to a position opposite the golf ball. Player was one of the game's longest hitters, Jimmy Thomson.

Harold E. Edgerfon

Photo F. The same phenomenon revealed with an iron, the hands slow­ing down in area B as they near the golf ball, with consequent increase in club-head speed as momentum feeds from one to the other.

Photo G. Conservatic Angular Momentum operating in the swing of Dante's seven-year son, Ross. The youngster brings the club doing nicely, with the wrist well retained, in Nos. 6 he has reached hitting position. In hands are slowing slightly, though he does realize it, and then with momentum flows into it, is catching up 8 it has caught up dispatched the golf ball.

One side, the imaginary line be­tween the club head and the point of the left shoulder, begins to lengthen. When this happens... [Chapter Incomplete]

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