| All crack players feel that they swing from in-to-out | | | | mine?" Well because I never just tell them that! It is |
| when driving. | | | | quite useless to tell a pupil he has done wrong when |
| I have been doing this so long that it no longer feels a | | | | acting instinctively unless you tell him why he did wrong |
| "guided" or unnatural swing to me. | | | | and so enable him to avoid the fault in future. That I |
| Indeed if I feel myself making any other sort of swing I | | | | always do. |
| know it will result in a bad shot. | | | | The player who comes down outside is almost |
| Yet with the beginner this in-to-out swing does feel | | | | invariably thinking of where he wants to put the ball, |
| unnatural and gives an impression that the ball will be | | | | and the only effective way of overcoming his trouble |
| pushed into the rough to the right. This feeling will of | | | | is by getting him to concentrate on the swing that |
| course be corrected by experience. | | | | experience tells him will place it there. If this is done his |
| This disparity in feeling about shots as between the | | | | conscious control-his feeling for the right movements, |
| crack and the beginner must never be lost sight of in | | | | plus a steady intention to follow will inhibit his natural |
| teaching. | | | | desire to take disastrous short cuts. |
| Here we come back again to my reason for | | | | So it is best to build up a swing which can be |
| standardizing as many shots as possible so that they | | | | accepted by the mind as well as the muscles as a |
| can all be played with the same set of "controls." Only | | | | satisfactory means to the end desired, and then |
| so I believe can you learn to play entirely by sense of | | | | concentrating on the production of that swing. With a |
| feel. | | | | properly felt swing, the swing becomes the aim and |
| Today, if I play a bad shot I do not start asking myself | | | | the matter of where the ball will fly is left (as it should |
| why I played it badly, what I did wrong, etc. questions | | | | be) to take care of itself. |
| which are liable to lead to more bad shots as we all | | | | And finally, the good golfer feels his swing as all one |
| know! I just take an easy club and try it until I get the | | | | piece. It is produced by a psycho-physical unison and |
| right feel again. | | | | its control is outside the mind of the player. Any control |
| Then because my shots are felt I know that the right | | | | that is within the mind is subject to the state of the |
| feeling must lead to the right shot-and further, that as | | | | mind and is therefore unreliable. |
| all my shots are made fundamentally the same, I know | | | | Every teacher has to keep continually in mind the fact |
| that if I get the right feel with say a No. 5 iron, a very | | | | that the natural thing for any golfer to do if he thinks |
| easy club, I shall be making my shots with even the | | | | first of hitting the ball to the hole rather than of making |
| difficult clubs correctly and with confidence. | | | | the shot correctly-is to swing the club head down the |
| What usually happens is that before the back swing is | | | | desired line of flight. The urge to do this is so strong |
| completed, the player transfers his attention from the | | | | that a merely academic knowledge of where the club |
| matter of making the correct swing to the matter of | | | | head ought to be felt to go cannot stand against it. |
| where he wants to hit the ball, i.e., somewhere at the | | | | William James said that where there is a conflict |
| top of his swing he switches from a correct in-to-out | | | | between the Will and the Imagination, the Imagination |
| swing to one along the desired line of flight. | | | | always wins. So no Will to make a correct |
| Consequently he comes down outside the ball. | | | | swing-unless reinforced by our conscious control-can |
| Anyone who is not a pupil of mine will admit that "you | | | | resist, when imagination of the ball flying straight for the |
| came down outside" is their tutor's most frequent | | | | hole supervenes. |
| admonition. And why do I say, "who is not a pupil of | | | | |