AUTHOR’S NOTE T - SyberVision

AUTHOR’S NOTE

THIS is not “just another golf book.”

The material that I present here is entirely original and describes completely for
the first time the only method of playing golf that is based on the inescapable
mechanical and anatomical factors that govern the execution of a successful shot.

Golf is not a matter of hitting a ball but of swinging a club. Hitting the ball is
merely incidental to making the swing. This is not the popular conception of golf,
and many of my readers undoubtedly will find it strange. Yet it is the only
possible approach to successful golf. If the swing is made correctly, the flight of
the ball must be correct; natural laws take care of that.

I have made the only complete analysis of the golf swing; consequently, I am able
to state positively—and to prove—exactly what takes place in the process of
projecting a ball in a desired flight.

I am not a theorist. I have been actively identified with the game of golf for
almost twenty years as a player, instructor, writer, and lecturer. In developing my
system of play I have confined myself entirely to practical consideration. My
effort has been, first, to discover the scientific basis of successful golf, then to
devise a formula by means of which I could place the results of my investigation
at the disposal of every player.

That formula I offer to the golfing public in this book. Its soundness has been
tested by the countless pupils I have instructed personally, and their success has
demonstrated its practical value.

I can recommend it, and guarantee it, as a sure way to better golf.

ALEX J. MORRISON,

New York City
April, 1932

CHAPTER II

LEARNING TO PLAY GOLF

GOLF instruction is almost as free as the air. The beginner finds it virtually

impossible to dodge it. Let him execute a single unsuccessful shot and a
deluge of advice, hints and suggestion descends upon him.

“You didn’t keep your head down,” says the caddy.

“You didn’t follow through,” contributes one member of the foursome.

“Look, old man,” offers another. “I don’t want to give you this unless you ask
for it—but the proper way to make a shot—.”

In his humility the would-be golfer swallows it all—and is lost. Thereafter he
is a shining mark. Instructions and tips are thrown at him before, during and
after every shot he makes. He is told that he looked up, that he is standing too
close to the ball, that the swing is an arm movement, and he must distribute
his weight evenly on both feet, that he mustn’t try to kill the ball, that he’s not
using enough wrist, that the ball must be “swept” from the tee. His clubs are
taken from his hands to demonstrate. The one crumb of comfort tossed to him
is the remark, “Well, Bill, we all had to learn it once,” but he catches even in
this an implication that in all the history of the game no one so ill equipped as
he in temperament and physique ever aspired to be a golfer.

He is bewildered, confused, chagrined at his inability to apply the seemingly
simple principles of play that were so generously showered upon him.

It does not dawn on him, however, that not once did caddy or golfer make to
him a specific, definite statement of exactly what to do; such a statement, for
example, as a drill sergeant might make in instructing a squad of rookies in
the first movement of “right shoulder arms,” or as might be made with regard
to the movements of the gear shift in teaching a beginner how to operate an
automobile.

Generalities. Jargon. Negative statements masked by positive terms. But it
passes for golf instruction the world over.

Take the time-honored mandate, “Keep your eye on the ball.” It is entirely
possible to keep your eye both eye, and all the attention of which you are
capable, focused on the ball while at the same time moving your head in a
way that makes the execution of the correct swing absolutely impossible. As a
matter of fact, that is the way it is generally done. It is entirely possible to
satisfy every requirement of the stance, as the term is generally understood,
and yet hit a bad shot. For the position and alignment of the feet are but a part

of the harmonious arrangement of the entire body that must be accomplished
before any successful golf shot can be made.

But let’s follow our beginner a little farther along on his golfing career. He
plays a few more times, manfully endeavoring to put into practice the
instructions he received on his first visit to the course, with, of course, the
additional advice with which the caddy and fellow player bombard him on
each new round. Through the fog of bewilderment that surrounds him he
perceives one stark, unmistakable fact—he is making no improvement. It
dawns on him that in rushing headlong in to the game of golf he has essayed a
feat comparable to jumping overboard in mid-ocean without having taken the
preliminary precaution of learning to swim.

And so he decides to take lessons, regular lessons, from the pro.

The pro undoubtedly is an excellent player. It is possible that he is even that
exceedingly rare phenomenon, a good golf instructor. Left to himself, given
sufficient time and adequate cooperation in the form of application from his
pupil, he probably could make a respectable golfer out of almost anybody.

But does our beginner give the pro a change to get him started right? He does
not. Although the sketchy recital of his accomplishments that I have given
represents an understandable picture of the sort of massacre he has been
perpetrating on the course, nevertheless, by the time he places himself under
the wing of a pro, he has observed enough, and learned enough, particularly of
the usual golf lingo, to tell his instructor just what kind of lessons he requires.
He not only knows his faults; he has some ideas about likely ways of
overcoming them. He slices, for example. Wouldn’t that disappear if he
played with an absolute poker-like left arm? His unfortunate propensity to top
his drives. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to stand a little closer to the ball and
bend his back a little more?

The pro has but one source of livelihood.

Likewise, he has been in the game long enough to have acquired something of
the outlook of the family physician. He has become a person of sympathetic
understanding, not to say what Grantland Rice calls a “Willing Listener.” To
the best of his ability he gives his pupil what the pupil seems to want. Under
these conditions the most substantial contribution that he can possibly make
toward his pupil’s progress is to bolster up his waning self-confidence. As for
the highly essential process of supplying the pupil with a solid groundwork on
which to build his game, a thorough understanding of the fundamentals of golf
technique, that is lost in the shuffle. The pupil, if he is the average person, has
neither the patience, nor the perseverance to pursue the lengthy, arduous and
possibly uninteresting course of drills, exercises and practice, which is the
only way that I know of by which the thing can be acquired. He wants to

travel a royal road to golf skill, and the pros know it. The result is that he
remains just another golfer without the proper conception of the golf swing.

It is no easy task to reduce the fundamental positions and movements of a
successful golf stroke to positive, understandable, definite instructions that
anyone can follow.

With the rest of the golfing world I acknowledge Bobby Jones to be the
greatest player. His performances illustrate better than those of any one else
who ever lived, the scientific principles of correct golf which I am
endeavoring to lay down in this book. Yet, when he saw the first slow motion
pictures of his swing, he was astounded to note that the details of his stroke as
actually performed differed markedly from the swing he believed he made and
the one he advocated in his writings. Even at this time Bob occasionally
makes statements regarding the execution of shots that are not entirely
consistent with what actually takes place. I have in my possession motion
pictures taken during tournament play of Jones and many other famous
players and golf writers which show conclusively that their own ideas of their
swings and the actual swings they make are at wide variance.

When I gave my first golf lessons at the Los Angeles Country Club, I knew
little or nothing about playing golf, let alone teaching it. I couldn’t drive a ball
a hundred and fifty years within forty-five degrees of any direction. In fact, I
had only a casual interest in golf, for I was getting a lot of fun our of playing
tennis, being good at that game to play in local tournaments with such
champions as Mary Browne, her brother Nate, May Sutton and Tom Bundy.

One day in an emergency I was called out to the practice tee to give a lesson. I
tried to avoid the assignment, but without success. Two circumstances made
possible my debut as an instructor. The pupil was a new member of the club
and hence did not recognize me as the handy man of the pro shop and a
former caddy; also, my victim was taking his first lesson.

While my innocent pupil politely and rather respectfully passed the usual
remarks about the unusual California weather, I racked my brains trying to
think of a way out of this embarrassing situation. For a time I toyed with the
notion of suggesting that it might be better for all concerned if the caddy gave
the lesson while I went out in the field to chase balls. The pupil, though,
continued so respectful and so expectant, that I decided to take the plunge.

I had picked up the conventional line of golf lingo in the years I had been
caddying and working in the pro shop, and I let him have it all, interspersed
with things I had heard the pro tell other pupils and my individual
interpretations of the grips, stances and movements I had seen other players
use.

Somehow or other I got through the hour and returned to my work in the shop
thanking Heaven that was over. And the next day I almost dropped dead when
my pupil came back for another lesson, asking specifically that I give it to
him. More than that, he continued to come back and he brought his friends,
and they brought theirs, and, before I knew it, I was a full-fledged golf
instructor while knowing about as much about the game as I now know about
the Einstein theory.

And there was not escape. The pro, who had more business than he could
handle personally, was relieved to find someone to share the burden. My
pupils seemed satisfied, possibly because I made myself agreeable to them as
I could; in the light of the knowledge I have gained since, I cannot imagine
how any of them could have been satisfied with the progress made under my
tutelage. Still, as I suggested before, the average golfer fancies an instructor
who gives him the sort of lessons he wants.

At all events, my native honesty and the desire I have always had to do my
best with any job caused me to conclude that, as long as fate apparently had
marked me for golf instruction, it would be well if I learned something about
golf.

I was about sixteen years old at the time, exactly six feet tall and I carried less
than one hundred and thirty pounds on my skinny frame. The pro and others
to whom I confided my intention of taking up golf in a serious way shook
their head doubtfully. Physically, they told me, I was entirely unequal to the
task of producing enough power and control in swinging a club to send a ball
much farther than the edge of the tee. They pointed to my small hands and
thin arms. No punch there. Of course, they’d be glad to help me, give me what
tips they could, but as for playing golf—why not take up some game I could
sit down to, something where brawny arms and broad shoulders weren’t prime
essentials?

Point was given to their objections by the fact that I was unsuccessful in
learning how to play golf by orthodox methods. Yet, in spite of my failure and
in spite of everything my teachers said, I could not put aside several obvious
and to me extremely pertinent facts. First, I had been able for several years to
put considerable steam into my tennis stroke and to bat a baseball as well as
other youngsters. Therefore, I reasoned, in my attenuated body must lie power
sufficient to propel a golf ball an adequate distance—if only I could find the
right combination. Second, every successful golf stroke I had seen looked
simple, so much so that I felt certain that anything that was so simple in
execution certainly must have a simple explanation. All golf instructions I had
received, all I had given at this time were in terms of the knees, elbows and
wrists; how the player placed and moved them, and what happened as a result
of his doing so. Light first began to dawn on my problem when it occurred to
me one day that I was merely confusing the issue, complicating matters

hopelessly in trying to cover so many different phases of body action. The
obvious and logical first point of attack in analyzing the swing was the action
of the club and the ball.
Even casual observation of this action demonstrated that to produce a
successful shot the head of the club must move in an accurate and consistent
“groove” so that the clubface will strike the ball exactly at right angles to the
intended line of flight with the required amount of force.
The more I considered the action of the club, the more I experimented, the
more apparent it became that the surest, most certain, the most efficient way
of obtaining maximum power in the clubhead at the all-important moment
when it strikes the ball came not from a conscious application of “punch” to
rt

The whirling motion of a weight on a cord demonstrates centrifugal force. Force,
similarly applied, is the foundation of every successful golf swing.

the club at that moment by any action of the hands, arm or body but through
the clubhead traveling at gradually increased speed as it approached the ball
and reaching it maximum speed at the moment of impact.
I recognized this motion. You will recognize it too. Everyone at some time
has attached a stone or another weight to a length of cord and whirled it
around by revolving the hand. Terrific speed of the weight results from a
comparatively slight motion of the hand. And the faster the weight whirls, the
truer its path. Furthermore, the weight being whirled will strike any object in

its path with great force. This striking force, of course, is proportionate to the
speed at which it travels. A whirling motion of this kind demonstrates the
application of centrifugal force—a scientific principle dealing with force
directed or tensing away from a central point.

I perceived in this action of the weight the very qualities I sought to bring
about in the movement of the clubhead. I reasoned and eventually
demonstrated to my satisfaction, that, once the proper whirling motion of the
club was attained, the clubhead traveled in a “groove” and had plenty of
striking power.

When I knew that a whirling motion of the club satisfied the required action of
the clubhead and the ball I set out to learn whether it was possible to make this
application of centrifugal force through a perfectly natural action of the body,
arms and hands.

Despite everything I had heard, I could not make myself believe that the main
force of a golf swing should originate in the hands and arms. This possibly
was my first radical departure from the orthodox methods of playing and
teaching golf. Trial and experimentation demonstrated to me that the
necessary whirling motion of the club was produced only when the force
actuating the club had its origin near the center of my body. I had not
perfected my swing, of course; yet it was apparent that, only when this
condition was met, was I able to produce a swing accomplished with a
minimum of effort and a natural and efficient use of my entire body.

Needless to say, it was necessary for me to overcome many physical and
mental tendencies that interfered with my efforts to produce a whirling motion
of the club. I did not succeed in developing anything resembling the proper
action until I had suffered innumerable discouragements and had forced
myself to practice hours on end. Fortunately it is unnecessary for the reader to
undergo any such painful process, for I have devised, and shortly will explain,
a simple method by which anyone can learn the correct swing.

The swing I finally developed is not only powerful and accurate, but it is a
perfectly natural and easy motion to perform. I have been using it for more
than eighteen years. In all that time it has not been necessary to change it in
the slightest detail—and it has become better and better every year.

The exigencies of theatrical and lecture work, particularly the necessity for
extensive travel at times over which I have had no control, have allowed me
little opportunity for tournament competition, but my swing has been put to
unlimited tests in other respects under the most trying conditions.

In exhibition matches played all over the United States and Canada, I
frequently agreed in advance of the round to play my shots so that the ball

would curve to the right or left or travel in a high or low trajectory as directed
by my gallery. And even under such circumstances I have broken course
records. In my theatrical work it has been necessary for me to perform as a
matter of routine, feats of accuracy such as even the most expert player is
never called upon to execute.

Hitting a ball off a man’s head, for example, I have done that more than four
thousand times in the last ten years, and I have done it, along with other
similar feats, whether I felt fit or not, for, unlike the tournament golfer, I was
not entitled to any “off” days. The average player aims only to hit the ball and
even the good player is conscious only that his clubhead passes over, under or
across a ball, whereas in all my performances, both in the theatre and on the
golf course, I not only aim at but hit one tiny spot on the ball.

And so I believe I can say, not as a boast but as a calm statement of fact, that I
have subjected my method of play to tests which no other golfer has met; nor
would I have met them successfully had I used any other method.

Besides putting my method to the test of personal use, I have investigated
thoroughly its practicability as a fundamental basis for teaching others to play
golf. I have taught it to fat people, thin people, the young, the old, to those
who have never swung a golf club, and to those who had played for years and
who assured me before I started that they were “too set in their habits to learn
something new. And I found that anyone, regardless of age, or size, could
make a successful swing immediately provided that he were willing to put
aside personal peculiarities and concern himself with acquiring the correct
principle.

It is quite possible that the reader at some time may have found himself under
test in my “laboratory,” for the list of my patients is long and is comprised of
people in every walk of life, including two former Presidents of the United
States, leaders in professional, financial and industrial activities and such well
known-persons as Henry Ford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks, Annette
Kellermann and Babe Ruth.

My experience with Henry Ford illustrates perfectly the truth of my statement
that the correct swing is accomplished readily by anyone who catches the
idea.

Some years ago, while playing a theatrical engagement at the Detroit Opera
House, I decided to use the interval between afternoon and evening
performances by visiting that Detroit wonder show, the famous Ford plant at
Highland Park. A Detroit business man had given me a letter of introduction
to an executive of the Ford Motor Company and I presented this in an outer
office.

In a few minutes a messenger returned, not with a pass to go through the plant
but with the information that Mr. Ford wanted to see me in his office.

Wondering, I permitted myself to be led to a room in one of the upper stories
of the building. Two men sat at desks there, and one of them I instantly
recognized, from newspaper portraits I had seen, as Mr. Ford.

Without preliminaries, he leveled a forefinger at me. “I saw you in the
theatre,” he announced. “I read one of your newspaper articles. I can make
your golf swing.”

Probably he read doubt in my face, because he continued: “I know what
centrifugal force is. I couldn’t be in this business without knowing. And I
know just how it’s applied to hitting a golf ball. I haven’t had time to play golf
myself; but my son Edsel plays, and I’ve been showing him just how you say
a club should be swung.”

“Well, Mr. Ford,” I said, ‘I hope some time you’ll have an opportunity of
showing me.”

He was out of his chain in a flash. Desks, tables and other pieces of furniture
were pushed to the wall. From some mysterious hiding place he produced an
old wood shafted iron. Then he stepped to the center of the space he had
cleared, took a stance, and the club swished through the air.

“There! he stated. “That’s it”

“Fine!” I applauded. “And if you’ll stand so”—demonstrating—“and make
your first move like this, so that the swing will start from the center of your
body----“

“I see!” he interrupted, and he proceeded to make a second swing which was a
least a fifty percent improvement on the first.

I removed my overcoat, offered a few more suggestions, and in almost less
time than it takes to tell it, Mr. Ford was whipping that club about with the
unmistakable swish that is the invariable accompaniment of a swing correctly
performed.

And, as a final, clinching demonstration that he actually caught the idea, he
took the club and with a full swing duplicated a feat I had just performed of
knocking an inverted carpet tack cleanly from the glass top of one of his
desks!

Nor is it wholly through my own performances or the efforts of those to whom
I have been privileged to demonstrate and teach my golf method that I have

been convinced of the soundness of my system. A careful study of the
technique of eventually every expert who has played in the United States in
the last fifteen years proves conclusively that every successful shot played by
any one of them is the direct result of the employment of centrifugal force in
swinging the club. And it is only because most of them make use of this
principle accidentally, that the styles of the majority of experts vary so widely.
It also explains the great fluctuation in the performances of individual players.

Moreover, it is only corroboration of the truth of this conclusion to state that
Bobby Jones’s swing illustrates the whirling motion of the club better than
does the swing of any other golfer.

In other words, the correct swing is not my swing, not Jones’s, nor Smith’s,
but simply the exemplification of a scientific principle correctly applied.

“But,” interposes the harassed reader, “this all seems so technical! That’s the
trouble with the game now. I’m not a scientist. I don’t know anything about
centrifugal force, and I care less. What I want to do is play better golf!”

Exactly. The writer appreciates fully that most people are not interested in the
principles underlying any action; they simply want results. For that reason he
will endeavor to present a description of the correct swing and a method of
learning it in such a way that the reader need be no more concerned about
centrifugal force that he need think of the function of the law of gravity if he
were operating an elevator.

Thorough analysis of the mechanical principles involved in the swing and
careful study of the anatomical and mental factors that govern its proper
performance have enabled me to reduce every action of the correct swing to
definite, exact terms of body position and body movement that can be
understood and applied by any one.