THE MASTER PATH

Marshall Whitlatch

Third Article In a Winter Series of Papers on the Essentials of Good Golf

EDITOR'S NOTE.— The man who extracts a rabbit from your silk hat would, with practise, make a superlative golfer; for golf, after all, is but a glorified type of sleight-of-hand. Continuing his argument for muscle vs. mind in golf, Mr. Whitlatch in this paper (the third of his series) discusses the little one-foot arc that makes all the difference between the greatest and the worst player that ever stepped on the green.

HE beginner finds it very difficult to select, out of the great mass of discussion of golf, a really practical thing which he can apply successfully to the permanent improvement of his game. As I look back upon my own experience, it comes to me how much I have been misled by well intentioned friends who have advised me to do this, that, and the other thing, in my struggle to master this difficult game. Most of the suggestions one golfer gives another are mere neutralizers and not real cures of the trouble.

Every suggestion means another thing to think about. The general run of golfers think of an appalling mass of detail.

All motions performed by the body are muscular reactions, and the nerves are the lines through which these muscles are controlled. Through generations our muscular and nervous systems have been exercised, and from babyhood to manhood the exercise has been continued, so that the vast majority of our movements are habitual or automatic.

IF YOU wish to pick up a stick you do not analyze the movement, but you perform the act of picking it up. You have no difficulty in succeeding because the muscles are educated. You do not stop and consider whether your hands or body or anything else is "set" for the work or not. But the moment the average player takes a golf club in his hands to hit a ball, he begins to develop a mental process, when to succeed he should have nothing on his mind except the purpose of hitting it.

"It is agreed by all scientists that consciousness deserts all processes where it can no longer be of use. The tendency toward a minimum of complication is the dominating law of consciousness."

THIS is what I am trying to show golfers. The weight of all evidence is against thinking of the means as well as the end. William James says, "Our idea of raising our arm, for example, or of crooking our finger, is a sense, more or less vivid, of how the raised arm or the crooked finger feels. There is no other mental material out of which such an idea might be made." The idea of "how it feels" is the gist of all this thinking.

IT MAY be urged that a player gets the idea of a correct swing from seeing a crack golfer swing at a ball. He will get about as much of an idea as he does when he sees a clever prestidigitator perform some of his motions. The "trick" or knack is done so quickly that it mystifies the beholder. Just so with the vital parts of a golf swing, such as the roll of the wrists, the "timing," etc. They take place too quickly for the eye to catch them. They can be "sensed" when performing them, but they cannot be seen, consciously, because for all practical purposes they are "sleight of hand" motions.

IT IS common experience to make a mystery of things which cannot be understood and it is perfectly reasonable that golfers who watch a good player and see him succeed, right in front of their eyes, cannot see how the trick is done, although they immediately swing as nearly like he does as they can. It is like the boy's attempt to imitate the prestidigitator; he copies the parts he sees and that is all the motor suggestion there is in it.

It is here where the "mystery" of golf is developed. As the time is so short in making a golf stroke, it is impossible to give any attention, let alone concentrated attention, to more than one thing successfully. No matter how much thinking a player may do, no matter how many years he may play golf, this fact will remain. The great difficulty in learning is as much due to a wrong conception of the thing to concentrate upon as all other things combined. To quote James again, "In action as in reasoning, the great thing is the quest of theright conception."

APPLYING this to golf, I would say that concentrating on the wrong thing as well as attempting to think of too many things is where players fall down.

As an example of this phase of the subject, I use again the illustration of picking up a stick. In attempting to do this, if the mind is allowed to dwell upon whether your suspender buttons would hold when you bent over, and whether your hat would fall off, and your fountain pen and watch drop out of your pockets, your effort to pick up the stick (the object of the bending over process) would be more in the nature of a groping for the stick and would not partake of the definite motion required in picking it up. Exactly this kind of a mental process is made when a player successively attempts to think of the position of his feet, the grip, the turn of the wrists, the angle at which he brings up his club, and so forth.

REARRANGING the order of thinking of these steps will not change this kind of mental process in the slightest. To think of the turn of the wrists at the top of the swing when attempting to hit so small an object as a golf ball is certainly not concentrating on the main purpose of the stroke.

Thinking of these steps, over and over again, will doubtless enable a player to think more rapidly by developing a less involved process of thinking.

Many people imagine that these steps are first principles and that every one must think of them, especially if he is not a natural born golfer. But if this is the case, why not be a little more thorough, and think of exactly how much to turn the wrists and name the exact speed at which this turn must be made? Everyone who tries it depends upon the feeling of whether it is too much or too little and after all, this in the end is leaving it to the muscular sense. Why not leave all of this process to the muscular sense in the first place and just keep hitting at the ball till you can succeed?

THINKING of these steps is a way of acquiring facility in thinking, but not in hitting a golf ball accurately. That must come from educating the muscles to control the head of the club. No amount of thinking can put this kind of knowledge into one's consciousness. It can only come from exercising the fingers, and hands, and arms, and body, and legs; so that with the club in the hands, a sense of the club head becomes so acute and so distributed all over the body that one can direct it as accurately as the finger is directed. That is one reason why holding the club more with the fingers rather than in the palms of the hands gives the player a keener control or more sensitive feel of the club head. That is the reason why all good golfers hold their putters more with the fingers than with the palms. It gives a more sensitive control. All this matter of control is an education of the muscular sense pure and simple.

TO OBTAIN this muscular education in the highest degree, it is not sufficient that the club be waggled blindly or without giving attention to it; because exercise will strengthen the muscular tissue, but the greatest value in educating the muscular sense is in teaching the player to coordinate this sense and the vision, thus making his attempt a more concentrated effort to have his club head follow a definite path.

To receive this education, a player must swing his club, otherwise he will not "feel" the weight of the club head. Exercise it, that's all. Try directing it in all kinds of curves and sweeps. This will educate the muscles to the "feel of the club head." It will gradually perfect the player's control in his fingers and strengthen his grip, and thus educate the muscular sense. The control will come automatically through exercise. It will teach the player the easiest ways to get up speed. It will toughen up his wrists and sinews for turning the wrists, etc. This may be a new doctrine to many, but it is perfectly sound if thought be given to it. Careful aiming in repose will not do it. "Set" muscles will not do it. All the tricks or knacks in playing are done while in motion. The tricks are muscular tricks. The technique is all applied in motion.

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CONSTANT exercise of this kind will develop the control of the club head to a most extraordinary degree. It is lack of this kind of muscular education which makes it so hard for the beginners and mediocre golfers to hit the teed ball true, to say nothing of hitting it when in difficult lies.

Control of the club head, when analyzed, will be found to consist of the ability to control the path through which the club head travels.

To explain this I quote James again. "If with closed eyes, we trace figures in the air with extended forefinger . . . what we are con-

scious of in each case, and indeed, most acutely conscious of, is the geometric path described by the finger tip. Its angles, its subdivisions, are all as distinctly felt as if seen by the eye."

TAKE for instance, the figure 9. Close the eyes and with the forefinger extended trace the figure in the air and you will be perfectly conscious of the path through which the finger tip has traveled and by repeating this you will feel the outlines of the 9 as plainly as if the finger tip was touching something tangible. Now if you will take your driver in your hands and trace with the club head the figure 9 thinking of the path through which the club head travels you will be able to recognize the figure without difficulty. This will explain what I mean when I speak of thinking of the club's path.

Any scheme of play which is not based upon this sort of control of the club head's path while in motion will not educate the muscular sense.

I now desire the reader's closest attention because I am going to show where the "sleight of hand" in a golf stroke occurs.

THE length of that part of the path through which the club head travels, in the complete swing, to which it is possible to give any practical and successful conscious attention, is that part about a foot long beginning an inch or two before reaching the ball and running about a foot through the ball. That is as far as the mind or conscious attention need be concerned, and the player should make his mental picture of that part of the swing and forget all the rest of it. The reason for this is that it is not possible to concentrate successfully upon more than that amount of the swing owing to the short interval of time in which the swing is made. In other words, it is not possible to give any successful attention to the turn of the wrists at the top of the swing and then back to the ball without making two distinct efforts.

THAT part of the swing about a foot long, already described, which I shall represent bY the figure i lying prostrate or parallel with the ground and running through the centre of the ball. I am going to name the master path of golf, because it is the proper direction of the club head along this master path in the various kinds of shots with irons, etc., that is the real foundation of bringing off these shots successfully.

Along the master path the maximum effort is made. Along the master path the timing is all important, and the roll of the wrists comes in. It is in the direction of the master path itself that so much depends in good iron play.

I call it the master path because it is really the master key for unlocking the door of a successful golf stroke. This I shall show in subsequent articles.

IT IS along the master path that the follow through, about which so much has been said, occurs. It is the taking of one's position to prepare for making the maximum effort along this path that governs the type of address. It is the not keeping the club head upon the master path that results in slicing and pulling. It is the stopping or diminishing the power at the beginning of the master path which prevents a long ball.

The speed with which the club head travels along the master path of the complete swing makes it impossible to get the correct mental picture upon which psychologists lay so much stress. Getting an idea of a golf stroke is subject to the same law as getting an idea of the stride of a running horse.

PEOPLE see only the extremes or ends of the motion; and that is why for generations a horse was pictured in a running position with the legs all extended, the forelegs forward and the hind legs backward. This really conveys a better idea of the general motion than the Remington idea which was to take the model from instantaneous photographs. This law is called "the law of the resting point" as the eye sees only the extremes of the motion, which is the point of an infinitesimal but perfectly perceptible rest.

In watching a good player the eye cannot catch the "roll of the wrists" along the master path because it is done in a flash. It cannot therefore be a motor suggestion, or a motion which can be copied, because it cannot be consciously seen.

The trick of getting a long ball depends entirely upon the kind of effort made when the club reaches the master path; and if I can succeed in making the player see the value of close and careful attention to the swing at this point, and forget all the rest, I feel that great progress will be made.