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Follow the Game With the Champions Jock Considers Tee Shot Most Important In Golf By JOCK HUTCHISON (Former American Winner of the British Open Championship) Many interesting queries come to me during the course of a year, and as far as possible I always try to give a personal answer, but when several ask the same ques tion I feel that I can better serve the purpose by answering them through the medium of one of my articles. The question I have been asked most is what shot I consider saves the most strokes in golf. This is a natural question for the begin ner to ask, and an important one too. Before making a definite statement anent this subject, I think it would be wise to state a few conditions. I find out that in the case of the duffer, and I might also include the beginner, the golf shot undoubtedly of most importance is the shot from the tee. The average player can score fairly well if he can get off with a good start. The golfer who misses his drive on a modern trapped course will find this shot hard to make up. A missed shot from the tee may not be costly if one can be assured of running down a long putt or laying an approach stone dead but one must be expert indeed to be making these recoveries. Short Driver at a Disadvantage The golfer who can get a good, long drive from the tee has the battle half won. If a player has been in the habit of outdriving his opponent thirty or forty yards from the tee and also has a faculty of keeping them straight, has a tremendous advantage on each hole. When this is added up on eighteen holes it means that he has considerably shortened the course for himself. Good, long drives are bound to] come in the course of any round. They are not only important for the distance gained, but in most cases a long drive well placed makes the second shot much easier. It also enables the player gaining this advantage to stretch his game still further, by being in a position to carry second bunkers or to cut off yardage on elbow holes. A short driver is at a dis advantage in this respect, as he is unable to take chances on carry ing bunkers and is often forced to use a mashie or a midiron and play the shot safe. This means that the long player will gain still more on his Becond shot. (Jim Barnes will suggest a remedy for your golf faults. Write him care of the sport editor, enclosing stamped envelope, if you want a personal reply.) Dear Mr. Barnes: W.hy is it that my wood club shots are consistently inconsis tent? Whenever I attempt a shot with a driver or brassie, I have not the slightest idea what is going to happen. In about three years I have developed a fair degree of accuracy with irons but never with the wood. Would you advise me to discard the wood clubs altogether and use irons from the tees? N. C. M. Answer: Your complaint is rather gen eral and doesn’t give much of a case to work on, but if you have developed fair control with your irons I know of no reason why you should not master your wood clubs, and I would not advise you to give them up. There is noth ing that gives quite the satisfac tion of a good long straight ball with either driver on brassie. It occurs to me that maybe you are overswinging, for one thing. Also in all probability you are hurrying the swing too much, and trying to put too much effort into hitting the ball. I assume that you use a fairly short swing with your irons, delivering most of the driving force with forearm action, which accounts for your control there. Suppose you try the follow ing tips with your wooden clubs. Cut down the swing at first, tak ing the club back only a little be yond the perpendicular at the top of the back-swing. Take it back rather slowly at first, keeping the head low along the ground in starting it back. To do this, make the left hand do most of the work in starting the club, pushing from the shoulder. At the top of the swing, see that you have a good sense of balance, with appreciable weight on the ball of the left foot. Then start the club down steadily, gradually increasing the speed as the head nears the ball. Don’t be in too big a hurry to hit the ball, and don’t try to hit it too hard. Try to swing just as you would in an ordinary practice stroke at first, forgetting that you are trying to hit the ball. If you don’t get any help from this I will try a few other pointers. Dear Mr. Barnes: I am told that one may fre quently use a putter to good ad vantage in getting out of a sand trap, but this appears rather bad doctrine to me. Are there ever occasions under which the aver age player might find it advisable to use a putter from such a posi tion, or is it better to always em ploy a club with some loft? H. A. C. Answer: Yes there are conditions under which a putter may be used to play from a sand trap with good results, and even an average player may find it well to use it. These are the conditions: the ball lying well upon the sand in a trap quite near the edge of the green, where trouble may result if the ball is lofted too much and so caused to roll across into another trap or other trouble and with the bank of the trap quite low and sloping up from the bottom to ward the green. By this last I mean absence of a straight wall or any overhang. The stroke is as simple to play as any, and depends for its suc cess on judging how hard to strike the ball, the idea being to make (Continued on Column 4) Gene Gives Reason % [for His Consistency By GENE SARAZEN (American Professional Champion) “How do you account for your consistency and the great dis tance you get with your wooden clubs?” a noted golf critic asked me after my recent match with Arthur Havers. “I have seen most of the best players,” this critic continued, “and I believe you and Bobby Jones are the best of the long hitters, especially in this important matter of accuracy and consistency.” “Well,” I replied, “I got my control mostly through hard work and long hours in practice. When I was sixteen years old I had a great deal of trouble in playing any kind of shot with the wood— especially in playing a wooden shot to the green. At that time I had a tendency to hook more— a very bad habit to acquire. “Then one day I heard about Harry Vardon’s fade, or his left to right shot, as the players call it today. I inquired into it, and after getting a detailed explana tion from some of the best in structors in the game I began to practice on the shot. Wooden Shot to Green Helpful “I promptly set about correct ing my tendency to hook. At this time I had the fault to which so many present day golfers are prone, of raising my right elbow on the back-swing. Of course I invariably sliced. If I changed my stance or grip I would hook. So I began practice to keep the right elbow down and close to the body on the back-swing, and finally I was able to swing the club in a sort of groove with the right elbow held down and close to the body. After I had cor rected this fault, I found I was getting greater distance on my wooden shots, as well as better direction. I was getting a punch into the shot, the secret of long hitting, and I was using my body more than my arms which is easier and less tiring. “Now I dare say I can call either a slice or a hook or a slight fade and bring off the shot al most every time. I don’t say I can call a straight ball and make g-ood every shot, because a straight ball is undoubtedly the hardest shot in the game. But it was learning to play the wooden shot to the green from left to right that enabled me to acquire com plete control over all of my clubs. “Having learned to keep my right elbow close to the body on the back-swing I found I was able to groove my swing and to obtain compactness.' And in de veloping my swing along these lines I found I could get better results by using the open stance. “I play all my shots in similar manner. 1 do not believe in changing the hands or the feet for different shots. What I do when I want a shot different from the ordinary kind, say a hook or a slice is simply to move the ball. In other words to bring off a hook I play more off the right foot; to obtain a slice I play the ball fairly well forward off the left foot.” Curing Your Golf Troubles (Continued, from Column 2) it strike the slope of the bank and climb up on to the green. Such traps, I may add, are en countered on a good many courses quite near the greens. There is usually a choice between this stroke and an explosion stroke with a highly-lofted club, to make the ball stop shortly after strik ing the green. The question here is whether the player feels that he can gauge the force he must use in hitting the ball with a putter to run it up the bank better than he can in playing it out with an explosion shot. Dear Mr. Barnes: I do not get the distance I should with my midiron whether from the tee or through the fair way. I would very much appre ciate your suggestions of methods that may help me to improve my play in this respect, also an ex planation of the differences in the swings for the midiron and for wooden clubs. H. O. C. Answer: I frequently find that players who make compliments similar to yours are given to overswinging j and mistiming, that is, in cases where they hit the ball cleanly and manage to keep it fairly straight, but don’t get much dis tance. It is quite possible that this is your trouble. Try shortening your back-swing for one thing. Don’t take the club back much further than slightly past the perpendicular at the top of the back-swing. The mistiming comes in starting a hit too soon, and some times this is linked up with hurrying the back-swing too much. Try working with a steady j back-swing and if necessary, in \ practice, make a very slight pause; at the top of the ball. Start the club down smoothly and wait until the hands are well on the wayi down before putting any real hit ting effort into the stroke. Generally speaking the swing with iron clubs is more upright than with the wcfod. Also the swing is longer and fuller, with the wood and for that reason in actual practice is more of a swing than a hit. With the shorter swing it is possible to do more hitting with a reasonable chance to control the stroke than with a full swing. However, in your case, I expect you will do better to try to get away from too much bitting. It is a very common thing for a player to overdo the hitting. By that I mean to try too hard, in which case he thinks he is hitting the ball for all he is worth, when in reality he is start ing the operation too soon, and the speed of the dub-head is dyinyg down by the time it reaches the ball. Dear Mr. Barnes: My average game is around the 85 mark, and I think I could make it a good deal better if I had time for practice. But there is one shot that I sometimes have to play that I almost always foozle. I refer to the one where Rugs The cleaning, repairing and dyeing el your finest rugs or carpets may bo en trusted to our care with the assurance , of perfect results at a *ninl-»«i— coot. 1 South Chelsea Avenue Established in Atlantis City 11BS YUZUK & CO. Phonos Marine S27I ! the ball lies in a trap fairly close to the green, in such a way that it would seem easy to chip it out. For some reason I rarely am able to get it clean. How do you recommend a shot of this kind be played? G. H. G. Answer: To start with, let me say that the shot you refer to causes a good many more besides yourself trouble, especially if they try to chip it out as you suggest. This is easily one of the most difficult shots in golf, and _my advice to you is to let it alone. The fact that you can’t ground your club and so steady it and the further danger of cutting through the sand under the ball, because the sand is loose, make it extremely hard to play just right. The best plan is either to play r an explosion shot, driving the club into the sand back of the ball or else to take a putter or an iron with very little loft and play a run-up stroke. This latter can only be done, of course, where the trap is a shallow one and the wall of it is sloping with no overhang. Generally the explosion shot is the right procedure. Take a nib lick or mashie-niblick and aim an inch or an inch and a half back of the ball, depending on the dis tance you want the ball to travel after getting out of the trap. Grip the club firmly and drive the blade into the sand without at tempting any follow through. This will cause the ball to rise quickly and stop -without much run on striking the ground. 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