The Soul of Golf Part 22

It will be interesting now to refer to the results which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey obtained when he fitted his catapult with an arm provided with an enlarged head similar in shape to the head of a golf driver. Sir Ralph says:

This striking arm hit the ball away just as it is. .h.i.t by a golf club. The ball I suspended by gossamer silk from the projecting beam of a little gallows fixed over the engine, and so positioned that the enlarged upper end of the arm struck the ball fair and true and with its full force and at the same angle every time.

I was not present when Sir Ralph made these experiments. He, however, was kind enough to send me a copy of his most interesting work ent.i.tled _The Projectile Throwing Engines of the Ancients_. This book gives many ill.u.s.trations of the catapults used by the Romans and others.

I find it somewhat difficult to follow Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey when he says: "This striking arm hit the ball away just as it is. .h.i.t by a golf club," for it seems to me that as the ball was suspended above the striking face of the club which was fixed to the upper end of the arm, that the arc described by the arm of the catapult would be exactly opposite to that described by the head of the golf club, and it is of course conceivable that this would in some way affect the carry of golf b.a.l.l.s struck by the machine in this manner.

I need not, however, go into that here, for whatever the results obtained by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey were each ball was. .h.i.t in exactly the same manner, and therefore we have, in so far as regards distance and the effect of the side wind, fairly accurate comparative tests.

Sir Ralph says: "Though I could not obtain the same length of carry by making the engine strike the ball as I could when the ball was thrown by it--not by about fifteen yards--yet the individual results in distance and in deviation with a side wind exactly corresponded with the behaviour of the various b.a.l.l.s when they were thrown and when carries of from 180 to 200 yards were obtained from them."

Sir Ralph found that in this experiment the carry of the guttie was invariably about eighteen yards shorter than that of the ordinary rubber-cored b.a.l.l.s. He therefore carried out an interesting experiment by fixing a pad of rubber on the face of the head of the arm, and the guttie, when struck by this, travelled as far as any of the b.a.l.l.s. He found, as I have previously indicated, that of the rubber-cored b.a.l.l.s the small one carried the shortest distance when struck by the engine, and he found also that its length of flight was not increased by using the rubber pad. This, of course, is what we might have expected.

There is one very interesting matter which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey notes. He says: "Another curious thing, the ball with the most untrue centre of gravity usually made one, and occasionally even two, swerves in the air when hit against the wind, though this eccentricity in its line of flight was less noticeable when it was thrown from the engine." This is a very interesting statement to anyone who devotes attention to the flight of the ball, and it goes very far indeed to confirm my own impression that the double swerve of the golf ball which I have noticed so frequently, is produced by defective centre of gravity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE XIV. J. SHERLOCK

Top of swing in iron-shot. Note the position of the ball, and the upright swing of the club.]

These experiments are of very great value, and should be carefully noted by golf ball makers, but Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey was not content with testing the golf b.a.l.l.s for their flight. After having put in several days doing this, and having fired fully 500 shots, he continued his experiments with these b.a.l.l.s with the object of ascertaining their relative merits on the putting-green. He says:

I obtained a piece of lead three-quarters of an inch thick, two inches wide, and three feet long, in which I cut a straight and smooth groove one inch wide. One end of this piece of lead I rested on the cus.h.i.+on at the baulk end of a billiard table, and directed its other end towards the spot on which the red ball is placed in the game of billiards.

The forward end of the grooved lead I tapered off so that a ball ran evenly and smoothly from the groove on to the table without any drop or deviation as it left the piece of lead, which from its weight, when once set, could not change its position. I now placed a thimble on the spot at the far end of the table and rolled an accurately-turned wooden ball the same size as a golf ball down the sloping groove. After a little adjustment of the lead piece its line of fire was correct, and I was able to knock the thimble off the spot fifty times in succession. The ball travelled with sufficient speed just to reach the cus.h.i.+on beyond the thimble when the latter was moved aside, and the shot at the thimble nicely represented a slow put of eight feet in length.

This is a most interesting way of testing the golf ball. I may say that I have myself carried out experiments on similar lines, and that the results which I obtained practically confirm the accuracy of those which Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey got. He found that on testing various golf b.a.l.l.s the results were widely different. He tried each ball several times in a series of twenty tries at the thimble. He found that individually they seldom hit it more than three or four times in a series, and that some of the b.a.l.l.s, particularly those which he had found to be incorrect so far as regards their centre of gravity, rolled away from the thimble as much as two feet to the right or left, and that they sometimes actually went into the corner pockets of the table. This would seem to be incredible, but I can vouch for the accuracy of Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's statements.

It is an amazing thing to think of, but it is perfectly true, that the modern golf ball is so badly constructed that in a straight roll down the middle of the table such as that described by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, the ball will absolutely roll as far off the line as the corner pockets, and indeed sometimes farther even than this. That is what the golfer has to contend with when he tries to put with a bramble ball on a golf green, but, of course, as he does not know it, he blames himself for an off day, or the green for being "beastly,"

but he never by any chance whatever gives a thought to his horribly defective golf ball.

Sir Ralph says that the guttie was a notable exception to the inaccuracy of the rubber cores. He found that in its different series of twenty tries it often struck the thimble from fourteen to fifteen times, and when it missed was usually within an inch of the mark. This shows clearly the wonderful difference which I have already emphasised between marking by indentation and marking by excrescence. Sir Ralph also emphasises a point to which I had already directed attention as to the ball marked by excrescences running truly when hit hard. It is when the ball has no great propulsive force behind it that its inherent vice is most surely shown. Sir Ralph says:

Any of the b.a.l.l.s if played fairly hard from a cue could be made to strike the thimble every time; but then such a hard hit ball would go far beyond the hole in golf, and probably overrun the putting green! The smooth billiard-table cloth may be taken to represent the hard, bare and fast putting green of a dry summer.

That is a very fair comparison, with the exception that the hard, bare and fast putting-green of a dry summer would present infinitely greater inaccuracies to the already sufficiently inaccurate golf ball than would the billiard table. Let the unthinking golfer ruminate a little on this subject, and the day is not far distant when we shall never see such a thing as an excrescence on a golf ball.

Sir Ralph was very ingenious and thorough in his experiments. He desired to obtain the nearest possible approximation which he could to a natural putting-green, so he stretched a strip of rough green baize on the billiard table and tested the b.a.l.l.s on this. He made a chalk mark on which to place the thimble, and its distance from the lead gutter was the same as in his other experiments. He then found that the b.a.l.l.s, with the exception of those which had been marked as having their centre of gravity much out of place, ran with far greater accuracy. Most of them hit the thimble from eight to ten times in their individual series of twenty shots, but the guttie was, as usual, an easy winner. Sir Ralph found that on the billiard table if the b.a.l.l.s were played fairly hard from a cue, although too hard for golf, the thimble could be knocked over every time.

I consider that these experiments prove beyond a shadow of doubt, as I personally never doubted, that the ordinary bramble-marked golf ball will not run truly unless it has a considerable amount of force behind it, and that for short puts, and particularly on anything like a fast green, it is a most treacherous ball. Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey says:

All this goes to prove that, although a ball may be of inaccurate make, it keeps its line to near the end of its course when hit hard along the ground, as for instance, in a long running up approach to the hole from the edge of a putting green. It is also clear that a ball with an incorrect centre of gravity will very seldom run true off the putter if the ground is hard, fast and smooth and the distance it is required to travel is only a few feet. For this reason manufacturers should consider the accuracy of a ball for short puts--accuracy that can only be gained by making it a perfect sphere with its centre of gravity in the exact centre of the ball; for short puts must lose many more matches than short drives.

As Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey truly says, with a badly balanced ball the easiest of short puts may fail, especially on a downward slope, though the player rarely suspects that his ball and not his skill is to blame.

It is not, as I have already pointed out, only the question of the badly balanced ball which is of such vital importance in short puts, but it is the question of the untrue running of the ball marked by excrescences; also there is the equally important matter, which I have referred to, of the untrueness of the ball marked by excrescences in coming off the face of the putter. I am firmly convinced that there is no more perfect marking for a golf ball than that used for the old guttie ball, that is a marking by indented lines, but even here I believe that equally good results, both in flight and run, would be obtained if the gutta-percha ball were marked in a similar manner but with fewer lines.

Some of Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's conclusions are important. He suggests that a golfer should carefully test a ball before using it in an important match, and this is, unquestionably, from a scientific point of view, a very sound and good suggestion. I have already indicated his method of testing a ball for its centre of gravity, and I have shown how the ball may be tested for its spherical shape. There is no necessity to apply any test whatever to the ball in so far as regards its marking. There is one maxim with regard to that--avoid anything in the shape of a golf ball marked by excrescences.

Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey's advice to golfers with regard to the b.a.l.l.s need not be given here in full, valuable as I believe it to be in the main. But there is one matter which is worth repeating. He says:

Select a ball with as smooth a cover as you can find, for though all golf b.a.l.l.s require to be roughened in order to steady their flight, those most deeply scored travel the shortest distance, and are most affected by a head or side wind.

This is very sound and important advice, and it should receive the attention not only of golfers, but of the golf ball manufacturers, for even those b.a.l.l.s which are now marked by indentation are, in my opinion, too freely marked, and I am inclined to think that the dimples on the golf b.a.l.l.s which are so marked, are, if anything, too large and too frequent. I think it is extremely probable that the b.a.l.l.s which are so marked would fly and run better than they do now if they were marked by lines as the old guttie was marked, but with fewer of these lines. Probably if they were marked with one-third of the number of lines which were used on the old guttie, we should have a perfect flying and running ball.

Before closing this chapter on the make of the golf ball, it will be interesting to refer once again to the results obtained by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey when throwing the smooth ball from his machine and also when having it driven by Edward Ray. He obtained results similar in all respects to those which George Duncan and I obtained when trying "The Ruff." It is very curious indeed that so far there have not been any definite scientific experiments made to show exactly where the serviceable degree of roughness ends and the prejudicial begins, though much has certainly been done since I started the controversy about the relative merits of a smoother ball.

Some golf ball makers have gone so far as to produce a dimple ball with a small pimple in the dimple. This, in effect, reduced the dimple to a ring, and these b.a.l.l.s have been found to fly and run very well, but all that has been so far done has been a matter of experiment, of rule of thumb work. I do not think that there is a firm of golf ball makers in England which is in possession of a proper mechanical driver. We are a.s.sured that at least one firm in America is in possession of such a machine, but so far as I am aware there is no efficient machine of such a nature in England. This is very remarkable, as with such a machine a firm of golf ball manufacturers could obtain results which would probably give them a big advantage over their compet.i.tors.

I was quite astonished to see it stated by a firm of golf ball makers the other day that, although they were making a ball marked by indentations, they had come to the conclusion after much experimenting that the bramble pattern was the best for all-round excellence. In the face of the remarkably conclusive experiments conducted by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey, whose results I may say bore out up to the hilt everything which I had said about the defective construction of the golf ball, I should like to know how this manufacturer comes to the conclusion that the bramble marking is the best.

One point which has not been made very strongly is that it was not necessary for the old b.a.l.l.s to be badly knocked about before they would fly well. Comparatively little damage improved the flight of the ball. This, in itself, should be sufficient to convince manufacturers that they are still in many ways marking their b.a.l.l.s excessively. It is quite evident that no particular kind of marking is required on the golf ball, although it is conceivable that a certain kind of marking might possess some slight advantage over another. It would be interesting if an exhaustive set of experiments on the lines of those already conducted by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey could be carried out under proper supervision by some eminent scientist or by a leading firm of golf ball makers, or by some prominent paper interested in golf. The matter would undoubtedly be of very great interest to golfers generally, and would probably result in a great improvement of the b.a.l.l.s at present on the market.

The phenomenon of the uneven flight of the smooth golf ball has never, so far as I am aware, been satisfactorily explained. We all know, of course, that practically nothing which has not a tail flies well. A tail is necessary for an arrow, for an aeroplane, for a bird to steer itself with, and even the rifle bullet would not fly well until it was, in effect, provided with a tail. It has always seemed to me that there was a possibility of an explanation of the defective flight of the smooth golf ball in this fact. It stands to reason that in the pa.s.sage of the ball through the atmosphere there is a considerable compression of the air in front of the ball, and it is equally obvious that this compressed air is, if we may so express it, flowing backwards over the ball, and therefore running between the bramble markings. Of course, we are aware that it is not really a question of the air flowing backwards, but of the ball driving through the atmosphere, but we have merely to consider what may possibly be the effect of this action.

It seems to me that the air, in pa.s.sing back and round the ball in the manner described, is also in a state of compression until it has pa.s.sed backwards and, to a slight extent, behind the golf ball, so that we have, if we may so express it, attached to the ball a tail of compressed air which is constantly striving to resume its normal density at a slightly varying distance behind the ball in its pa.s.sage through the air.

If my idea, which is expressed now in an extremely unscientific and popular form, is correct, it would seem that the roughened ball holds more straightly into this tail of compressed air than it would be possible for a smooth ball to do; in other words, it seems to me that there would be a greater possibility of the smooth ball slipping the pressure which would be accentuated on that portion of the ball which Professor Thomson describes as its nose, and it seems feasible, although I do not care to be dogmatic on this point, that if the centre of gravity of the smooth ball were untrue, as indeed the centre of gravity of nearly every smooth ball is, the effect of the pressure of the condensed air on the front of the ball would be much more p.r.o.nounced with the smooth ball than it would in the case of the ball marked by excrescences or indentations.

I am aware that this idea of mine is open to argument, and I do not say for one moment that it is absolutely correct. It is undoubted that there is much uncertainty in the minds of extremely scientific men as to the cause for the uncertain flight of the smooth golf ball. Even so distinguished a scientific inquirer as Professor Sir J. J. Thomson a.s.sured me that he did not understand the reason for the erratic behaviour of the smooth ball. There is possibly another explanation, but again I put this forward tentatively. Even when a ball is driven by a golf club without appreciable spin, as indeed most golf b.a.l.l.s are, it seems to me quite possible, especially in the case of the b.a.l.l.s with defective centres, that before they have gone far on their journey they will proceed to acquire spin on account of the tendency of one side to lag more than the other.

It seems, then, that if this spin is set up in the manner which I described, it may, and indeed quite likely will, influence the path of the ball sufficiently to deflect it from the original line of flight, but as this spin has no very great power behind it, it seems quite likely that when it has deflected the ball from the line of flight it may be checked to such an extent that the atmosphere has a chance to get to work on the ball again and produce that which is practically a reverse spin. In this way, and in this way alone, can I see any reason for the double swerve which I have already referred to, in the carry of the golf ball. It must be understood that in the case of double swerve which I am referring to, the deflection from the straight line has always occurred at a point in the carry where one would not expect to see it if it had been occasioned by spin administered by the club, and it is always very much less indeed than the swerve would be if it had been obtained by spin produced by the club.

Also there is this other fact against the hypothesis that the swerve is produced by spin imparted at the moment of impact. In the swerve which I am referring to, both the first swerve and the return swerve which takes the ball back again into the line of flight are very slight, and in most cases practically of the same length and degree.

If the original deflection from the straight line were due to rotation of the ball acquired at the moment of impact, the swerve and return to the straight line, if there were any such return, would never be so symmetrical as they are.

I can quite easily understand the double swerve of a golf ball from spin produced by the contact between the club and the ball, although I must admit that I have never seen a swerve of this nature in golf which I could put down unhesitatingly to spin acquired at the moment of impact. I must, however, when I say this, except one instance. This was in the case of a ball hit with back-spin, and although it is in a sense improper to refer to it as double swerve because it only affected the trajectory and did not alter the plane of the ball's flight in any way, it was, in a sense, a case of double swerve. It was a wind-cheater struck by a very good player at Hanger Hill. The ball flew very low and looked as though it was about to hit a bunker, when suddenly, on account of the tremendous amount of back-spin which the player had put on his ball, it rose with the ordinary rise of the wind-cheater and soared straight away for thirty or forty yards, when it began to tower in the ordinary manner of the wind-cheater. This was such an extraordinary shot that I ill.u.s.trated it in _Modern Golf_, but I have never, in the course of fifteen years' acquaintance with the game, seen another shot of the same description.

There is no doubt whatever that double swerves may be obtained by the axis of rotation of the ball altering during the flight of the ball. I can remember quite clearly at a meeting of the All-England Lawn-tennis Club at Wimbledon, a player informing me quite seriously that a lawn-tennis ball would swerve two ways in the air. At that time I was under the impression that I knew all there was to be known about the flight of the ball. I did not contradict him, but inwardly I pitied him; but at the same time I made up my mind to watch for this phenomenon, little as I expected to see it, for in the course of at least seventeen years' practical acquaintance with the game of lawn-tennis wherein one has a splendid opportunity of observing the action of spin on the ball, I had never seen, or perhaps it would be more correct to say I had never observed, any ball swerve two ways.

It was not many days after this that I distinctly saw an American service, delivered by one of the players in the All-England Lawn-tennis Champions.h.i.+p, swerve two ways. Since then I have looked for this phenomenon, and I have seen it happen both in lawn-tennis and golf, but I am satisfied that in golf it is not due to spin acquired at the moment of impact, as undoubtedly it is in lawn-tennis. It seems to me that with the lawn-tennis ball, which offers a very large frictional area in proportion to its weight, that it is quite feasible that during its travel, particularly in the American service, it may alter its axis of rotation on account of encountering a heavier bank of air, or for some other reason. It naturally follows that immediately this takes place the arc of the original swerve is interfered with, but in no case have I seen in lawn-tennis, as I have in golf, the original swerve of the ball exactly compensated for by the swerve back into the straight line, which is the peculiarity of the double swerve at golf.

There is no doubt that there is a considerable amount of mystery in this matter. It may appear that it is not of much importance to golfers, from a practical point of view, whether it is solved or not, but it is hard indeed to say how useful a proper understanding of the higher science of the game may be in the practice of it; and in the experiments carried out by Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey with so much patience and ability we have a very good example of the value to golfers of the scientific investigation and consideration of matters appertaining to the various implements of the game.

CHAPTER XII

THE CONSTRUCTION OF CLUBS

In my last chapter I dealt with the construction of the golf ball. In many respects the golf club is more perfectly made than the golf ball, although it is, of course, hard to compare two objects so entirely dissimilar. In making the comparison I am, however, thinking mainly of the amount of exactness which has been brought to bear on the manufacture of the respective articles in so far as they have developed in accordance with the best of modern thought. It cannot be denied, however, that from a mechanical point of view, the golf club is still a very imperfect implement, for the simple reason that the striking point of the club is not in a line with the handle. This, of course, is, from the point of view of one who desires to obtain the maximum of strength and accuracy, a glaring fault. It has been remedied to a very considerable extent in the Schenectady putter, to which I shall have occasion again to refer.

Golf is a very old game, and, as I have shown, it has been simply festooned with the cobwebs of tradition, and in no respect, probably, is this truer than it is in regard to the golf club. Originally, almost every implement made for playing a game by striking a ball was curved or so crooked that the ball was struck off the line of the shaft. The cricket bat was originally a crooked implement, so was the lawn-tennis racket, lacrosse, and even the billiard cue, but these have all been straightened, so that at the moment of impact the ball is in a straight line with the handle or shaft of the striking implement. It would indeed seem exceedingly strange to see a batsman furnished now with a curved bat, but that, in effect, is what we have in golf. It is certain that to obtain the best result from one's strength, it is necessary that the forearm, the ball, and the shaft of the striking implement shall be, at the moment of impact, in one and the same straight line or plane. This is a fundamental rule in athletics which is too much ignored by many players, both at lawn-tennis and in golf.

Ignoring this principle in lawn-tennis has cost England her supremacy--not only, indeed, has it cost her her supremacy, but it has relegated her to the back ranks of the world's lawn-tennis players; for instead of having the handle of the racket and the forearm in one and the same straight line at the moment of impact, the English player, both with the forehand and the backhand, introduces between his racket and his forearm a considerable angle. He thus, instead of confining his force to one line, diffuses it over a triangle, and causes the weight of the blow to fall on his wrist in such a way that it offers least resistance.

The golf club, although naturally to a less extent, embodies this fundamental error in mechanics, for instead of hitting the ball dead in a line with the shaft, it gets it in the middle of the face which projects from one side of the shaft. A moment's reflection will show that this is a very imperfect method of striking the ball.

It will, of course, be said by the slaves of tradition that it is a horribly revolutionary thing to suggest any alteration in the shaft of the golf club, but it must be borne in mind that the golf club has to go through a process of evolution before it will become perfect, also that it has for generations past been going through a process of evolution which has materially altered its structure. Originally the head of the golf club was much longer than it is now. Gradually the head has been shortened so that the point of impact has come nearer to the shaft, and no less an authority than Harry Vardon has said that this tendency is well justified, for one can undoubtedly obtain greater power and accuracy the nearer the blow is brought to the shaft.