Golfing Before You Swing

by Sam Mancuso

We are frequently and wrongly told to keep our left arm straight, when we should be told to aim for the feeling of it being down. If we look for that, our arm will be practically straight even at the top of our swing, because we are stretching it to obtain the down feeling. This is the reliable way of reaching this end, because it is conditioned and controlled by feel not thought. Incidentally this explains why you can be a top class golfer even if your left arm is not straight at the top of your swing—not the straightness but the downness is the vital factor.

Now I hope you see the reason for adopting the set before the ball which I have been describing. It is so that you will feel that you will bring the club face square into the back of the ball, not from above but from behind it. When I say that I putt as I drive, I simply mean that when I putt I feel that I roll the ball along from behind—and I feel the drive is only an enlargement of this sensation, not something different from it. 'One sensation for all shots.' I keep harping on this because it is not the knowledge of what we have to do which leaves us on the course—it is the feel of what we want to do that is apt to evaporate unless we have built up a secure feel-memory of how the swing operates.

The only way in which we can repeat correct shots time after time (and this is the greatest of golfing assets ) is to be able to repeat the correct feel of how they are produced. This feel must begin right as well as continue and finish right, and that is why I have gone into such detail in the apparently simple matter of standing in front of the ball. Now I do not suggest that you will get this properly braced feeling at once, or that you cannot play good golf until you do get it. My experience is that few beginners brace well, except mechanically. One pupil of mine who had made marvellous progress only fully realized the conception of bracing after two years— when he was already capable of an occasional 78.

We knew, when he did realize it, that the 78's would now become more frequent because he would begin to repeat his best shots more often. It is always a pleasure to teach intelligent analytically minded players who think about their game, even if they are physically not capable of playing high-class golf. I remember a lady whose game had been largely Points To Study The stance is firm, compact, and braced, qualities essential to a fast swinger. Note the triangle formed by the two arms and the shoulders. Although the right wrist is held arched (that is, up), the right elbow is held in and down. Note the inclination of the shoulders, due to the left side being straight and the right side curved.

The right elbow is inside the right hip. The left arm and club are in line. The shoulders and feet are square to the line of flight, the hips are profiled—that is, are at a slight angle to it. The view of the ball from this position is a peeping at the back of the ball out of the left eye.messed up because to 'cure' a somewhat persistent slice someone had told her to draw her right foot back a bit and hold her right hip back. Well, I squared up her stance and showed her how to brace and she began sweeping the ball away so perfectly that she could hardly believe her eyes! The next day she came back and told me she had thought over what I had told her and had found a curious resemblance between my 'hip brace' and something that Miss Irene Castle the dancer had said to her some years before. 'Do you know,' she said, 'that while studying the dancing of Egyptians from old illustrations,

Miss Castle found that they did not dance with their feet and hips and shoulders square, but with the hips profiled to the other two lines, and Miss Castle put down much of her success as a dancer to the fact that she adopted this idea?' Now that was exceedingly interesting to me, even if it did upset some of the reasons I had worked out for the hips being 'profiled' at golf. Like most of those who had been lucky enough to see Miss Castle dance, I had wondered how she did it—and here was part of the answer. I am more than ever convinced that the correct bracing of the body in this way is as essential to good golf as it is helpful to good dancing and that it is something that we should all seek for whatever our calibre.