Palisadian., 1925-07-24
COLI
N 10y P J.GAUDIN
~ sKOKIE COUNTRY CLUB
6. UNION LEAGUE CLUB
y Chesre
t@. 1925. Western Newspaper union.l
Practice That Pays.

IL Is lupOSSlDle TO ONeFeInpHdSlZe
the value of intelligent practice if the
golfer has any ambition to increase
his or her skill.
We might as well start with the pos
tive statement that ones skill. after a
certain point, cannot be increased by
playing the game. The fundamental
reason for this is that there is no
chance of prOfting by ones errors.
There is failure, for instance, with
niblick stroke from a bunker. Per
haps the same shot and the same fail
ure occur two or three other times In
the round. Intelligent practice of the
shot, especially after lesson from a
competent instructor, would let the
player make the shot with a great deal
of confidence when it came up in
game. Failure to learn and practice
the shot has the contrary effect. Not
only is there feeling in advance that
the shot will be fiivver, but that
feeling will extend to any use of the
club and the players game is made
worse by abortive attempts at using
some other club when the niblick
should be used.
Why not follow the same procedure
as in the learning of anything else?
Is anyone so foolish as to think 1t
possible to become a musical artist
without instruction or practice? Can
one learn to become ball player or
tennis player or football player or
sprinter or lawyer or college professor
or minister or aviator, or anything
under the sun requiring skill, without
instruction and intelligent practice?
Yet it Is perfectly safe to say that
more than half of the 100000 golf
ers of the world never took a lesson
nor ever spent an hour in intelligent
practice.
1t may be noted that reference Is
made to intelligent practice. BY this
Is meant the requirement of knowl-
edge as to just why a certain grip and
stance and pivot and swing are recon-
mended, and to take these points, one
at a time, and test them out thorough
ly. Intelligent instruction. of course,
is necessary, but will have very little
| effect if not followed at once by in
telligent practice. One does not be-
come a good piano player through les
sons alone.
Learning Why Swing Is Correct.
The main reason why the skill of
the average golfer remains at such
low ebb is that he or she does not
know how to make the stroke Much
of this is occasioned by the fact that
there has been no expert instruction
and much of the remainder is due to
the fact that continuous play without
thoughtful practice has let variations
of the right form creep in until the
player often is worse off than with no
previous instruction. He has forgotten,
or never knew, that the secret of skill
in golf is to adopt the best form pos
sible and never to make any variation
from it. There is nothing truer than
that the expert has attained his or
her skill because of the ability indefi-
nitely to duplicate good swing.
1t also is fact that 81 per cent or
more of the ability of the star golfer
is because of his ability to think. Play
ers of the ability of Walter Hagen and
Chick Evans come very close to doing
the exact thing over and over when
the circumstances are practically the
same. In driving practice balls from
tee, for instance, 1t is highly proba-
BILE that moving pictures of them
would not show any perceptible varia-
ton, provided there were no adverse
wind conditions. If the wind is varia-
BILE, one might see a slight variation
in grip or stance or in the height of
the swing. Jock Hutchinson, for in
stance, has natural fiat swing. If he
Is faced with head wind from the
tee, his only change, in order to keep
the bail low, is still further to fatten
his swing. Hagen and Evans make nc
perceptible change when they want a
low ball except to stand an inch or
two further forward with reference to
the line of fight.
Even such slight variations as these
are not recommended to the average
player. One must be far ahead of the
average class to get any benefit from
a change of the regular methods. The
well-advised average player will stick
close to the methods which he has
found best for his particular case
otherwise the case will correspond Il
that of Joe Kirkwood, who might eas
ily have become a worlds champion Il
he had not experimental with every
possible way of making shot unit
his weakness is that he knows toe
many ways of making any shot.