New Britain herald., 1929-10-16
CHIP SHOTS
By digger

By digger
 Probably no other game is writ l ten about as much as golf. Few | games are talked over as much as the ancient and royal pastime. Ev- eryone who indulges in it has his own theories of how 1t should be | played. But back of all the talk is tacit acknowledgment of the | pros authority on all questions re- lating to the game.
 The average golfer plays the | game in his own way, not because he holds any brief for his own methods but because he has found l that he can score better than If he attempts to make his swing and l stroke orthodox. Secretly, if not openly, he would like to play after the professional manner.
 And so it has come to pass that something like 95 per cent of the golfers of the land bow to profess sional opinion but keep right on do- ing the best they can at the game in their own way. It would not oc- cur to many of them to question the teaching technique or the theories of the pros. Once In a while an article ap- pears in a golfing magazine that raises a cry against blind obeisance | hn dc Nf a good sign. I recall one such protest a short time ago that tended to prove that the ball could not be hit down and still be made to follow the intended line of flight.
 A couple of years ago a duffer wrote an article for scientific magazine in which he apparently proved that golf clubs are entirely unscientifically constructed, He even went so far as to build set that conformed to his ideas on the subject
 Enough golfers were interested In ! his invention to encourage the en- gineer to put them on the market but I have never seen them in use though I have been curious to try them. If they had become popular. the chances are that the ruling body of golf would have prohibited their use, just as innovations have | been ruled off the courses in times | past.
 It was left for a young woman to explode n bombshell in the camp of the professionals. One Bertha MacGrcgor. a patent attorney, writ ing for Outlook, under the caption, "A Lady Takes Up Golf" tore right into some of the oldest traditions of golf teaching.
 Applying her knowledge of phy- sics, mechanics and anatomy, the lassie, with the good old Scotch name, took exception to her men, tors instruction Ito pivot at the waist and rotate on her spine" She explained the impossibility of doing that and when the pro went through his motions, the lady called his at tention to just what he did do, which cast a doubt in his mind as 1 to the soundness of golf theology.
 Miss MacGregor would have it that what the pro really did. as he | took his swing, was to turn his feet, 1 legs and hips, with an additional turn of his shoulders, so that all the turning on the spine took place well up from the waist.
 Next the lady tried putting. There her instructor came to grief when he advised putting back spin on the ball. His pupil argued that it would be impossible for the ball to carry back spin on a green for any apprc- ciable distance. Maybe she was right.
 Further on, she attacked the idea of the straight left arm as an inef- ficent stroke maker and insisted that it was the good old right hand that put the punch into the long drives, whether the professionals knew it or not.
 Her general criticism of what is written by the experts is that it does not jibe with what they actual