An unfortunate golfer who had tried to put these principles into execution came into my office one day, and told me that he could get no length whatever in his drive. I handed him a club and said: "Let me see you swing?" At the top of his swing he got into this position which is now considered the classical illustration of how it should not be done, and after I had allowed him to swing several times from this position I said to him: "Now swing again, but stop at the top of your swing." He stopped at the top of his swing, and I then went and stood behind him almost in a line with his right shoulder and the hole and about a club's length from him, and I addressed him as follows: "Will you kindly forget for the moment that that thing which you have in your hands is a golf club, and will you also consider, ridiculous as it may seem, that for the nonce my head is a block of wood, and that you have in your hands now an axe instead of a golf club, with which you desire to split my head in two. Would you now, if you had to strike this block of wood, use your arms as you are doing? "

"Why, no," came the answer instantly. "I should do this," and down dropped both elbows underneath the club. Then I said to this searcher after the truth:

"I do not think I shall ever again have to tell you where to put your elbows," and he answered, apparently overwhelmed by my supernatural cleverness:

"That is a wonderful illustration. I never thought of it like that before."

I am giving this as an illustration of the vagueness with which people treat an utterly simple proposition such as this. This man was a chartered accountant, and really, in his way, a particularly clever fellow, but he was overwhelmed with admiration because I was able to show him that with his golfing club he was doing, or trying to do, a thing which no one but an idiot would have dreamed of trying to do with a hammer or an axe. This is the kind of thing for which we have to thank the people who write vague generalities about things which they do not understand.

Let us analyse this most important pronouncement of Braid's a little further. He continues:

Neither can one say precisely how they work, except for the suggestion that has already been made. It seems, however, that they start when the club head is a matter of some eighteen inches from the ball, and that for a distance of a yard in the arc that it is describing they have it almost to themselves and impart a whip-like snap to the movement, not only giving a great extra force to the stroke, but, by keeping the club head for a moment in the straight line of the intended flight of the ball, doing much towards the ensuring of the proper direction.

The real truth of this matter is that there is no portion of the arc of the drive wherein the wrists exert less influence, or are so completely out of business as they are in that portion of the drive wherein James Braid says they are predominant.

The wrists have a tremendous amount to do with the development of the speed of the stroke, but particularly in the initial stage of the downward stroke. This will be most clearly seen by a study of George Duncan's wrist action at plate 64 of Modern Golf, wherein the wrists are shown turning over when the club has gone about half-way on its downward swing. Of course, they begin to turn over much sooner than this, but the truth is that the turn-over of the wrist or, more correctly speaking, the roll of the forearms in the downward swing is such a wonderfully gradual and natural process that it would be utterly impossible for anyone to say at what particular period in the downward swing it happens, and if anyone can say, or, rather, does say, at what particular period the wrists come in to the downward stroke, he is not only an ignorant golfer, but an enemy to golf, for it is a matter which cannot be described except to say that the wrist action begins absolutely with the beginning of the stroke, and is then a continuous and natural turn until the club gets very close to the ball, by which time there is practically nothing left for the wrists to do, as the club has reverted to the position in which it was at the moment of address, or perhaps I should say that it ought to have reverted to that position, as indeed, in so far as regards the club itself, is properly shown by James Braid in his photographs of stance and address and impact.

We have now to deal with the space of eighteen inches in the follow-through, wherein James Braid asserts the wrists still have it all to themselves. This eighteen inches is in all properly executed straight drives, and by straight drives, I mean drives which are not intentionally pulled or sliced, taken up by a clean follow-through down the line of flight after the ball, and this follow-through is, of course, associated with the forward movement of the body on to the left leg which is so well and clearly shown in the instantaneous photographs of James Braid and Harry Vardon, but is, by Braid in Advanced Golf stated to be inadvisable in his text, but clearly shown as advisable in his photographs.

There can be no doubt whatever that any attempt to introduce into the drive for eighteen inches before and after impact, anything whatever in the nature of a "whip-like snap" would absolutely ruin the rhythm of the swing, for it is evident that the introduction of a "whip-like snap" into something which we have been told is "a sweep," would absolutely upset the general character of that "sweep." It is impossible to have a sweep, and in that sweep to sweep the ball away and at the same time to get the ball away by a "whip-like snap." Either we have the sweep or we have the whiplike snap, admitting for the sake of argument that either of these statements is correct, which is not the fact, as the ball is hit away and neither "swept" nor got away with a "whip-like snap," but the would-be learner is presented with this mass of confused thought, instead of having nothing whatever to think of with regard to hitting the ball more than he would have in his mind if he stood still in the road and tried to smite an acorn with his walking-stick.