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THE CHINA MAIL, MARCH 15, 1939
PICTORIAL GOLF TUITION
Sam Snead's Profusely Illustrated Book
(By AIR MAIL)
IN Measurably realise the changing seasons, the
these March days, when the longer daylight makes a definite
fancy of many a young man, and many a man, too, who is no longer young, avidly turns to thoughts of fairways, greens, and swings. The golfer does not rely for his first intimation of Spring upon the daringly early crocus; he knows all about it from "inside" informa tion. The urge to get back to the game again suddenly comes from within, and he sees visions and dreams dreams. To some extent he lives on mental golf pictures of familiar scenes and hopeful strokes until he can return regularly to his pleasures of the links.
There is something of the ecstatic in the prospect of begin-1 ning again; the lure of the game after the winter absence for the wholehog abstainers, and even for those who have kept some oc- casional contact with courses dur- ing the cold months, can create emotions that are more delight- ful than describable. A new sea- greatest and applying their methods. son brings a renewal of faith in to the conclusion that only a limited The result has been that I have, come ourselves and our prospects, and amount of good golf can be impartel the majority of players approach to the pupils by words alone. resumption in the spring-clean Golf is a matter of feeling and touch. frame of mind, and with the re-exactly how you should feel when you I'm not equal to the job of telling you solution to do better this time make the motions required for a good than last. If they can divorce shot. I doubt if there are words that. that new urge from the doomed could do that job." The leading pro- category of New Year reso
fessionals, he adds, can show their there may be something substan- they tell about it in words that can be method clearly, but very rarely can tial to show for it a few months] understood by muscles. bones, and from now.
The
SHOWS US HOW ́
It
nerves.
·
Two well-known members of the famous Mitcham, Athletic Club, Miss Kathleen Tiffen, the Olymple hurdler, and Mr. Cecil Dale, were married at Christ Church, Mitcham, recently, Miss Tiffen was a mem.. ber of the team which competed in the Third Woman's World Games in Prague, in 1936, and represented Great Britain in the Olympic Games in Berlin. Last year! she visited Australia for the Empire: Games. Our photograph shows Miss Tiffen during hurdle practice on the Mitcham ground. (Copyright, Fox).
!
Ted Ray used to heave himself off his
in the act. The camera has, however, fect: at impact, but it did not need a wift-action photograph to catch him done much for golf tuition, and Snead's photographs show as effectively as, 1 imagine, it can be done, not only the position of the feet at impact, but the swing process bit by bit for various strokes.
THE CAMERA IN TUITION instructional book by Sam Snead's pictures, which are in every tion as any human is likely to achieve, Snead, the long-hitting young Ameri- instance excellent, will doubtless com- showing her on her toes when hitting can, which has just been published, has mand unanimity of praise; his views the ball. The hefty and unorthodox therefore been well-timed.
will about the value of words of printed coincide usefully for many golfers, and teaching will not, however, command particularly handicap players, their spring-clean approach to another of conveying technique clearly and con with 100 per cent. agreement. The problem season, and I may say that Snead has vincingly in words is obvious enough; struck out on rather a different tutorial but, on the other hand, the camera line from most of the mentors who not always an infallible eye-witness. have gone into print.
Some confusion may easily be set up The normal policy of printed teach-in the mind of the pupil, between what ing reinforces words with illustrations: an expert executant tells the beholder in this case Snead uses words as auxi- he is doing, and the photograph of the liaries to his pictures. The pictorial same player in action. medium comes first with him. The Illustration without words would publication is also well-timed, of have been misleading, for example, in course, on the heels of a year in which such an exalted case as Bobby Jones, its author made more money, out of for cinema
photographs distinctly competitions than anybody has ever showed him to be on his toes at the done in the same period.
moment of impact, when he would, of course, preach that the left heel should be firmly on the ground,
SELF TAUGHT "Some of the world's finest golf in- struction," writes Snead, "has been
ON HER TOES? given to me, and some of what I have I have, I think, seen a picture
of learned about golf, I have taught my-even the peerless Miss Wethered, whose self by watching..great players at their, swing was as near the poetry of mo
ERFECT
PERFE
THE P
OPULAR
R
When Harry Vardon was first made a cinoma camera_slow-motion subject nothing, I remember, was more pro- nounced in that master stylist than the first flat position of his left foot at the striking instant. Ingenuity is
woll harnessed for the present-day student, and one striking example in Cotton's stage show is the luminous club-hear in the dark showing the track of the swing..`
THE INITIAL MOVEMENT.
um¶__¶¶¶⠀⠀⠀⠀
SOUTH AFRICAN TOUR OF
SCOTLAND PROPOSED ***
Johannesburg, (By Air Mail).- A report of a suggestion · made in Scotland that South Africa should send a Rugby team to tour' that country has been published here.
It states that Scotland is not satisfied with getting only four matches when a Dominions team tours there, and that South Africa, because of her close sporting rela- tions with Scotland should be in- vited to send a team..
Golf," as it la called, which costs 5s and is distributed in the British Isles by the World's Work, Ltd., Kingswood,
"Sam Snead's Quick Way to Better Surrey, differs in form from the usual
.:
PIPE
DE PAT
PERFECT CLEANING COOL & DRY SMOKE
work of this kind. It is rather bigger than the familiar type of illustrated weekly. I have taken the trouble to run a tape measure over it, and find that it is 14 inches by 10, so that il- lustrations of a good size occupy its pages: Twenty-four of these pictures, or three double pages, uro taken up in showing the full drive, with the player facing the camera, and the other twenty-three are devoted to a side view of the same stroke. The verbal
[illustration'. accompaniment to each shows a marked economy, but what is there is clearly and concisely express- *ed.
I.
Picco by ploce, as the fast "machlao- gun" camera has been stopped, a gra- phic idea is given of that all-important start-back of the club-head, that initial movement that can make or mar the swing the first sighteen inches of the club-head's Journey is potently influen tial, the cooking of the wrists, the function of the left arm, the right los axis for the back swing, the braced loft side against the hitting, and the whole position at the start of the follow through. Under Illustration 8 in the uide-view series he has this typical
is
NO CONTACT BETWEEN TOBACCO & MOISTURE notes The ball on its way, and the
DRY
Smoke
$3.50 only
COOL Smoke
club-head points after it. You can see In this picture that plenty of power has been poured into the shot by the right arm, but that it's kept in line by the straight, left" Snead hore pre- sents the idea of right-hand hitting in his own way. The book discusses irons, putter, bunker, recoveries," and
INGENOHL'S CIGAR STORES LA PERLA DEL ORIENTE" various lies in the same pictorial man-
and other tobacconists
"
nor, and in his illustrations you, nec this or that feature of the swing upon which golfers dro inclined, to faston too exclusively fused into the harmon- lous whole