Before we tackle some of the really vital things in golf, it is just as well to become familiar with those parts of the game that do not matter tremendously. Most beginners at golf are lacking in a sense of proportion; they fail to see the difference between the important and unimportant movements in the game and it often takes some time for them to develop this. They make much faster progress just as soon as they do and then devote their entire attention to the vital things.

The other day I spoke of the essentials and non-essentials of golf in relation to the golf grip. Although I recommended the natural grip, I said that there were several others from which a man could take his pick and still play very fair golf. There's no arduous training required in learning a grip; you simply pick out the particular one you want and then dismiss it as an accomplished fact.

Now comes the stance - the position of your feet at the moment when you are ready to drive the ball. Volumes have been written about the stance. Different and devious are the ways which are recommended. The beginner is told to stand now one way, now another, if he expects to connect with the ball. If the truth of the matter be known, the stance is in the same class with the grip; it is a non-essential. You'll play good golf whatever the position of your feet, so long as your particular style isn't too extreme.

Strange words. The interviewer like most of his golfing kind had always looked upon the stance as a thing of vital importance.

Like the grip, the stance is a good deal the slave of fashion. A good player starts something different and the whole world follows suit. This sort of thing is rather hard on beginners for they usually copy the particular non-essential that happens to be in vogue at the time, under the impression that it is the only possible grip or stance allowed by the rules of the game. Follow the dictates of fashion for the stance covering a number of years and your right foot will slowly but surely describe an arc that doesn't fall so very short of being a semicircle. One year it's the square stance; that is, so that the line of the toes is parallel with the flight of the ball (Fig. 20). Again it may be the open stance; in this case, the right foot is advanced slightly before the left (Fig. 21). Another time it is the closed stance; the right foot is drawn back from the square stance line. You can play good golf in any of these three positions or their variations.

"Isn't there a best way?"

The square stance is in many respects the most natural way. I'll give you my reasons for saying this. To get away from golf for a moment, suppose that you were to make a pendulum out of a piece of string and a key. Then you were to hold the string in your right hand and swing the key over a certain spot in the carpet. I think that if you were to examine the position of your feet you would find them parallel to the swing of the pendulum. Applying this example to golf, the spot in the carpet becomes the ball, and the key at the bottom of the string, the head of the golf club. The club head is to all intents a swinging pendulum.

Fig. 20

The square stance. The line of the toes is parallel with the flight of the ball

In the case of the open versus the square stance, consider the baseball player. When the batter wishes to get an extra long ball he does not put his right foot forward. Then why should the golfer? In doing so there is a tendency to interfere with pivoting. Then too, one is liable to slice with the open stance. Slicing is a modern disease and dates from the introduction of this stance. The natural tendency when driving is to swing the club parallel to the feet. When you are standing at an angle other than a right angle to the line of flight a slice or pull often results.

The square stance is a position of parallel lines and right angles. This is just the way and parallel lines. We row a boat, drive a motor car, or ride a horse at right angles. We live in right-angled houses and walk down parallel and right-angled streets. Just look at that picture hanging there on the wall. It is a series of right angles and here we are admiring it from a parallel line.

We naturally see and do most things in life. We think continually in terms of right angles

Fig. 21

The open stance. In this case the right foot is advanced slightly before the left

But I'm making no fast rule about this concerning the golf stance. In fact this is the very thing I'm trying to overcome. All people are not alike physically. A man may feel more at home using the open stance than the square. Then why on earth force something that is unnatural to him down his throat? Yet it is often done. When a beginner at golf comes to me I usually ask him to try out the square stance because it is generally the natural way. But if it feels unnatural to him, I let him change to whatever position suits him best. He himself is the only one who can solve that problem.

"Doesn't a man shift his stance more or less for different kinds of shots?"

Very often. Even when a man is a strong adherent to the square or any other stance he seldom lives up to it consistently in a round of golf. Here his right foot is square, again it is advanced. He isn't giving any thought to the position of his feet; he is moving them to a certain position instinctively. That is just as it should be. Throw set rules regarding the stance to the winds and be natural.