EDWARD RAY This plate shows the champion's tremendous finish in the drive. Ray, at the top of his stroke, gets much of his weight on his right foot, but does not advise others to do so.

I have had some wonderful photographs of this blind spot wherein it is shown most clearly that the lawn-tennis player is looking right away from his ball long before he has struck it. I think it is beyond question that this same blind spot exists in golf. I have no doubt whatever that, perfect player as he is, there is in Harry Vardon's stroke a blind spot of at least five inches. Few people who have not studied this question can realise the incredible rapidity with which the head of a golf club travels. I am well aware that there are many photographs of Harry Vardon in existence, which show him carefully studying the turf after the ball has gone on its way. I am also well aware that these photographs were taken to illustrate the fact that he does engage in turf-studying after the ball has gone on its way. I am also well aware that in actual play he does nothing of the kind, and that his beautiful, free, and natural finish is as different from the stiff and constrained photographs shown when he does not lift his head, as chalk is from cheese.

I have watched Harry Vardon many and many a time, and I am absolutely certain that in his natural play he has no thought whatever in his mind of gazing at the turf after his ball has gone away. There is nothing whatever to be gained by doing so, and there is much to be lost. Any attempt whatever to anchor the head by gazing at the turf after the ball has gone away, and then afterwards to allow it to resume its place, together with the shoulders, in the swing of the follow-through, is mere futility, and must result in absolutely spoiling the rhythm of the swing and a proper follow-through.

There is no player in the world who could be taken as a finer example than Harry Vardon, of the fact that in the golf swing and at the moment of impact there must be no restraint whatever on the movement of the shoulders and the head. They must work together with the club head and the ball. If they do not all move at the same time something is out of gear.

In the game of blindfolded golf which I have referred to, the professional player took his stance, addressed his ball, and was then blindfolded with a handkerchief, an operation which naturally took some considerable time, but even as it was, he played some astonishingly good shots even when his whole swing was blindfolded. He should have had a pair of spectacles lined with cotton wadding or some similar material and fastened with an elastic band, which could have been lifted up whilst he was taking his address and closed down the moment he was ready to make his stroke. This would have given him a better chance to demonstrate what he desired to, which, as I have already said, was in itself practically sound.

I have spoken of Harry Vardon's blind spot, and I have said that it is a matter of five inches. As a matter of fact it may quite well often be double that; but it seems to me perfectly plain that nothing whatever that Vardon can do when his club is within a foot of the ball, so long as he keeps his head steady or still, is likely to alter the path of the club head - I am speaking now, of course, of any normal golf stroke. This consideration of the matter brings us back to the statement which I have made time and time again, and in which I am supported by James Braid, that once the golf stroke is commenced, the fact of it connecting with the ball is merely an incident in the path of the club head; and that after the club head has proceeded a certain distance on the way to the ball it is beyond the power of the player to alter the character of that stroke, for his force has been irretrievably directed, in so far as regards that particular stroke, in a particular manner.

Speaking of the position of the head in driving, Taylor says:

The head is maintained in exactly the same position as the arms are brought down again, and so it remains until the ball has been swept from the tee. The arms and body for all practical purposes go through the same action, but in the reverse way as in the upward swing, the body being held in a similar position, but with the head turned and eyes looking over the right shoulder at the finish of the stroke.

During the progress of this downward movement the weight of the body is again transferred, passing from the right leg to the left, until when the finish arrives the whole of the weight has been placed upon the left foot, while the right has assumed the position previously held by its neighbour.

We see here in a very marked degree the fallacy of the distribution of the weight so that at the top of the swing the greater portion of it is on the right leg; for Taylor, although he tells us that "the head is maintained in exactly the same position," says that " during the progress of this downward movement the weight of the body is again transferred, passing from the right leg to the left."

It is a very natural question for us to ask, "How-can all this shifting of the body be going on if the head is to be kept perfectly still?" As a matter of fact it is a physical impossibility; and it is also obvious that it would be impossible to keep the head still, rigidly fixed, as we are told it should be, at the moment of impact, and yet to get a true follow-through.

Let us read a little farther on, and we see that Taylor says: "If the ball has been struck there must be no semblance of checking or snatching at the club. The player must not check himself or allow premonitory symptoms of a check to make themselves felt even in the slightest degree. He must allow the club head to follow the line of flight of the ball as straight and as far as is possible." It stands to reason that if one's head remains fixed for an instant after the impact of the club with the ball, that instant the club head must feel the tendency to be drawn out of the straight line to the hole, and the follow-through down the line to the hole, which is so properly insisted on by all great golfers, is ruined.