Accuracy Not Distance

Achieving Greater Accuracy In Golf

The two great faults of the majority of players are "hitting the ball too soon" and "looking up too soon." The majority of professional golfers will tell you this. Now looking up is inevitable, and I always do it to see where my golf ball goes, but as I have not made my effort too soon I have applied the limit of my power to the stroke before I have any desire to look up. Those players who apply the power too soon cannot help looking up too soon.

When you stop to consider the difference between the good players and poor players you will quickly see that it is more in accuracy than in power. A well-made stroke conveys the idea of great power, and immediately the inexperienced makes a more violent effort to duplicate the distance of the good golf player.

I do not hesitate to say that the vast majority of golfers expend more energy than they can control accurately. I know from experience that I have never yet taken out a friend to initiate into this game that he did not use twice as much energy as I did, and yet I always use the limit to which I can go and control it.

Yet in spite of this statement, when I direct the player's attention to the fact that he is using more power than it is possible to control, he keeps on, making the same violent effort. I have seen players blister their hands badly on their first try at golf, and that generally means that the lesson is so painful that it is driven home, and the next time they go out they take it more easily.

I am not hitting at the ball as hard to-day as I did on my first attempt to play. The increase in distance comes from increase in accuracy. My constant effort in studying the game is to find how much easier I can get the same distance and how much more I can control my direction. I never am bothered and no one will ever be bothered in not applying enough power. How, then, can I drive this home in a practical manner to the player?

It would seem as though a business man should understand figures, and I make the statement that about one per cent of golf shots are accurate, or approximately so. Yet players are continually striving to add distance which reduces the chance of improving that one per cent.