Some timeless concepts here from Vardon over 100 years ago.
Very interesting. Thanks for posting this. The accompanying editorial “Vardon and His Ideas” also has a few interesting quotations:
“The men who describe an arc, which is commonly called a full swing, are the men who hold their clubs loose in the palm of their hands and allow it to drop out of the palm into the hollow of the thumb when at the top of the swing. This is an impossibility when the club is held as Vardon holds it, perfectly tight with both hands; in such case you cannot get your club below the level of a line which is parallel with the ground.”
“Vardon gets distance by the tremendous rapidity with which he makes the club travel through the air in the last few feet before the lead reaches the ball, and this he does with his wrists only, which are exceptionally strong. He regularly snaps them, the same as a man does when he plays racquets, and it is this snap of the wrists which enables him to get the tremendous brassey shots for which he is famous.”
There is an eloquent quote at the bottom of the first page about playing a bump and run. By keeping the ball on the ground you only have to feel how hard to hit it… but if you loft the ball… you have to calculate both the distance you are going to fly the ball AND how it is going to roll out from there. Very nice description.