Julius Boros on Meeting the Ball

Julius Boros had a wonderful, easy, powerful golf swing. He wrote a very popular book in its day called Swing Easy, Hit Hard. While the book goes into quite some detail about the golf swing, I found the second chapter, like the second chapter in Bobby Jones' book Golf is my Game, Boros talks about the important part of the golf swing, namely impact. He wrote:

    "The action of the ball is the culmination of everything you have done up to the point of impact. It either goes where you meant it to or it doesn't and in either case you should know why. Controlling the action of the ball is the ultimate aim of the golfer. Don't forget, as obvious as this may sound, that the object of golf is to get the ball into the hole in as few shots as possible. This can only be done when you've learned to control the ball. There is a period of time when, if the ball is correctly hit, it momentarily adheres to the face of the club. You'll never actually see this because you'll be swinging too fast when it happens, but I'm sure most of you have seen pictures of it. The instant of impact determines everything. To use a cliche, it's the moment of truth. You should predetermine the exact flight of the ball as to direction, distance, spin and loft. A straight shot is produced by bringing the club into the ball square to the line and swinging straight forward on the line. This is your objective and it isn't as hard as it sounds."

It really is all about impact. Bobby Jones said the simple, uncomplicated way to play the game was to focus on the strike. If we set ourselves up to the ball so we are comfortable and feel capable of striking the back of the ball with the clubface square to the target and moving straight down the target line, and then we swing the club with the sole intention of doing just that, we will soon find ourselves hitting straight golf shots. As Mr. Boros said, it isn't as hard as it sounds.

What we all need is the knowledge of how the golf ball will react when struck in different ways. Then, rather than worrying about our swing, we need to just concentrate on making that strike. It really doesn't matter how we swing the club, as long as the strike is right. There are no points given in this game for style.