George Knudsen

While the perfect, repeating golf swing seems to be more of a myth than a reality, two Canadians came very close. One was Moe Norman whose ball-striking feats are legendary.  The other was George Knudsen, a contemporary of Moe.   

Jack Nicklaus called Knudsen "the man with the million dollar swing."  And, while Moe was considered by many to be the greatest ball-striker ever, his quirky personality, which may or may not have been the result of autism, made his excursion onto the PGA tour a very brief one.  Knudsen, on the other hand fared better on tour, though never winning a Major championship.

How good was Knudsen's swing?  He once shot 67 at Glen Abbey where numerous Canadian Opens have been played.  That might not sound all that remarkable.  But he shot the 67 playing with his eyes closed.  So George Knudsen should always be in the conversation when it comes to the greatest ball-strikers of all time.  He also wrote the book, The Natural Golf Swing, which is an interesting read and teaches the "repeating swing."

One thing worth remembering is that Moe Norman and George Knudsen never won a Major.  There is a message in that.  The message is that golf is about more than just great ball-striking.  The game, at the highest level is played on that five and a half inches between your ears.

George Knudsen's Natural Golf Swing

George Knudsen was a wonderful ballstriker.  Jack Nicklaus called him, "the man with the million dollar swing."  That was when a million dollars was something--before golfers made a million dollars or more for winning one golf tournament.

Knudsen was a contemporary of another great Canadian golfer, Moe Norman.  The pair used to play together with money changing hands every time one of them hit the pin.  Lots of money changed hands on that basis, it being a toss up as to who hit the ball closest using totally different swings.  

How good was Knudsen, and how sound was his swing?  He once shot 67 at Glen Abbey where the Canadian Open has often been contested.  While that may sound good, it sounds rather more impressive when you know that he did it with his eyes closed on every shot.

In his book, The Natural Golf Swing, George Knudsen tells how he swung the club.  He was convinced that if you swung the club naturally, without any manipulation of the club with the hands, you could strike the ball on target consistently.  His performance at Glen Abbey pretty much proved it.

Knudsen believed golf was not a game of hand-eye coordination because you were hitting a stationary target in the golf ball.  Therefore, it is possible to have a swing that doesn't rely on hand-eye control.  Instead the natural golf swing relies on a proper set up and balance.  Knudsen wrote:

  

    "It's amazing how quickly you can learn if you're in balance, and how much of a one-piece motion the swing really is.  It's further proof that golf is not a hand-eye game.  The ball just sits there.  If you set up in a correct starting position and connect it to the finishing position, while using laws of motion effectively, you'll contact the ball along the way.

     This insight freed me.  It really woke me up.  I was amazed that I could make such a free swing without watching the ball.  Here was a major clue: if we set up properly and simply make a motion to a target, then we didn't have to think about the ball.  We would repeat the motion every time.  The ball would simply get in the way."

Not all that long ago, I wrote about the fact that, when things start going awry, I can find my swing again when I swing with my eyes closed.  When you swing "blind" you must swing within yourself and in balance.  Knudsen went on to write:

    "Golfers have accepted so much.  And they tend to accept that golf can't be natural.  But you shouldn't mess with Mother Nature.  Letting nature work frees us to enjoy golf.  The game can be good for us if we allow things to happen.  It's an entirely different experience from trying to make them happen.  Once we understand the mechanics of the natural swing motion, we can use the natural laws to our advantage.  Then we won't tie ourselves in knots every time we contemplate a golf shot."

So, for George Knudsen at least, there was a "natural"  repeating golf swing.  Whether that swing would transform everyone's game is debatable.  But for anyone wishing to find their "natural swing,"  perhaps they might try closing their eyes and letting the ball "get in the way."

Swinging With Your Feet

Have you tried swinging with your feet?  In his book, The Natural Golf Swing, the sweet-swinging Canadian, George Knudsen talked about controlling his swing with his feet. It may sound a bit strange, but I have tried swinging with my feet and it actually works.  If you set up correctly with a good grip, you can actually perform a full swing and hit good shots without any manipulation of the hands.  You just shift your weight using your feet and everything flows from there.

Bobby Jones referred to an Englishman who taught the same thing.  Sam Snead, in his book The Education of a Golfer also wrote about the stir he caused and how he incurred the wrath of Gene Sarazen by playing a round at Augusta National in his bare feet.  He shot 68.  This was a huge success with the press, but was highly unpopular with the golf shoe people and some Masters champions like Sarazen who thought the exhibition was not in keeping with the behaviour of a " real master."

It stirred up quite a debate, and Sam wrote:

    "While this debate went on, the barefoot experiment caused me to think more and more about the part the feet play in the full golf swing.  The hands are important because they're the only part of the body attached to the club.  But the feet are still more important, being your only connection with the ground.  Swinging within myself was one of the more difficult acts I had to discipline myself to do.  Like most other golfers, I often fought a losing battle with the urge to overpower my tee and fairway shots, and most of my over-swinging started in my upper body, in the arms, shoulders, and back muscles.  When that happened, I was no longer a 'wheel,' with my head the solid hub around which the arms operated as spokes.  My feet were unable to stay firmly planted, my sense of balance was lost, and I fell out of my swinging groove.  Wildness had to result...

     Experimenting again with shoes off, I found that I naturally cut down until I was using just the right medium of swing, or about 85 or 90 per cent of full power, without thinking twice about it.  The reason was that a man won't overswing if he doesn't have spikes gripping the turf for him.  Barefoot, your nerves are exposed to the ground.  You're able to 'feel' balance, to judge how big a turn and windup is possible without disturbing the leverage of your body.  You get that shade of restraint that counts...

     Watching the best players, I decided that footwork is the basis of hand action--rather than the other way around--and that the pivot called the shot all the way; it was the key to everything I did on the tee. Experts talked about swinging the clubhead, but they put the cart before the horse.  Although a good pivot includes hip, leg, and shoulder movement, it must start and finish with the feet.  When the pros I played against lost their driving touch, in 98 per cent of the cases the fault traced to the one place they didn't consider--their feet.  Even a veteran pro takes them for granted after a while."

So, if you're having trouble over-swinging, or with your rhythm and balance, maybe try kicking off the shoes and making some swings.  I know it was surprising to me to see how my swing changed when I swung using my feet.  I had more of a hip and shoulder turn, the club came fully to the top without any lifting of the arms, or straining, and the club whooshes to the finish under what-seems-to-be its own steam.  Apparently it's actually centrifugal force, but I'm no scientist.  When you use your feet properly, and just let everything flow, you don't interfere with "the force."

If you've looked everywhere and can't seem to find the problem, why not look to your feet.  The answer might just be in your shoes.

Five-Fifty and Henry Picard

One of the great things about golf is the willingness of golfers to help other golfers; even golfers they are competing against.  Sam Snead tells the story of being helped by Henry Picard in a way he could never repay.  It cost Sam five dollars and fifty cents.

I've been reading Sam's book, The Education of a Golfer.  So far, it's been pretty enlightening stuff about Sam's early life and his arrival on tour.  Sam was certainly a prodigious driver of the ball, able to drive over 600 yard greens in two, driving 350 yard par four greens, and out-driving pretty well everyone he came across.  He also fought a hook in his early days which was more the result of improper equipment than any problem with his technique.

Sam Snead, when he set out on tour, was five feet ten and a half inches tall and one hundred and sixty five pounds.  He was not a particularly imposing physical specimen, other than his powerful hands, wrists, and forearms, and his fantastic flexibility, rhythm and balance.  When he first arrived on the golf scene he was long, but he could hit some terrible hooks.  And, as Lee Trevino liked to say, " a hook won't listen."  Sam described his situation as follows:

    "In the first place, although I was advertised as 'The Slammer,' driving wasn't the strongest part of my golf game by a long stretch.  The pitching wedge was the club I used best.  Next came my putting, then my long irons, and after that my ability to play from traps.  Driving was the thing I did fifth best... And at times I spray-hooked balls all over the field.

     Delivering the long ball is important, but if you can't place it safe from trouble on the fairway and in the best spot to open the green for your second shot, you can't call yourself a pro or even a good amateur."

Sam's driving had got so bad by the winter of 1936 that "Boo-Boo" Bulla, who had made a deal with Sam to share their winnings to try to keep themselves from starving, decided to call off the deal.  Then something happened that likely changed golf history.  It came in the form of Henry Picard.  Sam wrote:

    "Just before the firing opened at the Griffith Park course in L.A., Henry Picard walked up and asked, 'How are you hitting, Sam?  I hear you are bending them half way to Santa Monica.'

    'I'm so wild I've decided to quit the tour and go on home.'

     Picard watched me whip out some drives and thought my feet might be the problem.  He claimed I was spinning around while in the hitting zone onto my right toe, instead of moving more laterally into the ball on the inside of my right foot.  Toning down foot action didn't help.

     'Let's look at your driver,' said Henry.

     'I'll admit it doesn't feel right,' I said, 'but it worked for me in Virginia and in Florida and I don't like to change it.'

     'This stick is too whippy for you,' said Henry.  'Do you remember the photographer who tried to catch your swing at Hershey last fall?'

     Thinking back, I remembered that Lambert Martin, one of the top cameramen of the New York World-News, had set up cameras aimed at catching all points of my swing.  Martin 'stopped' the action until we came to the point where my descending clubhead was 2 feet from the ball, and then all he got was a blur--even with the camera set at 1/1,250th of a second.  Martin said it was the first time he'd been unable to stop a whole hitting sequence.  Later they timed my clubhead speed at almost 150 mph.

    'Your hands are too fast for such a light and swingy club,' declared Henry.  'I've got an Izett driver that might be the answer for you.'

     The Izett felt like a dream the minute I took ahold of it.  The first poke took my breath away.  The ball travelled an easy 300 yards down the middle.  I waved the caddie back further and further, and even when letting out the full shaft, my driving improved about 35 per cent."

Sam asked Picard what he wanted for the driver and Henry told him to just give it a try and they would make a deal if he liked it.  Sam, of course, went on a tear with this new driver and would have given Picard "any price" for the club.  Henry charged Sam what he paid for it--five dollars and fifty cents.  Sam wrote:

    "That act of generosity by the Hershey Hurricane could never be repaid, be cause that No. 1 wood was the single greatest discovery I ever made in golf and put me on the road to happy times."

Sam used that driver for three quarters of the 110 victories he had accumulated by 1961, doing whatever he could to hold the club together.  Sam wrote: "The exact Wilson Company duplicate of the original which I use today gives results, but in the 1959 Greensboro Open, when I was sniping the ball deep right because of getting my hands too flat, or laid over, at the top of the backswing and then rushing the downswing, I brought the Picard out of retirement.  And I played seventy holes without missing a fairway."

Just imagine.  Were it not for that driver, who knows where Sam's career might have gone.  Five dollars and fifty cents, and the generosity of Henry Picard, turned Sam's game around.

Ryder Cup

We will likely be treated to some exciting golf again at this year's Ryder Cup.  Unfortunately, we are also likely to see some real partisan nonsense, disguised as patriotism.  Somehow, since the "War on the shore" at Kiawah Island, the Ryder Cup has become much more than just a "friendly" exhibition between great golfers on both sides of the pond.

Gone are the days, it seems, of true gentlemen like Jack Nicklaus, who famously conceded the putt on the last green to Tony Jacklin, telling him he wasn't going to give him the chance to miss it.  Jack was willing to settle for a half, knowing the Cup was won.  That sort of attitude may still exist among some of the players, but, particularly on the American side, there seems to exist this need to win at all cost.

If the US fail to win it becomes a time for recriminations and second-guessing, rather than a simple admission that they were out-played.  I just hope this year that there isn't a war.  It would be nice to see the players actually enjoy themselves and play some excellent golf, regardless of the outcome.  

In the attached video I noted two things.  First Calc referred to it being "disgusting" to see the Europeans celebrating their first victory on US soil.  It may have been just an unfortunate choice of words for Mark, but the fact remains that the Americans have a thing or two to learn about losing gracefully.  On the other hand, Seve Ballasteros was not the picture of grace during his Ryder Cups either, so the Americans didn't have the corner on the market when it comes to poor sportsmanship.

The other interesting bit was Calc telling about David Feherty saying to him at Kiawah, "It isn't supposed to be like this, is it?"  Feherty was, of course, absolutely right.  One can only hope that this year is closely contested in the true spirit of the game. https://plus.google.com/115012289207754648765/posts/PvNihkGTH48

Whack the Tire

Jack Nicklaus claimed in his book, Golf My Way, that he had never read an instructional article.  If so, he was definitely smarter than your average bear.  

Golf is simply tough enough without worrying about what your right knee, or hip, is doing during your swing.  Sam Snead felt that his swing was worthy of imitation because of its simplicity.  He also had great rhythm and tempo, but Sam's swing was about as natural as it was graceful and powerful.  His swing keys--and he did have them--were pretty simple as well.  Take the club back low and slow with the left hand and arm, begin the downswing with a pull of the left hand, and wallop the hell out of the back of the ball; that was his swing in a nutshell.

As far as what his hips, shoulders, knees, and feet were doing, Sam felt they just naturally moved with the left arm.  I just read the book, The Square-to-Square Golf Swing.  I'm told it was a classic, but somehow I had managed not to read it until now.  It recommends a swing dominated by the left side, particularly the left hand and arm.  The reason is, for right-handed players, the left side is generally under-employed.  Furthermore, the early application of the right hand ruins more golf shots than anything else.  Bobby Jones, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus and Moe Norman favoured a left-side dominated swing.  So do the majority of top players today.  That's because it works.

What's the best way to learn to use your left side?  Hit balls or, better yet, hit an impact bag or an old tire using your left arm.  You will feel the benefit of pulling the club with your left side, instead of pushing it with your right.  Bobby Jones said the golf swing was a back-handed shot with your left hand.  Try whacking a tire, then balls, with your left hand and you'll soon see why.  I love that old tire drill.  It's great therapy whacking that tire with your left hand, then your right, then both hands.  It also builds muscle.

And perhaps the best part is it tends to simplify your swing.  Somehow, when all you are focussed on is whacking that tire, or the ball for that matter, your swing tends to become more simple.  You tend to take the club back far enough to know you are in a position to make the strike and then you let it go.  The last time I broke seventy it was right after using the tire.  I swung all day like I was just whacking the tire.  I really need to use it more often; even if the neighbours think I'm nuts.

Nobody Likes a Quitter

My wife has finally come to terms with the fact that I probably won't quit smoking any time soon.  I've got the smoker's gene, passed down from my father.  I love a good smoke; and as for quitting, nobody likes a quitter.  I'm joking of course, but as far as golf is concerned, the saying is true. 

I've been reading Sam Snead's book, The Education of a Golfer, in which he talks about learning the importance of not quitting; not mentally mailing it in when things go awry--or when things are going really well for that matter.  Because no matter how good you are, there are plenty of times when you are so disgusted, so discouraged, you'd just like to pack it in.  Sam wrote:

    "Think back to the number of times you've followed a sequence of poor shots with good ones; the number of times this has happened should surprise you.  Now work to increase this pattern in your game.  Eliminate 'quits,' develop a 'staying' attitude, and your score will drop.

     Be aware that missed tee shots are less critical than they seem; midirons, short irons, and the putter are your scoring weapons nearly 60 percent of the time.  Usually the percentage favors your chance to save a 'lost' hole.

     Imagine that par on a hole is one more stroke than the card shows; in this frame of mind, when you've landed your opening shot or shots in trouble, you'll be better able to stay in there and bail yourself out.

     Don't fool yourself that you can form the 'what-the-hell' attitude on some holes and play even average golf; the habit will wreck your game from stem to stern.  Fight back against disaster, and the self-respect it brings is worth plenty in saved strokes thereafter.

     Far more matches and tournaments are won by dogged recoveries from trouble than by blowups when a golfer is in the lead... And don't 'quit' because you're far ahead: play your hardest when you're sitting prettiest--and stay that way." 

The interesting thing about Sam's book is the fact that the biggest and most valuable lessons he learned as a young player were mental, not mechanical.  Like any great player, Sam was blessed with loads of natural ability.  We can only dream of swinging it as smoothly and powerfully as the Slammer.  But the lesson of being dogged and determined when we play is something we all can learn.  We want to be that guy who never gives up.  After all, nobody likes a quitter; even the quitter himself.  

Never quit, because your next shot, if you really focus, might be one of the best you've ever hit.  You never know--unless of course you quit.