50 Years of Golfing Wisdom

Bernard Gallacher

‘The two biggest influences are my dad and John Jacobs. I like the way John talks about the swing path all the time. The way he makes everything very simple and straightforward – that’s the way I like to teach.’

Butch Harmon

‘John’s achievements are endless as a player, teacher, writer, communicator, golf course designer, and executive director of the men’s European Tour. I can think of no better host, or better companion.’

Mickey Walker

John Jacobs isn’t just a great teacher, though. He could play a bit himself and was, at times, good enough to beat the best. He competed in the Ryder Cup and won tournaments, including the Dutch Open in 1957 and a memorable victory over Grand Slam winner Gary Player, in the final of the South African Matchplay Championship.

John had an equally significant influence on the administration of the game, having been instrumental in setting up what is now the European Tour. Indeed, John sees this as perhaps his greatest achievement, a view endorsed by Mark McCormack in his World of Professional Golf Annual in 1973. McCormack wrote of the haphazard affair that constituted the British Pro golf scene and the plan devised by John Jacobs to overcome the crisis situation.

‘The Jacobs plan worked. The crowds did come back. Public interest was reawakened. And the ultimate proof that golf was back in favour was that both the BBC and the independent companies returned coverage of PGA tournaments to their schedules. The outlook for pro golf, which had seemed so desolate twelve months previously, had taken a decided turn for the better. The mood among the players was buoyant. Golf had begun to believe in itself again. I for one do not doubt that 1972 was a year of high significance. It might be no more than slight exaggeration to say that these twelve months saw British golf progress by a quarter of a century. And that is quite a trick.’

John has also authored numerous bestselling books on how to play the game, many of which are still considered benchmark manuals, revered and studied decades after they first went into print. For the record, these include:

Golf, first published in 1963, with a foreword by Laddie Lucas. This was made up of a collection of articles which first appeared in the pages of Golfing magazine during the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Play Better Golf, published in 1969, based on the manuscripts from the hugely popular Yorkshire TV series of the same name. John made a series of thirteen 30-minute programmes, followed by two further series, during which time the director suggested he write a book to go with it. It went on to sell well over half-a-million copies.

Practical Golf, first published in 1972 with a foreword by Tony Jacklin, went on to become a bestseller. John considers it ‘the most important book I wrote.’ It contained many articles from the first ten years of Golf World and was compiled by that magazine’s editor Ken Bowden, who later went on to edit Golf Digest in the US and write much of Jack Nicklaus’ published work.

John Jacobs Analyses Golf’s Superstars, published in 1974, in collaboration with Ken Bowden. This was perhaps the first book of its type, focusing as it did on the swings of the leading players of the day, with analysis from John and words of wisdom to help the average golfer learn from the greats.

Golf Doctor was first published in 1979 and entitled Curing Faults for Weekend Golfers in the US editions (a title which incidentally killed it from a sales perspective, because people thought it was simply a band-aid), with a foreword by Jack Nicklaus and co-written with Dick Aultman. John says he wrote this as much for the pro to teach, as for the pupils. However it is interpreted, there is no doubt that a quarter of a century after it first went into print, it remains golf’s ultimate ‘self help’ manual.

The Golf Swing Simplified, first published in 1993 and again co-written by Ken Bowden, was a wonderfully succinct study of the golf swing, devoted to its most critical component: the action required to strike the ball most effectively from the tee and then on to the green.

Golf in a Nutshell, first published in 1995, was written with the legendary golf journalist Peter Dobereiner. This project came about when Dobereiner wrote an article in Golf Digest magazine praising the talents of John Jacobs and highlighting the merits of Practical Golf, the bestselling golf book of all time until Harvey Penick’s Little Red Book. John suggested to Peter that they write their own little red book … and this was it.

The 50 Greatest Golf Lessons of the 20th Century is John’s most recent book, published in 1999, which I had the pleasure of collaborating on. Rather in the style of John’s earlier book on golf’s superstars, this work featured a biography on the great golfers of the 20th century with insightful analysis from John on the way they played the game and how we mere mortals can benefit.

This is an appropriate moment to go right back to the start, though, to John’s first ever instruction book, Golf, for it was in the foreword that John’s good friend and former Walker Cup captain Laddie Lucas wrote: ‘John teaches the skilled and the average, the illustrious and the humble, with a success which has earned him, deservedly, the pseudonym ‘Dr Golf’. I have a feeling that this substantial treatise is only the forerunner of what may flow from this fertile mind.’ How prophetic that statement proved to be.

Now for the first time ever, the collective works of John’s books, as listed above, are brought together in this one volume – 50 Years of Golfing Wisdom. It’s the best of the best, in every sense. It represents an unmissable opportunity for golfers of all abilities to benefit from one of the keenest, wisest, most knowledgeable minds in golf.

50 Years of Golfing Wisdom includes all of the lessons and advice that made John the original, and many say still the ultimate, golfing guru. Where appropriate, we’ve even included contemporary drawings from the relevant book. Every department of the game receives the Jacobs treatment – in other words, simple, easy to understand, effective advice on how to maximize your potential and play your best golf. From the fundamentals, to problem solving, and curing your bad shots, to instruction on hitting every shot from the longest drive to the most testing putt, and everything in between. There are also studies of some of the great players in history and what you can learn from them.

50 Years of Golfing Wisdom is so comprehensive, so packed full of good advice, it may just be the only instruction book you’ll ever need. As Tony Jacklin said in the foreword to Practical Golf, ‘Putting golf technique down on paper is extremely difficult. I think Jacobs does it superbly. This book is a wonderful distillation of an exceptional man’s knowledge, and I don’t see how it can fail to help any golfer play better.’ My sentiments exactly.

Steve Newell

A Lifetime’s Philosophy (#ulink_737d998a-3e08-5107-b5b5-83c7b7154a03)* (#litres_trial_promo)

Golf is what the ball does, which is totally dependent upon what the club is doing at impact. The variants at impact are:

The clubface: which can be open, closed or square (strong or weak).

The swing path: which can be in-to-out, out-to-in, or straight.

The angle of attack: which can be too steep, too shallow, or correct for the individual club.

The clubhead speed: to suit the shot in hand.

These dimensions, the clubface, swing path, and angle of attack, all of which determine the flight of the ball, are very influenced by the set-up at address.

The grip has a direct bearing on clubface control at impact.

The clubface aim and body alignment has a direct bearing on the swing path at impact.

The body posture at address has a direct bearing on the degree of shoulder tilt during the body turn, affecting the swing plane and therefore the angle of attack at impact. This does not mean that everyone will set up to the ball in exactly the same way. As teachers, prescribing the correct set-up for the individual is our greatest teaching tool.

Turning to the swing itself, which is conditioned by the position of the ball relative to the player, which is to the side and on the ground. The fact that it is to the side requires the club to swing through the ball from the inside back to the inside with the swing path on line at impact, with the clubface square to that line. The correct body action facilitates this arc of swing.

Since the ball is on the ground, at the same time as the body turns, the hands and arms swing the club up, down and up again in unison with the body action.

The above, I believe, is applicable to every player, allowing for individual variations.

The shape of a golf lesson would normally take the form of: diagnosis, explanation accompanied by demonstration and finally, correction. The pupil is best viewed down the line to facilitate this approach. The set-up to the target can be observed and the subsequent swing path through the ball can be clearly seen. The flight of the ball relative to the swing path will give a valid indication of the clubface at impact. This is not to say the side view for players of all levels is on occasion very appropriate.

It is vital that the correct diagnosis is made and that the explanation and accompanying demonstration be fully understood by the pupil in order to encourage the necessary perseverance since any correction is likely to be, initially, uncomfortable.

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_f5d995da-b3fa-568b-80f2-bb2a9c401ab7)

Understanding Golf’s Fundamentals (#ulink_f5d995da-b3fa-568b-80f2-bb2a9c401ab7)

On reading golf

One reason, I have always thought, why golf can become such a difficult game is simply because there are so many different ways of playing it correctly; and that one secret, for any golfer striving to improve, is to decide first which is his or her own correct way. It is my sincere hope that this book will help any reader to do just that.

The correct way, I’m firmly convinced, is invariably the simplest. What may prove simple to one, though, may not necessarily be simple to another. One of the difficulties in studying golf in books lies in learning to select from other people’s experiences, ideas and theories, and adapt them to your own personal needs. I think I have found truth in almost every book or article I have read on golf! Yet, in spite of that fact, there is often one thing or another in any particular book which, read by the wrong person, could cause a real setback in his or her game.

As an illustration of this I remember two ladies, both good performers around 8-handicap, who arrived for tuition. Both were accustomed to playing together. One lady hooked her shots, the other sliced. Here were two ladies with faults that I must tell each other to copy! I wanted each to try to do precisely what was wrong in the other! In other words, my instruction was of a completely contradictory nature.

It had to go even further than that, though. Needing contrasting advice, it followed that since they were both avid readers on golf, they also needed different advice on what to read. I told Lady No.1 with her too-flat swing and hook, to read Byron Nelson’s book, because he was an upright swinger; and Lady No.2, with her too-upright swing and slice, to read Ben Hogan’s, because he was a rounded swinger. This was 50 years ago, of course. Today, I might replace these two role models with, say, Colin Montgomerie (upright) and Ian Woosnam (rounded).

The point I’m trying to make is that it is as well to appreciate what we are doing wrong before we seek remedies by reading, from no matter how impeccable a source. The golfing public has been saturated with golf books, most of which have been very good, in many ways. I feel, however, that the titles have been wrong. Most of them should have been called How I Play Golf – and how the writer of each book plays golf may not be the easiest way to teach each of his readers.

I sincerely hope that this book will make it easier for you to decide which is your own best way of playing. As with every lesson I’ve given, I hope to teach people not just to hit the ball better but to understand why they’re hitting it better.

Swing, or move from position to position?

Should you really swing the club? Or should you merely move through a series of contrived postures, a pattern of carefully thought-out conscious movements, a set of deliberate muscle contortions? The question may seem silly but it is of prime importance, especially if you are new to the game or have never achieved the golfing prowess of which you feel yourself potentially capable.

A Rolls Royce without an engine might look impressive, but it’s never going to get out of the garage. In exactly the same way, a golf swing without an engine, however beautifully contoured each part might be, is never going to move the ball very far out of your shadow. To do that, your swing, whatever else it lacks, must have power, motivation. It must be a swing. In the simplest of golfing terms, you must ‘hit the ball’.

Am I stating the obvious? I think not. Most of the great golfers up to the early 1960s learned the game as caddies. They watched the people they carried for and tried to copy those who played well. They were copying an action, a fluid movement. It would never have occurred to them, even if they had known how, to break the swing down into parts and study it segment by segment in static form. Golf was action, and was learned as such.