Boomer

Some time ago I read Percy Boomer's 'On Learning Golf' (first published in 1946) and was mightily impressed. Boomer taught in the first half of the twentieth century in France and England. He was not a champion golfer himself, although he did win professional tournaments, but his brother Aubrey was an excellent player and featured in major tournaments without actually grabbing one

Since I read On Learning Golf, I've read dozens of other golf instruction books and articles and come up with a method of playing golf - a golf swing - that feels pretty good. However, I recently re-read Boomer and realised just how switched on that gentleman was, particularly for that era of golf.

Boomer (PB) must have been a reasonably arrogant sort of chap, judging by the way he writes (extremely well, by the way) and the stories he tells. I can only conclude that he had that touch of arrogance because he knew he knew more than most and knew he was right in what he was saying.

PB covered a lot of fairly esoteric and difficult concepts in his book; some not even well understood today, for example, 'the force centre', but he also spoke about things that are now widely accepted principles in golf instruction, for example, muscle memory, which he called 'muscular memory'.

Here is a short selection of the issues PB covered, but bear in mind that this is far from a complete list.

He emphasised the set up, the 'brace' as he called it, and spoke about form rather than style. He also emphasised 'feel' rather than mechanics, but suggested, somewhat paradoxically, that the natural golfer was rarely a good or consistent golfer, and that the set up, grip and other fundamentals are the key to consistency.

Boomer was an advocate of the 'swing' rather than the 'hit'. This has been argued about quite a bit in older and more recent times. His point was that the hit impulse tends to make a golfer stop or decelerate at the ball rather than accelerate through the ball (and let it get in the way) so that maximum clubhead speed is achieved just after impact. He was an advocate of the 3/4 or shorter swing for this reason. This and similar ideas are supposedly 'modern' concepts covered in recent books like 'The Impact Zone', but PB was ahead of his time.

PB said that the hips were crucial in the control of the swing and described the correct action for the right hip (for right handers). However, he said the source of power is actually in the feet. legs and thighs and that the arms should be powerless, while the wrists must remain as flexible as possible for the 'flail' (the old 'swing the clubhead' idea). The powerless arms concept is, of course, something that has been revisited very recently in the very successful teachings of people like Paul Wilson (Swing Machine Golf) and Shawn Clement.

To sum up, PB knew a lot about the way people tried to play golf and why they often failed to live up to their potential. I get the impression that he was a bit impatient with some of his students, but also very pleased with his successes. PB did not live very long after 'On Learning Golf' was published. But I wish he was around today; I'd pay good money for a lesson from that master.