Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 18, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 January 1915 — MAKING LONG GOLF DRIVES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MAKING LONG GOLF DRIVES

Driving of Gladys Ravenscroft, English Champion, Matter of Wide Comment in America. Woman golfers usually are not long drivers and many a time attempts have been made to explain why it is so. Generally it is attributed to lack of strength in the wrists, and it is allowed to go at that. Those who have delved into the technique of golf understood that the reason why a person can get a long drive is because he has learned how to control his club so that at the moment of impact with the ball the clubhead is traveling at all the speed the golfer can co.mmand. On the speed of the clubhead, therefore, rests the secret of a long drive, provided, of course, the other essentials of the swing have not been overlooked. To produce this result it is neeessary to have strong forearms and wrists. This probably explains why persons of slight physique, but aUthe same time having strength from the elbows to the tips of the fihgers, can get distance. It is not the build of an or-

diqary woman to have powerful forearms and wrists, but where such is the case invariably they are long drivers. As illustrations, take Miss Lillian B. Hyde, the metropolitan champion; Miss Marlon Holmes, former title folder, and Miss Gladys Ravenscroft erstwhile title holder for both . Great Britain and the United States. When Miss Ravenscroft was in America her driving was a matter for wide comment, and a glance at her wrists when she addressed the ball revealed the fact that she was able to make the clubhead travel so fast at the moment of impact that the ball had to go. _ How fast a clubhead travels may be imagined when cameras adjusted to take a picture at one-thousandth of a second cannot record without a show of the club at the monaisht dt impact or the ball within a fraction of a second after it has been struck.

Miss Gladys Ravenscroft, Title Holder for Both England and the United States.