Tommy Armour -- How To Play Your Best Golf All The Time
 

Tommy Armour was one of his era's finest golfers, winning the U.S. Open, the British Open, the PGA and a host of cash-prize tournaments. Pretty good for anybody, but particularly good for a guy who had been severely wounded and blinded in one eye in a World War I mustard gas attack.

He was also one of golf's most successful -- and expensive! -- instructors. He taught students whose skills ranged across the board from duffer to champion. They included the rich and famous and winners of national championships, both amateur and professional. Over time, his reputation as a teacher grew greater than his reputation as a player. To put it mildly...

The guy knew what he was talking about.

In 1953, he applied his brilliant mind to a little book he called How To Play Your Best Golf All The Time. He insisted that it be simple in narrative and illustrated only with a few line drawings (instead of the dozens of photographic sequences that had become de rigueur for golf texts of the day. The line drawings were limited to those Stroke alignments he deemed mission-critical. The book was an instant success, and it subsequently has been reprinted numerous times over the past five decades. In my next piece, I will discuss -- and illustrate from the book -- Tommy's grasp of the importance of the Head as the Pivot Center. And also, his thoughts on the geometry of the Stroke, the Flat Left Wrist and Clubhead Lag Pressure. There is much to learn.

The book has a special meaning for me, not only because of its content, but because I got an autographed copy at age 15. But the autograph is not that of Tommy Armour. No, it is much better than that...

A treasure for sure!


Hours? I think decades over came hours, decades ago.

Just dusted my copy,which was next to Percy Boomer's On Learning Golf. I will review and look forward to your discussion.

DRW

Prelude To A Classic Discussion
 

That's a good idea, DRW, and I encourage others who own the book to do the same thing. And those who don't own this classic?

Buy it!

Amazon has used hardcovers going for as low as $2.98. That, my friends, is truly one of the great bargains in golf. http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listi...e=UTF8&s=books

This is going to be a great thread, and HTPYBGATT is the required text!

Driver upswing graphic
 

Eager to see. Just brought it though amazon. But by "Inside the book" on page 26, backward leaning handle, catch on the upswing?

Hold Your Horses!
 

That is one of the many graphics I'll be posting. Armour believed in hitting the driver on the upswing -- that drawing went a bit overboard to make his point -- and everything else on the downswing. His address with the driver was also decidely different than with the other clubs.

Let me get all these graphics up tomorrow -- I've already got them scanned in -- and we'll talk about it. Like I said above, we're going to have a great time with this one!

P.S. I've got a full day on the Lesson Tee tomorrow, so don't expect anything up until the evening. See you then!

Tommy Armour was wrong about hitting the driver on the upswing, but chapter 7 "How to Get Ready To Swing" has some great info.

I must have read your mind Yoda... I've got the book, and have read it long ago, but just yesterday, under flashlight, and having been offline for a while due to the power of 'Ernesto' taking Williamsburg back to the days of the early settlers, I pulled it off my shelf and began reading it again.

I immediatly noted his mentioning of PP#3 when discussing the grip and recall a post shortly after your Pine Needles class when Peggy Kirk Bell exclaimed "That's what Tommy told me".... Tommy Armour.

Tommy Armour On Hold
 

I had hoped to be deep into the Tommy Armour thread by this point, but the images I have scanned are on my office computer (which is not exactly 'next door'). Fortunately, my teaching schedule has been non-stop -- :) -- but, unfortunately, it has not permitted me to make that trip. And I don't really see that easing for the next week or so. Unless I go in at night, it'll be tough to get to those files. But if I can, I will. Promise. :)

Interestingly, my student the past two days, Bob Crissy, a former PGA TOUR player and now a teaching professional in Boca Raton, Florida, trained for four years with Tommy at Del-Ray Beach Country Club during the last years of his life. We had a great time today at lunch with Bob reminiscing about those days. Really terrific stuff about how Tommy actually taught, some of which I will share as the thread develops.

Yoda,

I love this book, and got it after John Redman had talked about the influence Armour had on his teachings.

Would you say Armour was a proponent of right arm take away or was he, like others of his time, more inclined to let the left arm guide the club back?

He also believed in turning the hips freely (Snead, Singh) as opposed to inhibiting the hip turn (Hogan, x-factor)This free hip turn is not taught as often these days.

He was most know for his "whack the hell out of the ball with your right hand" advise, but I think his concern with proper foot work (driving the right knee at the ball ala Hogan) and keeping a steady head is certainly timeless advise.

This is a classic, and even though Im a TGM newbie I would think there had to be some things Homer saw in Armour that made its way into the machine book.

The Tommy Armour Backstroke
 

Tommy Armour didn't make a big deal of 'how' you got the Club back. He didn't care if you had a "One-Piece" Takeaway or if you "dragged" the Clubhead back or if you broke it up sharply. He felt that the Grip, Footwork and Steady Head were done correctly, everything else would take care of itself.

He advocated a Left Hand Control of the Clubhead and Clubface and a Right Hand control of Clubhead Acceleration. To give the Left Hand the necessary authority, he advocated about twice as much Grip Pressuer in the Left Hand than in the Right.

So, considering all the above, my guess is that he allowed his students to take the Club back pretty much any way they wanted...as long as their Footwork was as he prescribed -- Knee Action motivating the Pivot and its Hip and Shoulder Turns -- and that the Left Hand was in control.

His views were completely consistent with TGM, and I will draw those parallels in a later post.

Thanks for your reply Yoda.... I sent you a PM about a swamp visit.

Words to Score by......
 

Play the shot you've got the best chance of playing well, and

Play the shot that makes the next shot easy.

HTPYBGATT, page 14.

few quotes to get this back on track...
 

:read: Just a few quotes with my interpretation based on TGM from the book – an aid to discussion…

GRIP

“ The left thumb is placed down the right side of the grip”

ie. left thumb is “AFT” and in a position to support impact / resist deceleration. Strong single action style grip.

“when fingers of left hand are closed properly to the grip, these are the firm points of pressure you feel” figure demonstrates last three fingers of the left hand.

“hold the club firmly with the last three fingers of the left hand ( as I told you in the chapter on the grip), let the left arm and hand act as a guide…”

Ie. pp2

“ your left guides the club and keeps the face in the desired position….”

STANCE and POSTURE

“The cardinal principle of all golf shot-making is that if you move your head, you ruin body action”

“The steady head assuresyou the balance you must have to allow your body to move properly”

Ie. Stationary head

“Your head is the apex of the triangle of your stance”

“Get the feet and your head properly set at address and keep them in the same relative position throughout the swing, and you’ve got to the core of good golf”

Ie. Pivot centred tripod

IMPACT

“to hit a good iron shot, your club must contact the ball before the sole of the club gets to the bottom of it arc”

“Don’t scoop…hit down and through…”

Ie. Hit it before lowpoint with a descending blow.

“hands are ahead of the ball” at impact

“the more you can get the hands ahead of the clubface in the downswing, the more power you can apply with the right hand”

“If you’ll pause to consider, you will realize that if your hands are behind the ball at impact, you can only scoop the ball up. But if your hands are in front, you’ve got to smash the ball with lightening speed”

All the stuff about right handed smashing the ball makes it sound like a very deliberate active muscle motion (accumulator 1) but he also states

“the late uncocking of the wrists, or the delayed hit, as you may hear the effect called, instinctively causes a decided acceleration of right hand action at the most effective period.
You don’t have to think about the right hand not coming along in time to whip the ball terrifically: it will get there spontaneously”

This puts the right hand smashing stuff in a different context. It is actually a result if natural throw-out action no active muscle power – thus still swinging - ? all 4 barrels??

right knee emphasis?
 

Lynn:

I bought and read this brief golf instruction manual. Much like Percy Boomer's work, there is much here that seems to form the basis for subsequent instruction. It is fascinating to find explanations and phraseology in these older works that have been repeated over the years. One realizes these guys had it right long ago, most likely in no small part because their equipment was much less forgiving, at least compared to what golfers like myself, new to the game in the past 10 years, have experienced.

One item I found interesting is the emphasis on RIGHT KNEE action in the downswing compared to other downswing actions such as weight shift, hip action, the Sam Snead "squat" etc.

Any comments on this particular emphasis? And I would love to see those other parallels drawn--the hand action parallels are obvious, but how do you see this right knee emphasis in relation to TGM?

Parallels
 

Looking forward to those parallels.

Tommy Armour's Golf Swing
 

Thanks for posting this Stroke Sequence, Strav. I had not seen it and find it a superb look at one of the greats of the Game. :)

Another collectible...
 

I just dusted off one of my dad's books..."Six Days to Better Golf" by Harry Obitz and Dick Farley.

Apparently these guys have had some TGM influence through Rick McCord - the content does show some evidence of that.