Book review: 'Boomer's point that golf is a game of feel rather than mechanics makes his message understandable to all'

Published on Saturday 20 June 2009 19:37

ON LEARNING GOLF Percy Boomer Souvenir Press £15 ****

MY GOODNESS, there are a lot of golf instruction books out there. Hundreds of them, all purporting to contain the secret to the most over-analysed move in all of sports and so, by extension, everlasting happiness on the links. Aye right.

Unfortunately, however, not too many of the colourful volumes spilling from the bookshelves are worth even a second glance, never mind an initial browse. But, fear not, despite the assertion of Bob Toski – for the last half-century one of America's leading instructors – that "golf cannot be learned from the pages of a book," there is no doubt that, supplemented by hands-on instruction from a competent coach (another endangered species), real help is available through the written word.

Which brings us to Percy Boomer and this classic instructional tome. Written as long ago as 1946, Boomer's point is that golf is a game of feel rather than mechanics, a conclusion that instantly makes his message understandable to all, not just anorak-wearing swing geeks. So, rather than positions and planes, Boomer talks of the "fundamental sensations" of the swing, those that are universal in nature, no matter how good – or bad – a player you may be. "My first endeavour is to teach the pupil the whole swing, or better, the swing as a whole," he says. "I do not believe in trying to impart the swing in stages or by sections."

In truth, this book is a blessed relief from much of modern-day instruction and its often-unhealthy and confusing reliance on gimmickry and video. Boomer is no fan of the many supposed aphorisms that only distract a pupil from the correct path to improvement.

"Avoid falling victim to those catch-phrases with which golfing talk and golfing writing are so liberally peppered," he cautions. "The slogan is the enemy of thought.

Take 'putting is a game within a game.' Putting is not a game within a game; it is the game. If anyone who has a proper conception of the golf swing will apply the same conception to the putt, his putting will improve in consequence."

Great stuff. Re-printed as many as 64 times in the United States, it is something of a mystery that "On Learning Golf" has not been published in this country since the 1940s. Amongst Boomer's more famous pupils were six-time Open champion Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, who only lifted the Claret Jug once, the chopper. So it isn't as if the "learn by feel" mantra didn't have some concrete affirmation.

Perhaps the most relevant and important feeling Boomer attempts to impart through his written words is that of "in-to-out." Were every golfer to "get" such a sensation and be able to repeat it consistently, golf's most common disease, the slice, would go the way of smallpox and polio in being all but eliminated from the western world. Not a bad legacy.