Stance and Posture (2)

Turn now to the arms. During the swing, one of the two arms is always straight-that is, fully extended. There’s a very good reason for this. In order for the club to travel its maximum arc, one arm must be extended at all times. If a player breaks his left elbow on the backswing or breaks his right elbow on the follow-through, he shortens his arc appreciably. And if he swings with a shorter arc, he gives himself a shorter distance in which he can accelerate the speed with which his club is traveling. (The greater the speed of the club, of course, the greater the distance he will hit the ball.) It’s like accelerating an automobile. If you accelerate an automobile over a distance of, say, two blocks, can you get it up to anywhere like the speed you’d obtain if you accelerated it for a distance of five blocks? Moreover, if one of the player’s two arms is always extended, his arc will be uniform. This gives him a far better chance of building a repeating swing than a player who bends his arms a little differently on each swing and whose coordination is bound to vary as his arc varies.

在挥杆过程中，两只手臂中的一只总是充分保持伸展。为了让杆以最大的弧度挥动，两只手臂中的一只必须保持伸展，这非常必要。如果球手上杆时屈了左肘，或者送杆时屈了右肘，这样他就缩短了他的挥杆弧度，也就是缩短了杆头通过的距离，杆头通过的距离是他获得杆头速度的保证，如果不能以最大的弧度挥杆，那么他的杆头加速程度必然受到影响，而杆头速度是影响击球距离的重要原因。车辆加速也是同样的道理，两个街区获得的加速度肯定比五个街区获得的加速度要低。如果球手的两只手臂中的其中一只总是保持伸展，那么他的挥杆弧度总能保持一致，这样他就能建立起一个能重复的挥杆，与之相反，手臂在上杆下杆过程不能保持伸直的球手，他的挥杆弧度总有小小的变化，因而他的挥杆总是不稳定。

The left arm, straight at address, remains straight throughout the backswing while the right folds in at the elbow. On the downswing, the left continues to be fully extended and the right gradually straightens out. A foot or so past the ball, the point in the swing when the clubhead is traveling at its peak speed, both arms are full extended for the one and only time during the swing. After this point is reached, the left arm folds in at the elbow and the right remains straight to the end of the follow-through. (This is sort of the reverse of the backswing, when the right arm folds in and the left remains straight.) All during the swing, until it begins to fold at that point beyond impact, the left arm ideally should operate as if it were an extension of the shaft. Naturally, there must be some suppleness, some break in your left wrist. After all, it is a hinge. In general, then, though the left arm should be straight, this doesn’t mean that it should be locked at the wrist or elbow or be any place as stiff as the arm of a robot. No, this is a very pleasant game, and unnatural straining isn’t at all necessary, or desirable.

左臂，在瞄准时伸展，整个上杆过程都伸展，而右臂屈肘。下杆时，左臂保持伸展，右臂渐渐伸展，大约过了球一英尺左右，这时的杆头速度达到最高值，只有这个时候，双臂是同时伸直的。过了这个点，左臂开始屈肘，右臂继续伸展直到送杆完成，这与上杆的左臂直右臂屈肘刚好相反。在整个挥杆过程中，直到过了上面提到的两只手臂同时伸直的那个点以后，左臂在这之前最理想的状态犹如是杆把的延伸，但手腕是转轴，需要适度的柔韧和弯曲。尽管要求左臂是伸展的，但不能锁腕，肘也不能如机械手一般僵硬。高尔夫是一项舒适的活动，刻意的拉紧是一定要克服的。

 
正面左臂的位置和侧面左臂的位置

In the golf swing, the arms, in effect, act as the connection between the club and the body. The close you keep your two arms together, the better they will operate as one unit, and when they operate as one unit, they tend to pull all of the elements of the swing together.

挥杆中，手臂是身体和杆的连接件，双臂靠的越紧，就越把挥杆的诸多要素结合在一起，运作如一体。

The upper part of the arms should be pressed very tightly against the side of the chest. In my own case, I consciously work to build up so strong an adhesion between the upper arms and the chest that a person would have to exert a really terrific amount of force to wedge them apart. The elbows should be tucked in, not stuck out from the body. At address, the left elbow should point directly at the left hipbone and the right elbow should point directly at the right hipbone. Furthermore, there should be a sense of fixed jointness between the two forearms and the wrists, and it should be maintained throughout the swing.

上臂必须紧压胸部两侧，我有意识地把双臂和胸部尽量压紧，以至于如果有人要把手插入我的手臂和胸之间，他得使上很大的劲，这样的姿势下，两个肘是内凹而不是外凸。瞄准时，左肘尖指向左胯骨，右肘尖指向右胯骨。要感觉两前臂和手腕似乎成了一个联合体，并且保持这种感觉直到整个挥杆完成。

手臂和手在整个挥杆过程中，尽可能互相靠近

A word of emphasis about the elbows. You want to press them as closely together as you can. When you do this (and the elbows are pointing properly to the hipbones) you will notice that the “pocket” of each elbow – the small depression on the inside of the joint – will lie in the center of the arm, at the midway point. The pockets will be facing toward the sky, as they should, not toward each other. It’s a good check. In this position of address, though the left arm hangs relatively straight, the right arm should be broken a little at the elbow as the elbow points in.  On the backswing this right elbow must not fly out, and only if it is correctly positioned at address will it be able to fold in close to the body. During the first half of the backswing, the right elbow should move hardly at all. It mustn’t slide out laterally or slip back along the right side. As it folds close to the body, the elbow should always be pointing toward the ground. It helps, you will find, if the upper part of the right arm adheres as closely as possible to the side of the chest.

再强调一下肘。两肘尖对着两侧胯骨，两肘尽可能靠近。如果这样放置了双臂，你会发现两个肘窝各自朝向天空而不是互相朝着对方。肘窝是肘关节前面的凹陷（体检化验抽血的地方），这是一个很好的检查点。在这个位置，左臂相对来说比较直，右臂则稍随意一点。在上杆过程中，右肘不要离开右胯骨，只有当右臂在瞄准时的位置正确了，才能在上杆屈右肘时不离开身体。上杆到一半时，右肘几乎不移位，既不能向外侧移，也不能向后移，屈肘后，肘尖就能指向地面。右上臂尽量靠近右侧胸，这样的话，要做到上面提到的右肘尖朝向地面也就不难。

 瞄准时，左肘尖对着左胯骨。右肘尖对着右胯骨，这样右肘在上杆时能正确屈肘


两个截面图表明了肘和胯骨的相对位置，左侧表示垂直位置，右图表示水平位置

When your arms are set right at address, it makes it immeasurably easier to get the proper function out of the arms. With practice, they will act the same way on swing after swing, with no variation, repeating the same action almost like a machine. As your arms become schooled, you will get the feeling that the arms and the club form one firm unit-sort of as if the two arms were equal sides of a triangle, with the club emerging like the spire of a steeple at the peak point where the arms joins. As you practice, your arms will recognize with increasing certainness when they are on the right track as they swing back and then forward. “This swing,” you will feel more and more surely, “is bound to go away from the ball and come back through the ball very nearly the same way every time.” And it will.

如果手臂在瞄准时的放置是正确的，那么手臂在挥杆中的作用就能充分实现。不断地练习，手臂就能在一次又一次挥杆中犹如机器一般重复同样的姿势和动作。如果双臂的位置和动作固定了，就会觉得手臂和杆连为稳固的一体了，好比是等腰三角形的两条腰，双臂汇合于双手，是塔顶，手中杆则好像是塔顶上的尖顶。不断地练习，上杆下杆，如果双臂总能在正确的挥杆途径上，双臂的动作就成型了，我们就能越来越相信自己的挥杆，每一次你都知道杆肯定是沿着同样的上杆途径上杆，同样的下杆途径击球，不会有错。

 Now , before we go into the final phase of stance and posture – how a golfer’s legs and his body in general should be flexed as he positions himself over the ball – is perhaps the right time and place to interject a brief comment on that greatly overworked and abused word relaxation. I would guess that it is harder to achieve proper relaxation in golf than in any other sport. Simply being in motion helps an athlete tremendously to relax. The average golfer’s understandable anxiety about whether or not he’s going to be able to perform his swing correctly from his next static start is the chief reason he worries his way around the golf course. 

在我们讲站位和站姿的最后一部分之前，我们要简单地涉略放松这个被无比重视却又颇多微词的词，当球手站到球前，腿和身体是如何保持放松的。我认为在高尔夫这项运动中，真正的放松可能比别的运动更难一些，因为在不停的动作中没有时间停下来思考的运动员其实是放松的，一个球手在两杆间歇时脑中就会思考下一杆，由此而带来的挂虑担心是常见而无可厚非的。

There are several ways, all of them connected with understanding what the swing is really about, through which a golfer can help himself to lick this problem. Right off the reel, it will help him if he realizes that pure relaxation is something he can’t attain and shouldn’t want to. There is nothing wrong with a person if he feels a bit keyed up when he goes out to play golf. He should. It is natural. He’s going to be doing something that takes some concentration and effort, so he shouldn’t expect to feel as free from tension as if he were loafing at home in the evening watching a TV show. No topnotch competitive golfer I have known was, or is, totally relaxed. Each of them feels the pressure of tournament play. Being of different temperaments, they feel it somewhat differently and they absorb it, expressing it or not expressing it, in their individual ways, depending on whether they are Jones or Demaret or Middlecoff or Snead or Sarazen or Armour.

理解高尔夫的挥杆到底是什么后，才能由自己来解决这个问题。一个球手兴奋中带着紧张下场，这是很正常的，纯粹的放松是不可能的，他需要专注和努力，不是晚上在家里倚在沙发上看电视节目般能彻底放松。在我所认识的高手中，没有一个是完全放松的，但每个人都享受着比赛。不同的性格，紧张感受度不同，转换方式也就不一样，有善于表达的，也有内敛的，因人而异。

There is, however, another type of relaxation - you might call it active relaxation as distinct from passive relaxation. Regardless of how nervously taxed a player may be under the strain of competition, all fine competitive golfers, as they prepare to play a shot and actually play it , manage to be actively relaxed, to be neither limp nor tense but to have live tension in the parts of the body that will be doing the work.  They tune up the muscles they will be using, the way a musician tunes up his instrument. The fact that there is something to do, rather than something not to do, is what is so helpful.

有另外一种放松，是积极的放松，不同于被动的放松。在竞争的压力下，不管有多紧张，所有好手，当准备击球和实际击球时，总是设法积极地放松自己，既不是让自己耷拉也不是让自己亢奋，而是让参与挥杆的身体各部分活跃起来，犹如乐手调音，去做一些而不是望紧张兴叹，这是获得放松的要点。