especially for high-handicap women golfers

The large majority of women who play golf don't swing at the ball hard enough. They have the strength to hit harder, more often than not, but they have been told time and time again that easy does it, so they swing with the daintiness of Dresden shepherdesses. It's a bad mistake, a misleading notion.

The good women professional golfers bang the ball out there, just like the best men do. It's really easier to swing well when you put some vigor into your swing. The more momentum you build up, the more likely it is that your club head will stay on the right line. If you slow down your swing artificially, the club head will waver off that line. Of course it is wrong to press for distance, but I believe that a good healthy cut at the ball opens the way to easier and better golf for women.

In this general regard, I think a great many women players are inclined to be over-relaxed at address, so relaxed that they have difficulty in getting their swing started right. Don't be reposed at address. Be athletically poised.

from BETSY RAWLS, Country Club of Spartanburg, S.C.

TWO PHOTOS

TWO ILLUSTRATIONS

Daintiness may be fine for croquet but golf requires athletic vigor

NEXT WEEK: JOHNNY PALMER ON CONSISTENCY IN CHIPPING