Big swing to the left

When it was suggested recently to the Australian left-handed professional Nick O'Hern that it was somewhat odd for a right-handed person to play the game that way, he replied with crushing simplicity: "It seemed natural to me to have my dominant hand at the top of the club." And an increasing number of players are coming to the same conclusion.

Even more interesting is the perceptible breakdown in prejudice by right-handed golfers against their sinister brethren. Their what? That's how lexicographers label something that is "on the left side, inauspicious". But things are changing, certainly in golf.

Though left-handers represent only about 10 per cent of golfers in this country, leading equipment outlets claim that as much as 15 to 20 per cent of their stock of clubs is left-handed. "There seems to be a determined effort to redress the imbalance of the past," said Mick O'Kelly of Nevada Bobs.

He added: "But while things are definitely changing, left-handers still don't have the same selection as right-handers. This is certainly true of specialist clubs like wedges and putters."

From my own standpoint, I find the subject especially interesting for the fact that I am naturally lefthanded. By that I mean that I started performing most singlehanded functions with my left hand, including writing. Successive teachers, however, coerced me into writing with my right hand, which I now do. In fact over the years, I have become ambidextrous.

But I never considered playing left-handed golf, mainly because none of the golf professionals to whom I went early on suggested I should do so. I suspect they were staunch disciples of Fred Daly, who summarily dismissed left-handers as "deformed golfers". It is only by listening to people like O'Hern that the acceptance of change will prosper.

Bob Charles is widely regarded as the patron saint of left-handed golfers, because of his achievement of being the only one to win a major championship - the 1963 British Open. But Charles is naturally right-handed. When he first stood up to a golf ball at the age of five, he swung the club the same way his parents did. And Phil Mickelson, another naturally righthanded person, did basically the same thing, creating a mirror image of his golfing father.

So it was that they joined the small band who were chided for standing on the wrong side of the ball, or for holding their clubs backwards. In games such as tennis, boxing and baseball, left-handedness can be viewed as a strategic advantage, but left-handed golfers are looked upon as oddballs. Indeed for the first four centuries of the game's existence, nobody even considered the idea of making clubs for them.

"It's a right-handed society and people think that's the way to do it," said US tour player Steve Flesch, one of a rapidly increasing group of golfing lefties. "Everybody has grown up thinking that righthanded is the way to do almost everything. I think it's going to be like that forever."

Though Mickelson echoes the complaint of most left-handers that club manufacturers are generally six to 12 months behind with lefthanded models, he takes a more philosophical view of the situation than his tour colleague. "It certainly makes playing the game more difficult and challenging, but I wouldn't say it's discriminatory," he said. "It's all about being cost effective."

The American tour now boasts the unprecedented number of six lefties, including Canada's Mike Weir, who captured the Canadian Open last autumn, and Kevin Wentworth, who has a second-place finish to his credit. Meanwhile, manufacturers report a significant rise in the sale of left-handed clubs to junior players, as much as 15 per cent of their annual stock, suggesting a growing acceptance among the coming generation. So, Nevada Bobs would appear to have got their figures right.

According to a leading American outlet, there are a number of factors behind the change. "While more and more kids are coming into golf, they are no longer converting automatically to playing right-handed," said one representative.

Still, left-handed tournament professionals have to face special obstacles in pursuing their craft. For instance, Flesch generally has to seek out equipment representatives to try out a particular club whereas his right-handed colleagues have a steady supply readily available on the practice ground. "We might get to try it the next day, or if we're lucky, we may get to hit it the same day," he said.

Prejudice exists, whether manufacturers like it or not. For instance, in his book The Clubmaker's Art, author Jeff Ellis wrote that making left-handed models "reverses, so to speak, their (the manufacturers) whole method of procedure and consequently entails a good deal of painstaking labour".

He went on: "The clubs are invariably made by right-handed players, so that the question of their balance and `feel' is largely a matter of chance. Only a left-handed player can make a left-handed club with any certainty that it will be a good one."

One of the earliest left-handed champions was Major Albert Lambert of St Louis, who won a gold medal at the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris. Nine years later, lefthander Claude Felstead won the Australian Open. But it would take another 80 years before left-handed equipment finally began to make a significant impact in the market place.

In fact it was only last year that left-handed cavity-backed forged irons became available to clubmakers, according to Bob Dodds, technical director for the Professional Clubmakers Society. It seems that because cast moulds cost between $3,000 and $5,000, most manufacturers were of the view that it was not financially viable to cater for a small market of lefthanders.

"The market didn't justify it," claimed Ellis. "It's a numbers game. I know MacGregor did a decent job in the 1950s and 1960s but there were very few models to choose from. Some of the smaller clubmakers simply couldn't afford to do it."

It seems that whether somebody plays golf left or right-handed may have little to do with their natural inclination. For instance, in terms of a percentage of the population, more people play left-handed golf in Canada - left-handed equipment accounts for 32 to 34 per cent of the market - than in any other country, mainly because of the popularity of ice hockey.

The figures for Calgary are 30 per cent while Quebec and Maritime provinces are slightly higher. But in Newfoundland, the numbers are an astonishing 50 per cent. "That's the way I shot in hockey and I was just comfortable with it," said Mike Weir. "I played hockey sooner than I played golf."

Similarly, hurling has encouraged left-handed golf in this country, as has shinty in Scotland. But instead of right-handed people believing that they should have their dominant hand at the top of the club as left-handers, there are those who have settled for compromise - by adopting the hurling grip.

Sewsunker Sewgolum, is acknowledged as the only righthanded golfer to have achieved international success while playing the game with his left hand below the right. Born in Durban, South Africa, he won the Dutch Open in 1959, 1960 and 1964, but being of Indian descent, his appearances in his native country were greatly restricted because of apartheid.

Harry McQuillan of Royal Tara used the same method while successfully holding a scratch handicap for more than 20 years. And Harry Lambe, who is a very useful 12-handicapper playing that way, recently won the Clontarf Seniors' tournament for a third time in four years.

Meanwhile, Dr Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia and author of The Left-Handed Syndrome, believes that an enforced switch can cause long-term psychological damage. "Our research shows that switching only works if you catch the individual at a very young age," he said. "You'll always do better with your natural or dominant hand. With golfers, we found that whatever eye was more dominant, it was the same as your dominant hand."

In his book Golf for Southpaws, Harry Gottlieb expressed the view that "most golf pros would rather see a rattlesnake come up for a lesson than a southpaw". But leading teachers in the US will now ask students to swing from both sides of the ball so that they can "get a feel of the player's comfort zone".

Yet acceptance levels have clearly a long way to go, given that there is no left-handed player currently on the LPGA Tour. Former tour player Judi Pavon, who is now women's coach at the University of Tennessee, said: "People asked me when I came out on tour why I never switched. It was just more natural for me to play lefty."

In the words of the old song, doin' what comes naturally, seems likely to hold increasing appeal for golfers in these enlightened years. And when lefties become a major force in the game, architects will start building courses with all the trouble on the left. Which will be an incredible boom to all us handicap players who have a tendency to slice the ball. And will that make everybody happy? Somehow, I doubt it.