Around July, 1916 it was stated in the newspapers that Ernest Jones, the Chislehurst professional, who had had a leg shot off in France in March, had played round the Royal Norwich links (standing on one leg for each shot) in 83, and a little later, playing with David Ayton, he (still on one leg) had holed out the Clacton course - a long course - in 72. It was at once clear to the writer that Ernest Jones at all events must have thoroughly acquired the art of obtaining his results with the minimum exertion, and the writer lost no time in getting once more into touch with a player whose game he had always admired.

Before the war Ernest Jones had been one of the most promising golfers in the metropolitan district, and the Chislehurst Golf Club, had come to be known as the home of Ernest Jones. Though he had not headed the list at any of the most important meetings, Ernest Jones had always been "there or thereabouts." He never failed to qualify for the Open Championship, he generally appeared well toward the top of the final lists, and his scores were uniformly sound. In the News of the World competitions he was wont to qualify, and to give a good account of himself in the subsequent rounds; and he did excellent work in the French Championship. In the Kent Championship he adopted the role of runner-up, and in three consecutive finals he lowered the record of three links - Eltham, Hythe, and Herne Bay. There can be no doubt that in the normal course of events Ernest Jones would have attained front rank among his fellow-professionals well before he was thirty. Then came the war.…

Jones was ready to respond to the call of King and Country, and in January, 1915, he - along with many other golfers - joined the Army. In November he was out in France, near to Loos; he went through the winter unscathed, but was badly wounded in March, 1916, by rifle grenade. Some sixteen pieces of metal were removed form he head, his right forearm, and his right leg, and this leg was subsequently amputated close below the knee. Nevertheless, the enemy had so far failed to destroy the golfer in him that four months later he was performing the incredible feat of holing out a long and testing course in a average of fours, handing his crutches to the caddy precisely seventy-two times in the round.

The Achievement becomes the more startling when it is considered that Jones is a slightly built man on the short side - his height is under five feet six inches and his weight less than 140 pounds: he was therefore unable to rely on any reserve of brute force.

His method of striking the ball had always been conspicuously easy and decisive. In his use of the hands and the fingers he resembled Vardon, but his swing was flatter and rather more compact that Vardon's, and it was accompanied by less suggestion of power, but perhaps even greater suggestion of speed. It was a method which prima facie would stand well the ruthless test that was to be applied to it.

Ernest Jones, moreover, was known to his fellow-professionals, and to some fortunate amateurs, as a golfer who had brought an uncommonly penetrating mind to bear on an uncommonly perplexing subject. He was known as a player of original views, a player who had satisfied himself about the mechanics of the swing, and who played the game fully conscious of what he was doing and why he was doing it.

When the writer first saw Jones after his convalescence he had just got his artificial leg, and though obviously embarrassed by it, he played noteworthy golf in an exhibition game with Vardon, Taylor, and Braid. One saw that he experienced difficulty in finishing the shot freely - the right leg came lumbering forward after the ball had been hit - but there was the same clean, crisp hitting as before. At the time of writing, however, he is on better terms with the artificial leg, and though it still complicates the question of balance, especially when the stance is uneven - as it frequently is at Chislehurst - it does not succeed in helping Jones' opponents to anything like the extent they would naturally expect it to do. Sequences of pars interrupted by birdies continue to be the order of Jones' day.

The writer found that Jones was convinced that the golf swing could be readily taught and consistently performed only if it were conceived as one movement, that various members of the body (including the shoulders, arms, hips and legs) were normally anxious to get busy too strenuously and too soon, and that the only way of insuring their working in due co-ordination with the other members of the body, notably the hands and the fingers, was to treat them as disastrous leaders, but as wholly admirable followers. The basis of the swing, as Jones had worked it out before the war, was the proper action of the hands and fingers.

His accident had put his theory of golf to the test, and had intensified his faith in it; and it was not long before the present writer was swinging a golf club with a decisiveness which and previously seemed beyond his range of accomplishment.

With Ernest Jones, one lesson only is taught, and that one lesson is taught all the time: swing the clubhead with the hands and fingers and let the other members of the body respond to that motion.

"Surely," says the writer in the Daily Express, "among the thousands of golfers in the two hemispheres there is some one person who can make this plague of a game intelligible?"

There is. He is Ernest Jones.

(From The Golf Swing - The Ernest Jones Method by Darynn Hammond)

The teachings of Ernest Jones are of a distant generation, yet no one with the possible exception of Percy Boomer, has such an influence on modern day golf instruction. Jones is quoted in countless magazine articles, and golf instruction books by well known players and teachers, including Jack Nicklaus, and Gary McCord. McCord, most well known for his humor in golf broadcasts, is a very intelligent and serious student of the golf swing. In his book Golf for Dummies, McCord lists Swing the Clubhead as one of his Top Ten Golf Books.

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