GOLF NOTES RYDER CUP TEAM MARTINBOROUGH RECORD ROLLING THE WHISTS SCOOPING A "SCRAMBLE" WATT AND BANISH CUPS DEFINED FAIRWAYS

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 12, 13 July 1935, Page 26

GOLF NOTES

RYDER CUP TEAM

MARTINBOROUGH RECORD

ROLLING THE WHISTS

SCOOPING A "SCRAMBLE"

WATT AND BANISH CUPS

DEFINED FAIRWAYS

STRONG- COMBINATION

Britain's Ryder Cup team has been announced, as follows: —C. A. Whitcombe (captain), P. Alliss, J. Burton, J. H. Busson, W. Cox (Addington), F. Jarman, A. H. Padgham, and A. Perry. The contest is played every two years between British and American professional teams. The restriction to teams born and resident in their respective countries deprives Britain of Thomas Henry Cotton, who is a professional in Belgium, and who was seventh in this year's British Open, with 293. The cup was won by the U.S.A. in 1927, by Britain in 1929, by the U.S.A. in 1931, and by Britain in 1933. Britain's team this year makes it look as though she had a good chance of winning the cup, like the British Open, twice in succession.

C. A. Whitcombe, Crews Hill, Middlesex, the captain of the team, who is .still just on the right side of forty, is one of the few British pros, who has been equally successful in match and in medal play. He has twice won the "News of the World" tournament, once the Gleneagles tournament, and twice the Leeds tournament, while in stroke play his triumphs include the Irish Open championship, the "Daily Mail" championship, the Northern Open championship, and the Southport tournament. In the Open championship itself he had never finished higher than fourth until this year, when he finished third, 5 strokes behind the Open champion's 283. He showed himself in form at the Southport tournament, which he won with an aggregate of 295, recognised as a fine performance on a course which recent reconstruction has made one of the stillest tests of golf in England, under conditions far from easy. Of the 147 strokes he then played on the final day, only 70 were putts. Percy Alliss (Beaconsfield) first distinguished himself by winning the Assistants' tournament in 1920. He won the Welsh Professional championship twice soon afterwards, the Essex Professional championship in 1923 and 1925, the German Open in 192G, 1927, 1928, 1929, and 1933, the German Professional championship in 1927 and 1928, was second in the French Open in 1931, and runner-up in thq Canadian Open the same year. He was third in the British OiDen in 1931, fourth in 1928, 1929, and 1932, fifth in 1923, and eleventh this year. He has frequently represented Britain, and was in the Ryder Cup team in 1929 and 1933.

J. Burton (Hillside, Southport) is a younger player who has come to notice in recent important British tournaments in Britain. He won the Man-; Chester Professional championship in 1933, was runner-up in the Northern championship in 1930, and won the Pen-fold-Porthcawl tournament in 1933. He represented England against Ireland in 1933, and holds the Porthcawl professional record of 67. J. H. Busson (Formley, Freshfield) is under 30, but has held professional appointments in the U.S.A. before returning to Britain. . Winning the Gloucester and Somerset Assistants' championships in 1924, 1925, 1926, and 1927, he won the Southern Counties Assistants' tournament in 1925, and the Liverpool Assistants' championship in 1928 and 1930. W. Cox (Addington, a London suburban club) has no records in the golf periodicals, but was apparently given his place for ranking ninth in the British Open, with an aggregate of 297, including 69 in the second round. F. Jarman is one of a family of five golfing brothers, and has some very steady play to his credit. The inclusion of the winner of the Open this year, A. Perry, was a foregone conclusion, and even though A. H. Padgham, the runner-up, had not occupied that position, his record over the last few years, as well as his recent successes in important tournaments, would have made his exclusion difficult.

The link bandits who held up five golfers at the Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey seem to have interrupted a most interesting "scramble" judging by the loose cash secured. They would not have done so well on the average New Zealand course, not only on the financial side, but because there are few Dominion courses where the fairways would have been so deserted. The only course in this country where a hold-up could be made with impunity is at Berhampore, where anything might happen unobserved amidst the general congestion. The New Jersey* player who threw his wallet into the rough to escape being robbed, and was shot in the leg, seems to need explanation. Perhaps the fairways are better there, and fewer players take those Tarn o' Shanter divots without replacing them.

POSITION- TO DATE

SOME COURSES LACKING

I All clubs have some fairways where the natural features define the limits, but on the other hand there are far too many fairways where the limits are not defined at all, and where the hooker and slicer may zig-zag his way to good figures with equanimity, if, as ao often is the case, one fairway merges into the other without any perceptible rough. The demarcation of Waiwetu fairways last Saturday proved the downfall of the visiting Manor Park Walt Cup team. In some cases the fatal line was passed only by inches, but it was enough. Lack of room, it has been proved by Waiwetu, iis no bar to the definition of fairways. The best golf course is undoubtedly one which is cut out of rough country, where only the fairways are improved, and the rough is allowed to remain rough. Miramar is a good instance of this type of course, where digressions are apt to mean more than a penalty stroke. It is just a question whether some of even the Miramar holes have not been ' too well barbered. The seventh was formerly the dread of the man who was not sure of his woods. That was when there was marram grass on one side and flax and lupin on the other. Though it is still unwise to slice there, the hooker can now risk opening up this hole as a dog-leg with a fair, amount o£ impunity, fre-

quenlly getting a fair second where formerly lie would have lost the hole.

The Maryborough record of 73, formerly held by D. C. Collins, was broken last weekend by G. B. Ward, o£- the Hutt Club, now resident in Martinborough, with a 69, compiled as follows: — 0ut—544543445—38. 1n—444423433—31.

DROPPED IN MODERN SWING

Pointing out that rolling the wrists has been dropped in the modern swing, Aubrey Boomer says:—

It is all against the mechanics of golf to drive a straight ball with an open stance, the face of the club open at the top of the swing and a restricted pivot. Ido not say that it cannoi be done, for it has been done for many years, and is still being done by scores of golfers every day. But if there are any mathematical figures to guide us to the simplification of the swing, these figures are the circle and the square. The simplest form of the golf swing is that in which the club-head is kept travelling in a circle with the face of the club kept square all the time to the line on which which it :'s moving. The simplest way to make sure that the club face is at right angles to. that line at the moment of striking, is to keep it at right angles all through the swing. Any movement or any change of position that interferes with the "square" position of the clubface must tend to upset the simplicity of our mechanics and introduce a useless complication. In the modern swing there is no roll of the wrists in taking the club back, and consequently none in bringing it down. As we address the ball, the back of the left hand is. in the same relation,to the.line of the shot as the face of the club, and we must endeavour to visualise the face of the club by means of the position of the left hand throughout the stroke, and keep the back of the left.hand "facing' the ball." We take .'the club back Us if we were playing a back-handed shoi at tlie ball with our left hand.

The results of matches played to date in the Watt Cup are as follows:— At home. Away. Points. Shandon .... 1 2 21* Waiwetu 1 3 20 Manor Park . 2 1 Hi Titahi 2 — 13 The Ranish Cup results are:— At home. Away. Points. Paekakariki .4 — 27 Shandon 1 3 2GA Manor Park .2 2 20 Waiwetu .... 1 4 15 Titahi 1 2 Hi