GOLF.

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 95, 22 April 1922, Page 18

GOLF.

Congratulations to R. D. Wright on winning the Auckland provincial championship.

That Arthur Duncan's game has not lost its sting was demonstrated in the Wellington provincial championship played during Easter. The old-timer won the semi-final from Drake by 3 up and 2, and .secured a more substantial win in the -final by finishing the game with 5 up and 4 to play. The final match was played under trying conditions, as a high wind was blowing, which made good golf difficult. Under such circumstances Duncan's 39 for the first nine holes was good g01f—3545454C3 reads well. An unusual stymie occurred at the eighth hole. Duncan tipping the hole laid his opponent a stymie two inches from the cup. Tucker's ball lay 6 1-8 away, and the umpire ruled that he had to play, but he failed to hole the shot by the narrowest of margins. By his win this year Duncan has now won the championship in 1913, 1914, 1919. 1920, and 1922. During the intervening years he did not compete, and five starts and five wins is no mean feat, and stamps him as probably the most consistent golfer in the Dominion.

The next New Zealand Championship is to be played at Palmerston North and will commence on September 11. Revolutionary changes have 'been made this year in the arrangement of play and the number of players who may qualify, also the system of qualifying. In previous years the preliminary entry has not been restricted. This year, however, only sixty-four players will be allowed to play in the qualifying round, and no player whose handicap is more than eight will be entitled to take part. Another radical alteration is in the number of players who may qualify. In the past the limit was 32 players, but this year a more drastic cut has been made, and the number lias been reduced to 16. In place of the old method of two consecutive rounds of the 'qualifying play, the two best of four rounds in the open championship will be used to decide the 16 players in the amateur.. In place of the previous 18 hole matches, in this year each match will be carried to 36 "holes—surely a strenuous and hardly necessary procedure. Hilton, the prominent English amateur, has gone to the trouble of hunting through the British championship results and has discovered that in 32 .years of championship finals in only three matches was the winner not in front at the end of the first 18 holes. From that it would appear that the extra play over 36 holes docs not materially affect the result, and at the same time makes the match doubly strenuous without any apparent advantage.

Wherever we look in the world's affairs we find statesmen and diplomats playing golf. For instance, there is,. Earl Reading, the Viceroy of India, who. when at home, plays at Walton Heath: the Lord Chancellor, who as F. E. Smith, toyed with golf at Hoylake; Mr. Asquith. who spends 'his holidays on the classic links of the Lothians; Colonel George ■Harvey, the American Ambassador, who finds leisure to beat the ball round Coombe Hill; Mr. Winston Churchill, who, sad to relate, divides his attention between painting pictures and playing golf, to the detriment of the latter (I know nothing of the former); and Mr. Bonar Law, who is as much at home on the northern coast of France as he is on the Scottish links.

As regards the great and glorious traditions of golf, it is not surprising that the German people were totally ignorant. Could they be otherwise when a well-known British professional, who had constructed a course in the neighbourhood of Berlin, found to his horror on revisiting it that flowers had been planted in the bunkers "to make them look pretty."