"CRACKS" AND DUFFERS

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 233, 2 October 1925, Page 6

"CRACKS" AND DUFFERS

The decision of St. Andrews, which is in the world of golf what the MC.C. is in pricket, not tn introduce a larger and lighter ball in tho next championships, lias an interest for players of

other games besides golf. The overwhelming majority for retention of the present ball may have been actuated by mixed motives. St. Andrews io a conservative institution, and tho proposal for a new ball is not made any more popular by reason of being American. The most interesting feature of the discussion, however, is that it illustrates afresh the conflict between the expert, or "crack," as he is colloquially called, and the duffer. The idea of tho larger, lighter ball is to make golf more difficult. The drive would be shorter and the-ball generally more difficult to control. In its iirst flights golf tends to become faultless. A great player can go round day after day in "under bogey."' Possibly lie derives intense pleasure from playing well, but he misses the thrill that comes to the indifferent player when by accident or care he plays better. It has been said that the duller gets more enjoyment out of the game than Hagen, for wherea. Hag-en knows what the ball is going to do, the other does not, and feels a delirious joy when the ball behaves properly. Tho difficulty about adopting the new ball is that lirst-class players are a very small minority. To impose it on the whole game would, as an English expert says, make golf still more difficult for thousands who already find it exasperating enough. (Jolf was defined by an exasperated professor as hitting a ball from hole to hole with instruments singularly ill adapted for the purpose. It would be interesting to have his comments on the attempt to make the ball still less tractable. To have one kind of ball for national championships and another '.ir ordinary play would divide the gam. into two divisions. The same sort of problem has occurred in cricket. Improvement in batsmanship and pitches has led to heavy scoring, and the cry has gone up for relief for the bowler. Introduce an extra stump, say the reformers, or alter the leg-before rule. They forget that when you descend from the sparsely populated heights of first-class cricket you reach crowded regions where the ball masters the bat. Ask an ordinary batsman on an average country wicket in New Zealand, facing a fast and a fairly accurate bowler, whether he would like a fourth wicket added to the stumps he has to defend. Iv all games it is the duffer who forms the majority, aud he is entitled to be considered.