LESSONS LEARNED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 186, 7 August 1936, Page 5

LESSONS LEARNED.

GOLFER JIM FERRIER.

EXPERIENCE COMES FIRST.

UPRIGHT swing favoured

Replicas of golf trophies for two of the noted, competitions in the British Isles are being taken home to Australia by Mr. James Ferrier, the most brilliant youthful product of Australian golf of all time, who is a passe/iger by the Mariposa. They are those of the Silver Tassie, won in Scotland, and the "Golf Illustrated" Gold Cup, and they represent the material result of Ferrier's trip to England. In addition he had tlie honour of creating record scores in winning these trophies and also in being runner-up in the British amateur championship, an event which carries the greatest prestige in the world's amateur golf. But Ferrier also gained a wealth of experience in his four months' play in Great Britain and this he values even more highly than tlie material honours "which have come his way. Only 21 £ years old, Ferrier is a man of outstanding physique, and he has thus two essentials which promise a great career in world golf. Of his prospects Gene Sarazen, one of the world's leading professionals, who travelled on the liner with Ferrier, is most optimistic. When Ferrier finished his overseas trip with his final round in the British Open, the cables reported him as saying that he had learned that he must im-j prove his iron play. This'morning Fer-j rier admitted that to bring his game toj perfection this was so. The iron play of a champion had to be mechanical. | Two years ago, he said, his iron swing j had been much- flatter than it was now. He had seen the flat swing which had I prevailed among the English players for.: many years, and the more upright style j ■which the Americans favoured. J

Advantages Explained. He considered that the upright swing —just the opposite of the inside-'out principle of the flat swing—was. conducive to more consistent results. It was the upright swing which he had lately adopted, and intended in the future to cultivate. The flat swing produced a tendency to hook, and a player! had to have much more golf to keep itj perfect than he did with the upright. The Australian was quite modest about his achievements in England, but said that after four months' daily play | he was beginning to get a bit stale | when the Open championship was played: and perhaps he did not produce his] best. Ferrier was one of the players in j the eliminating play before the Openj who was caught in the deluge. Actually | he was the last to play at Wallasley | before the play was called off j and the eliminating play carried on the | next day. Ferrier recalled how he had: played to a water-logged eighteenth j green, where the water was being swept j away with brooms; when he had holed j out the committee decidcd to cancel the j day's play. Many of the contestants! had not yet started, Sarazen being one i of them. The American considered that, the weather in which Ferrier had had to play had affected the groove of his swing, and that that was why he had not produced his best form in the Open. "Scotsman Would Give It." In regard to the final of the British amateur championship, in which he was beaten at the thirty-sixth hole, 2 up, by Hector Thomscyi, Ferrier said he had I no regrets except that he would have | liked to have won this great honour at j his first attempt. When dormy 2 down 1 Ferrier won the penultimate hole and I needed a win at the" last to carry the J game on. Thomson played a magnificent | mashie to within six inches of the pin— • "so close that a Scotsman would give it," said the Australian. That meant a birdie three and it clinched the battle. The great galleries which lie had to play before did not trouble Ferrier to a great extent, he said, as a player got so wrapped up in his game that he did not notice them—more or less. . Some players were more temperamental.

Ferrier recalled that Henry Cotton, faced with a twcfoot putt, had dropped his club and refused to putt out until a newsreel cameraman who had been following him for some time stopped his camera. As a matter of fact the camera could not be heard ten yards away, but the psychological effect troubled Cotton. Similarly, other players were affected by crowds and their actions.