GOLFING STARS CLING TO TREASURED OLD PUTTERS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 92, 19 April 1941, Page 8 (Supplement)

GOLFING STARS CLING TO TREASURED OLD PUTTERS.

Some American professional golfers are so fussy about their old clubs that they still use favourites even as old as twenty years (writes Jim Ferrier, the Australian champion, from New York).

Jimmy Thomson, the world's longest hitter, still has the same shaft in his driver that he used in 1934 when he won the £1000 first prize in the Melbourne Centenary open. Jimmy has tried many other shafts, but the feel of this particular one is so sweet to him that he has had five heads put on it in seven years. Some Handed Down. Putters, of course, are the oldest and most treasured clubs in many of the stars' bags. Some date back to 1920 and may have been handed down to the present younger professionals by older men. '■" Gene Sarazen, always changing his putter, tied Lawson Little for the open championship with a putter that could be bought on its appearance in any second-hand store for a few pence, yet in Sarazens hands it gave him confidence.

Talking about old putters reminds me th.-it I used my first steel-shafted putter (of 1930' in thr- 5000-dollar Chicago open for the first time in the U.S.; it helped to produce the G6 that led the field and gave me a score of 280, third in the event, and a start in my return to form which culminated in my winning the Chicago amateur title. Confidence |is everything in putting.

Watching two well-known professionals during a tournament play a par-three hole over a miniature lake, I was amazed to see a splash in the middle of the water a few yards from the tee; my surprise was increased when a couple of seconds later a ball landed a few feet from the flag.

The player had connnected perfectly with the ball, but a fraction of a second after the impact his clubhead parted from the shaft and followed the ball, but failed to carry the water.

Washington (the capital) is one of the few cities that boast of a course open exclusively to men. Like the famous Bob-o-Link course in Chicago, this club has had no female players on its fairways. At Bob-o-Link even the clubhouse is closed to women, for members' wives calling for them have to stay in their cars.

Husband (irritably): That's the second time you've asked what trumps are, dear. Wife (sweetly): Well, you want me to show a little interest in the same, don't you, dear?