TWO GOLF TEMPERAMENTS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 19202, 7 January 1928, Page 11

TWO GOLF TEMPERAMENTS.

THE PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE.

(SPKCUIAT WHITS* TOR THX rSBSJ.)

(By Harry Vardon, Six Timet Open Champion.)

A correspondent writes to me on the subject of a recent article concerning the d iff ere lie o between first-class amateurs and first-class professionals. "Tho student of psychology at golf must have had it home in many times upon his mind that amateurs and professionals are of different temperaments on the links," ho says. "A match between two first-class amateurs is au obvious duel of mental dispositions as well as playing ability. It is so in a greater degree than a match between two first-class professionals, because somehow the professional never seems to wear his heart on his sleeve quite so conspicuously as the amateur. This may be a natural consequence of tho fact that, to the individual who derives his livelihood from the game, a measure of exterior calm in a trying situation is an cssontial of his personality. "He has to drill himself to produce it as part of his stock-in-trade. He has to be liko the business man who, desperately anxious to bring off n deal, does not let his anxiety manifest itself to the other fellow*."

This may be true, but it has happened frequently that two professionals have been so utterly exhausted, mentally rather than physically, at the end of a hard contest as to be almost incapable of speaking to a friend, much as they might desire to do so. And yet, during tho struggle, you would never guess from their appearance that they had the slightest real fear of one another.

Tills was so in the contest for jCiiOO .1 side in which Walter Hagen heat Abo Mitchell by - and 3. Ilagni looked the picture of complacency from beginning to end, and yet, immediately after the finish, he was in such a worn-out condition that he had to lie down and resl for a long while. There was n similar condition of affairs when .T, If, Taylor and I were drawn together on the last day of the open championship at Prestwick in .1011.

Hopes and Fears. With ono round to go, the issue rested solely with us. And we wore coupled. I am told (I cannot remember anything about it) that wo were standing half a dozen yards apart in the rest tent, both looking into space, for ten minutes before we were dm to go out for the last eighteen holes. We were exchanging not a word with one another, nor with anybody olso; the mind of each of us had beon transported to some far-off world of alternating hopes and fears. And yet I venture In say that during that last round nobody could havo deduced from our demeanour that each was frightened of the other. We went on playing ahot for shot na if it had boon the first round of tho championship instead of tho critical Inst round, contested under conditions of exceptional tension. This is a trait that the professional golfer sooms to develop. The amateur, pursuing tho gamo for the recreation that he derives from it, docs not often succeed in schooling himself so thoroughly as to go round the links in an important contest as though he had no particular worries about the result. His temper may be perfect, his decorum complete, but, as a rule, he cannot help disclosing in little ways how he is feeling. . The state of his mind, in all its vary- ' ing phases, is conimunicatod to his opponent, whose mental state goes up or down, according to the nature of the signs in tho man whom he is trying to beat. Thus it is that, in a match between two first-class amateurs, you usually see an exceedingly human struggle. Mr John Ball,, probably more thnu any othor British amateur in tho history of tho game, had the gift of hiding his feelings beneath.a clonk of placiditv.

Hidden Feeling*. It must be a struggle for Mr Bobby Jones to make himself look, as ho does, so inscrutable as the Sphinx during his rounds in a big tournament. Everybody who knows him well agrees that ho is naturally of a very high-strung, sensitive disposition. After he hod accomplished his record round of 00 in the Southern qualifying competition for the open championship at Sunningdalo, ho was so frankly and boyishly excited about it that he had to go for a ninemiles walk in Windsor Great Park in order to calm himself and prepare for the round of the following day. And yet, all the while he was playing, he looked as tranquil as an elderly man pursuing the game for tho sake of his health.

Mr Jones has conquered his inborn tendency to show his feelings on tho links by a determination to pay no heed at all to that his rivals may be doing. It is no shock to him to logo a hole in a match when his opponent accomplishes a "blrdio"—in fact there is a strong impression that he does not always realise then that he has lost it. He has told us that he plays solely to accomplish each hole in the par figure, or bettor if possible, on the principle that it is no use letting the other follow influence your own line of action. This indeed looms to be tho policy of all tho leading American golfers. Somebody toid me the other day that when Mr Wat*s Gunn, the runnerup in a recent United States amateur championship, won a big match he had to be reminded of the fact that the game was over.

"I didn't know," he said, "I have simply been playing for the figures.'» It seems, on the whole, to be a very effective- scheme. It js indeed the process which the professionals—the British professionals long before their American rivals counted for anything —have adopted regularly during tho past generation or so. Their business •being to produce a high standard of play, they go for tho scores, whother the event be by holes or strokes, and, as a consequence, they cultivate this calm outward bearing and detached attitude towards their rival.