GOLF CHAMPIONS.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 19622, 18 May 1929, Page 13

GOLF CHAMPIONS.

INFLUENCE ON THE GAME. THE ORDINARY PLAYER'S PROTEST. (SPZCTAI.LT WRimBK TOB THS PES 53.) (By Harry Yardon, Six Times Open Champion.) A keen golfer who is a member of several clubs expressed the opinion to me the other day that this game which gives so much physical and mental benefit to thousands of middle-aged people is being spoi't by too many competitions. He was not so much concerned about monthly medak. and bogey rounds. He regarded them as .a- bad influence, but too small to do heavy damage. What he felt was th,Tt the big tournaments were creating the serious harm, because they were elevating successful players to positions in which they became not only gladiators but also dictators whose word had to be accepted as law on every matter pertaining to the pastime. He remarked that in the ordinary affairs of life—political, artistic, musical a hundred others —anybody of intelligence who expresses a view is heard with respect. "In golf," he said, "the people who win tournaments dominate everybody else, even in problems of a purely academic character that have to do with the game. We are supposed to accept their judgments without demur. '' They decide what the courses are to be like, what we shall regard as our standard of skill and enjoyment, what sort of matches we ought to play, and even when we shall play—for they want the courses to themselves when their tournaments are due." Na doubt there is a certain element of justification for this protest. My friend sighed for the days when championships and other much-discussed events were few and far between; when their winners were regarded merely as interesting phenomena seen about as often as a comet; and when the person who went round in 100 strokes was not despised by the individual who could be relied on to Private Recreation. "If I do a score of 110 on a championship links and win my match, i ni satisfied," declared this philosopher. "Be hanged to the record-breakers!" He added that the newspapers were the cause of half the trouble, because they glorified people who accomplished low scores and never bothered about the value of golf as an asset to health and social life. After all, I suppose the newspapers would be very duL if they were always commenting_ on the commonplace and extolling obvious virtues. Friendly games of golf in which the standard of skill is mediocre assuredly give a lot of pleasure and healthy recreation. So do country walks. At the same time, it would become rather monotonous to keep on telling the world that they are all it really need 3 in the way of exercise and diversion. ■ • Whate\ T er may be the defects and prejudices of golf champions, they are essential to the game as the furnishers of an objective and a means of comparison. ■ I suppose that not more than 25 per cent, of the world's golf players take part in competitions—even such modest competitions as those for monthly medals and bogey prizes. The remaining 75 per cent, pursue the pastime in the form of private matches with friends.

Many members of this majority are inclined (like my friend) to deride the importance and publicity given to the leading performers in tournaments, and yet I venture to say that nearly .all such captious critics obtain a good de/il of inspiration from championship winners. Lives there anywhere a golfer (even a 24-handicap golfer) with soul so daad that he has never tried x method of grip, or stance, or swing of which he has read or heard as the system favoured by some player of renown?. Experiment. Personally, I am quite content with having done my little bit .is a public nuisance by working out the principle of the overlapping grip—a task which occupied about two years of my early life as a professional. Plenty of people may have condemned it after trying it, but it lias at least afforded the basis of interesting experiment and it is a solace that nearly all the best players in every country now favour it. If Mr Bobby Jones had never strayed on to the links to develop that wonderful turn of the hips from a narrow stance, what a world of emulation would have been lost to the game. It is only by means of tournaments that these inspirations to the average golfer (whatever they may be worth to him) can be brought to light. And they are certainly worth something to some players. Others may spoil the effect by exaggerating the traits of their exemplars. I wonder at times, whether Arthur Havers, the only representative of England who has won the British open championship since the Americans began their reign of triumph eight years sgo, is one of the number. When last I watched Havers, he seemed to have cultivated J. H. Taylors way of turning the toe of the club away from the ball in the address to such an excess that he had the club-face hopelessly slanted. My friend who thinks that tournaments and their winners rule the golfing world lives in a remote and peaceful rural retreat. He ought to play on a popular London course on Sunday morning. He would find tha 100-strokes-a-round golfers in almost complete possession, and not at all worried about the fame of champions.