Jones Outstanding In New Zealand Golf

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29016, 3 October 1959, Page 5

Jones Outstanding In New Zealand Golf

The 1959 National golf championships at Paraparaumu Beach were a triumph for the 33-year-old Hastings amateur, Stuait Jones. Top amateur in the open championship, winner of the amateur championship, he must have every claim to being the best New Zealand golfer, amateur or professional, and he is almost certain to be top player for the New Zealand at Johannesburg. For so quietly-spoken and modest a man, Jones has a somewhat surprising determination and will to win. He is quite ruthless on the course, and no situation is ever, for him, lost beyond redemption. He is a golfing purist, a delight to the knowledgeable, as well as to those who see no further than figures.

At Paraparaumu Beach. Jones played nine complete rounds, and only once exceeded the scratch score, then by but a single stroke. It was startling consistency on a very difficult course, and in weather which offered stiff tests of skill. There were several tine days, but none on which the wind was not strong and extremely variable.

Course gossip about Jones was that he practised golf industriously every day of the week, and that this devotion to the game was the key to his success, But he is apparently, also devoted to the flourishing drapery business of which he is a principal, for he plays golf only at week-ends. Even before the championships, a back injury prevented him getting in much extra practice. Late Start

Jones is not one of those who had a golf club in his hand since he was first able to walk. He did not take up the game until he was 21, his earlier principal sporting interest being ski-ing. He is still very keen on water ski-ing. But at 29 he was amateur champion. That was at Auckland in 1955, and in that tournament too he was top amateur in the open. The next year, at Shirley, he tied with R. J. Charles for the distinction of being top amateur in the stroke play,. Jones first represented New Zealand in Australia in 1953, and went to England with the New Zealand team in 1954. He played against Australia in New Zealand in 1956 and represented his coun-

try in the world amateur .Championships in England in 1958. The only other amateur who is a really close rival of Jones is Charles, and Jones has beaten him in each of the three matches they have played. It was a pity Charles did not get through to the amateur final this year, for it would have been an excellent match. Another Season Jones made an important contribution to golf at Paraparaumu Beach, apart from his lessons in deportment and technique. He was not one of the amateurs whose excessively slow play held up the field so often, and brought about the only hitch in an excel-lently-controlled tournament. The professions, with the exception of young E. J. MacDougall, played briskly and sensibly. Many of the amateurs were ludicrously slow. It seemed, indeed, that among the amateurs, speed around the links went hand in hand with skill; the slower the player, the less skilful he was.