R. J. Charles Now A Successful Tournament Professional

Press, Volume C, Issue 29626, 23 September 1961, Page 9

R. J. Charles Now A Successful Tournament Professional

(from the London Correspondent of "Th* Press")

TF R. J. Charles, the brilA lian Christchurch golfer, looks faintly disturbed upon his arrival back in New Zealand soon, it will not be through any disappointment in personal performance. It will be because, having established himself as a successful tournament professional abroad, his activities may to some extent be restricted through N.Z.P.G.A. demands. He is likely to be especially exercised about the P.G.A. ruling that he must spend three months of the year in his own country. Financially, Charles has done well, and certainly very much better than he anticipated. “I have won about £l5OO in British tournaments since May,” he told me. "And I was recently listed tenth among the prizewinners on the British circuit. My earnings from Continental and other events has brought my season’s earnings to about £2000.”

Charles’s greatest success was in the Bowmaker event, at Sunningdale, which netted him £675.

“This has given me confidence for the future,” he added, “for a period that I

was prepared to write off as a complete loss financially as I gained experience and absorbed the tournament atmosphere has resulted in a comfortable coverage of expenses and a little profit as well.”

He said he was more than ever convinced that his future lay in the tournament golf field. He felt he had really done something towards putting New Zealand golf on the map, and the manner in which people had come up to him and questioned him about the Dominion and the game there had both thrilled and inspired him. “I hope, in the circum-i stances, that the N.ZJ’.G.A. will prove co-operative and reconsider the qualification which binds me to a threemonthly period in New Zealand. This year it will prevent my participation in a number of Australian tournaments—events which I would very much like to have contested. “As far as I am concerned I am now a full-time tournament professional. That Is my living. There can be no point in my sitting round at home; I want to get cracking.” Charles was due to have left for New Zealand last Wednesday by way of New York and Honolulu. He will play in the Caltex Thousand and the Open championship, and then he wants a little time with his parents “right away from golf for a day or two.” Incidentally, he confesses that romance has not caught up with him on the tournament trial: that matrimony and budding tournament professionals just don’t go together.

In February and March the New Zealander will play in tournaments in Hong-Kong, Manila, Malaya, and, possibly, Japan. From there he will leave for the United States and tournaments in California, Arizona, and Texas. Then it will be back to England in May for the British circuit, opening with the Martini international event.

Throughout the year Charles has had trouble with his driving, and he feels that there is some indefinable fault somewhere In his swing. He is not over-worried about that. He would, however, be a lot happier if his putting were more consistent. In some tournaments, even on some days of particular tournaments, he has banged them in from all parts of the green; 24 hours later, in identical conditions, he has

had the greatest difficulty in getting even the three-footers down. “I am not,” he said, "putting as well as I did five or six years ago as an amateur. As a matter of fact, I feel that my whole game needs to be “consolidated.” He quoted his performances in the recent Swiss Open, at Crans, a lovely 7100-yard course 5000 feet up in the Alps, as illustrative of his inconsistency. After two or three 68’s in practice rounds, he shot 73 and 71 in his first tournament rounds. This left him 12 shots behind the ultimate winner, K. D. G. Nagle, who started with a 65 and a

67. Charles, then 20th, moved up 13 places with his 65 and 69 on the final day—and he was actually the lowest scorer in the event for the last two rounds. That is the sort of thing he has had to combat throughout the season.

Confirmation that Charles had done really extraordinarily well in his first year as a tournament professional and probably very much better than many people in New Zealand realised came from the Australian golfers P. W. Thomson and K. D. G. Nagle, who have seen so much of the Canterbury left-hander in the last 12 months. It was during the final two rounds of the “News of the World" match-play championship on the lovely Surrey course of Walton Heathcommon land to which the public cannot be charged entrance money—that I had the opportunity to discuss Charles with the Australians. Neither made any secret of

the fact that Charles is the player above all others who could prevent their gathering in the major share of the prize money in the New Zealand Open and Caltex Thousand shortly. “Bob has improved enormously in his year on tour with the professionals." Thomson said. "Moreover, he is likely to go on improving, and, my word, Kel and I know just how hard he’s going to be to head off in the big New Zealand events. His switch to the- professional game has, I feel certain, been justified by results. “I wonder whether his effort in the British Open in

heading the qualifiers is quite as widely appreciated as it should be. That’s really something, you know, and I know Bob felt very proud at heading off a field of that quality, with Arnold Palmer and all those fellows playing. His 66 was a bit of a freak round, but even so . . .

“Poor Bob ... he was literally blown out of the British Open proper through striking an appalling gale, and, as you know, he can’t handle these conditions as well as some of us can." Charles, he said, had travelled mainly with the Australian and South African professionals on the various circuits and had proved - a thoroughly* popular companion. “And he’s been a real attraction for the galleries, too . . . you don't often see a really first-class lefthander, and tiiis is one reason why people everywhere have been fascinated by his golf.”