Thomson Finds Holes Too Small

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30603, 20 November 1964, Page 15

Thomson Finds Holes Too Small

The inexpert golfer may sometimes feel, when facing an eight-foot putt, that the hole has somehow shrunk. A very expert golfer in the New Zealand Open at Shirley yesterday stated quite definitely that the holes had become too small.

He was P. W. Thomson, the great Australian player. Playing the short thirteenth, he struck his putt well, but the ball, after hitting the hole, jumped out. Without hesitation, Thomson strode to the hole and jammed his putter in it, as a measure. His putter, he explained to officials later, was a particular length and offered an accurate measure of the diameter of a hole. According to regulation,

the hole must measure four inches and a-quarter in diameter, and be not less than four inches deep. The cup, the rules state, must be sunk at least one inch below the surface of the green, unless the state of the soil makes that impracticable. At the end of his round yesterday, Thomson went to the eighteenth green with officials and said the cups at Shirley were too far down. Thomson explained that when greens were watered and the cups too deep, an expansion of the soil occurred which caused a slight compression of the earth above the cups.

Thomson said that other visiting golfers had also noticed that even quite slow putts were sometimes running around the cup and staying out. The difference in diameter caused by the expansion of soil must be barely measureable, but the tournament course committee has accepted Thomson’s comments as being helpful. On the eighteenth green Thomson had a cup placed about half an inch below the surface. The cups today will be at least an inch below the grass level, but before play begins the greens will all be cut and the holes then measured. Watering of the greens is regarded by players as well as officials as essential, otherwise well-played pitch shots would seldom stay on the greens.