Mrs Jones Gets Her Gold Bracelet

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31162, 12 September 1966, Page 3

Mrs Jones Gets Her Gold Bracelet

Mrs Jones, of Hastings, will soon be wearing a unique bracelet. It will consist of six gold medals, won by her husband, S. G. Jones, at New Zealand amateur golf championships. Until Saturday she had only five of the six medals she needed to complete the bracelet. But Jones, playing E. H. M. Richards, of Canterbury, in ’he final, never looked like failing to win the sixth for her. He took the 36-hole match, 8 and 7, with another superlative display of precise golf, in which he was four under the card for the 29 holes. Jones, who is 41, is still four behind the almost legendary A. D. S. Duncan, who won the amateur title 10 times. But there is an enduring quality about Jones’s golf, and there seems no reason why he should not continue to lead the way, with his easy, controlled swing, and the phenomenal accuracy of his short game. He played seven rounds at

Russley to win the title, and although the course played very long, and the weather on four of the five days was, at best, unpleasant, he was four under par for the 127 holes he played. It was not a great final, because Richards could not find his best form, but there was compensation in the wonderful skill Jones displayed off the tees and around the greens. There could have been no more worthy champion. Richards had a harder succession of matches to the final than Jones, and it must have taken something out of him. After beating the durable M. W. Stanley, Richards had hard games in beating two New Zealand representatives. I. D. Woodbury and the 1965 winner, J. D. Durry, before meeting the longhitting P. A. Maude, of Waikato. Jones, however, was never taken beyond the fourteenth green by his first three opponents before he met R. C. Murray in a classic semi-final. The match with Murray was an exhausting one, and it was expected to tell on Jones on Saturday. So it might have done, had Richards been able to get in front early and apply some pressure. But the final was won and lost just before the turn in the morning. Richards threeputted the eighth and ninth greens, and they were fatal errors against as determined a player as Jones. Richards had the match squared at the fifth, and again at the seventh, and even at the thirteenth was only one down. But from that point tbe game

slipped away from him steadily. Only in his long irons did Jones suggest fallibility. At the longer holes, he missed onlythree fairways; Richards was off line 10 times. But Jones missed eight greens to Richards’s nine. However, his pitches, chips and putts were magnificent. Jones had 16 one-put greens, to seven by Richards; he had 43 puts in - all, compared with 54; and at the end of the match, his tally of inaccurate shots totalled only 15, to Richards's 32. Once Jones was in front, there never seemed any real prospect that he would falter. Time and again, a minor error would be recovered, and he simply shut Richards out of the match with the accuracy of his short game. Jones said after the final that he kept telling himself to attack the hole, to play for pars all the time, because the birdies would come if the putts dropped. They did, seven times. No wonder Richards remarked after the match that it was like playing against a machine. It was disappointing that Richards was below his best. But in his finest form, he would have found Jones almost unbeatable. Richards never gave any sign of lost confidence, but the regularity with which Jones got inside him must have had its effect. Jones was quite ruthless. and Richards, who had played wonderfully controlled golf the previous day, fell into error repeatedly. With little more than a threequarter swing, but with perfect timing. Jones was not much behind the powerful Richards off the tee, and his putting was

usually immaculate. He had to hole a succession of three, four and five-footers during the morning, and bowled them all in confidently, except at the seventh. Richards’s best chance of victory was almost certainly in upsetting Jones by getting in front early. But Jones struck the first blows, and they were telling ones. At the first hole he was just off the green with his approach, but putted in from 40 feet for a birdie, and it was a perfect assessment of borrow. Richards showed his quality in holing a tricky six-foot downhill putt to halve the second in birdies, but he played the third badly and Jones had put his tee shot four feet from the pin—a conceded birdie. Three under and two up after three holes put Jones to rights, but Richards hit back when he played into an icy wind at the fourth. Two fine shots gave him his 4, but Jones missed a putt of six feet. At the fifth. Richards played a good running chip and had his 4, but Jones pitched in to the puggy lower half of the green and was 20 feet short, to lose the hole. Jones holed a 15-footer for his birdie at the long sixth, but Richards squared the match again, in remarkable fashion, at the short seventh. Jones was 35 feet behind the pin and Richards in rough well to the right. His pitch was sadly short, but he holed a putt of 30 feet and Jones, a little strong with his approach putt, missed the return. Then came the two three-putt greens by Richards, and Jones, out in 36, one under, turned two up.

A beautifully-judged putt by Richards for a birdie at the twelfth reduced the lead, but Richards played a bad chip to lose the fourteenth and he threw the fifteenth away. They both missed the green and Jones, chipping back, went across it and had to chip back again. But this excellent chance was wasted, for Richards chipped weakly and the hole was halved. Inaccurate woods cost Richards the next two holes and he was four down at lunch— Jones a one-under 72. Richards approximately 79. Jones started the last 18 with a bad drive, but recovered for his half and the final blow for Richards was at the twentieth, where Jones rolled in ‘ a putt of 40 feet for an eagle 3. after a fine 4-wood second shot. So it went on, Richards making occasional errors. Jones none of consequence. A birdie 4 with a six-foot putt gave Richards the twenty-fourth, but Jones retaliated in kind at the twenty-seventh and a win with a par 3 at the next hole made him dormie 8. At the twenty-ninth, Jones played a bad drive and went through the green with his second. It was typical, and proper, that he should end the match with yet another fine chip which gave him his 4. and the half. The new international, B. A Stevens, of Hamilton, played some excellent golf in winning the New Zealand Plate from G. C. Stevenson (Waikare), 4 and 3, over 18 holes.

In the semi-finals, Stevens beat R. E. Clements (Templeton), 7 ’ and 6, and Stevenson defeated C. W. Caldwell (Christchurch), 2 and 1.