RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 28

RANDOM REMINDER

THE GAME’S THE THING

Those who can not follow the intricacies of scoring in golf need read no further; they would be better advised to have a look at some of the splendid advertisements above. But those versed in the mysteries of the game will appreciate this brief account of a match played recently in Wellington, on a typically windy day—an encounter which condensed all the dreadful iniquities practised by the handicap golfer. The man who plays regularly in a. club does not have very much opportunity of fiddling with the facts, but when men meet

in a so-called friendly fixture, one of the m l . spirited parts of the game is in the debate about the distribution of handicap strokes. *Td be about 24,” someone will say; ”1 used to be on 18 but I haven’t played much for years,” and so forth. In this Wellington affair, one of the players was on his home course, and his handicap was on the board for all to see. The others managed to squeeze 14 and 15 strokes out of him. They played a competition called “split sixes’’—six points being split up, at each hole, according to the finishing order.

The hostppl a t: nad a pretty grim He worked out afterwards that to have won each hole, his scoring would have had to be: eagle, bogey, eagle, eagle, eagle, eagle, bogey, birdie, birdie, birdie, eagle, bogey, hole in one, birdie, birdie, one over, birdie, eagle. This tots up to something like 21 strokes under scratch, or a round of about 49. To have won the match, by halving seventeen holes and winning the last, he would have had to play four under the card, 13 under bis handicap—in foul weather. There is no mention, yet, of a return game.