Personality as well as talent in Freyberg golf team

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31659, 20 April 1968, Page 11

Personality as well as talent in Freyberg golf team

“T WANT you to really x try this week, Toby,” said the Canterbury golf captain, R. C. Murray, to his big-hitting team-mate, E. H. M. Richards, on the eve of the 1964 Freyberg Rose Bowl contest in Palmerston North. “I will be trying, all right,” replied Richards quietly. And for once there was no twinkle in his eyes. There was no question of Richards not trying, of course. The gentle exhortation from Murray was a calculated move to put the powerful Richards on his mettle. The other members of the team received similar succinct messages from their captain: and it was not surprising that their play on the first day of the tournament was rather like a boxer throwing left hooks and right crosses from the opening bell. Murray, who is to captain Canterbury again in the 1968 Rose Bowl contest at New Plymouth next month, is not the sort of leader given to making tub - thumping speeches to his men. If anything, he is the exact antithesis of this type of captain, for he has the ability to convey his feelings with a terse word or two from the corner of his mouth, in the best traditions of Humphrey Bogart. This undemonstrative aspect of his make-up is evident in his play, as well. A fellow member of the Russley club recently counselled him to show a little feeling on the course, such as smiling when he holed a birdie putt.

“I would like to be able to do that, but it is just not part of me on the course,” countered Murray. The magnificent results he has achieved in the Dominion and in international teams’ matches overseas have all been due, in part, to the tremendous concentration he brings to bear on his game. But he does not purposefully seek the role of a Trappist monk on the course. “It can be very lonely out there, and there are many times when I would have welcomed a chat between shots," he says. “But people seem to think they might upset my game if they were to talk to me.” If Murray gives the impression of being the strong, silent man of golf, J. R. Broadhurst conjures up visions of a man who finds the game one long, joyous romp. One of the most popular golfers in Canterbury, Broadhurst seems to bubble round the course, wearing a perpetual grin. A

quip here, a cheery word there, makes him an ideal playing partner. There is none of Murray's stoicism about him when he gains a birdie, and when an eagle is achieved Broadhurst usually gives a very good imitation of a drop-kick. Beneath this cheery exterior, however, lies a different Broadhurst, a player who often ties his stomach into knots in his anxiety to do well. It is a strange mixture, but Broadhurst seems to be able to live with it. His game is running so smoothly this year that his inner feelings might soon be submerged by the confi-

dence borne of consistently good results. Richards, now in his sixth year as a Rose Bowl golfer, came into the game with a reputation as a “king hitter” in cricket—he once hit a six into the harbour at Akaroa—and a big kicker in Rugby—his penalty goal from his own 10yd mark in the 1948 Can-

terbury v. Wellington match still lives in the memory, for the ball landed on the full on the roof of the old members’ stand. With his powerful arms and shoulders, the Hororata farmer has become a spectacular golfer, a man who, with no apparent effort; seems to make a course shrink. The sight of Richards standing on the tee of a par five hole with a driver in his huge hands

used to cause a flutter of excitement among spectators and it is possible that Richards felt that he had an obligation to hit the ball as far as he could. These days the big, bluff farmer does not make a fetish of hitting a long ball; rather he uses his great power sparingly. But it must be a comfort to him, and to Canterbury, that he still has this ace up his sleeve—the ability to hit a crashing drive at a stage when distance off the tee could demoralise an opponent. The young man of the side is the 21-year-old D. R. Hope, whose star has been steadily rising in the golfing firnament since he first played in the provincial junior championships as an 11-year-old in

shorts. He has made great strides in those 10 years; from the cherubic youth in Harewood’s Simon Cup team he has become a dashing young man who has fearlessly tangled with the best amateurs in Australia and

New Zealand—with several satisfactory results. There have been occasions wh i Hope's temperament has let him down. The slamming of a club into his bag could be taken as a sign that things had gone awry. Now, it appears, Hope has harnessed this fire within him and he is a much better golfer, and a far more formidable match play opponent because of it. Perhaps he heeded the advice of the leprechaun of the links, P. B. Vincent, after his experiences in a major tournament at Russley. Hope holed out from a sand trap for a birdie at the second, and then proceeded to drop a shot here and there to take the gloss off his feat. Vincent reasoned that after his grand birdie. Hope should have gone behind a tree and worked off his nervous tension by screaming and jumping up and down. All these four players will be reassured that they

will have “Steady Ray” Atkinson with them at New Plymouth. A bom sheetanchor, Atkinson rarely has more than a faithful one or two spectators following him. but the exceptional accuracy of his iron play, in particular, makes him a consistent scorer, and the best place bet in Canterbury golf. If he has an Achilles heel, it is his putting. Last year at St Clair, he suffered agonies on the greens as he tried to coax the ball into the hole. In the course of the sevenround Freyberg tournament he adopted 14 different putting stances, and it was a tribute to his flawless golf from tee to green that he still managed to win four of his seven games. At New Plymouth, Atkinson will probably be the best-performed No. 5 on display. He is the co-holder of the national foursomes title, and in 1965 he was the runner-up to J. D. Durry in the national amateur championship on a dreadful windtossed day that played such havoc with his hair that he finished the match looking like a golfing Medusa. Last year “The Press” used a photograph of Atkinson taken on this occasion, but Atkinson feels it would be better if the print was destroyed. As a small contribution to the team’s peace of mind at Ngamotu, this we have done.