RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31662, 24 April 1968, Page 24

RANDOM REMINDER

PLAY THE GAME

We have long been among those who have the deepest admiration for the way women golfers play the game. This is not to suggest that every C grade lady player has the enchanting swing of a Marilyn Smith; indeed, there are some whose style suggests an old-fashioned method of beating carpets without having one’s heart in the job. But lady golfers are sticklers for etiquette, and for the proper observation of the rules.

That is why it was a great disappointment to hear of the woman playing at Hanmer recently in a tournament which attracts hundreds of her kind and keeps many Christchurch homes working at half-speed while they are away playing golf and . up. This competitor

reached the short fourth hole, a dreadful little arrangement of traps and temptations, fences, stream and impenetrable bush. She contrived to put her tee shot into a quite unplayable lie, and on the advice of a colleague went through the drill for dropping, in preparation for her next shot.

She faced the hole, and dropped the ball over her left shoulder to a position inside her loose blouse and somewhere about the small of her back. This manoeuvre provoked a great deal of merriment among those who saw it occur, and, later, among just about all those playing in the tournament. The player herself, giggling rather self-con-sciously, had to have her partner dive a hand in and retrieve the bajl, with

the remark that it was as well they were not playing in a mixed foursome. The point of all this, of course, is that the player clearly infringed the law and the spirit of the law. Rule 22 (a) clearly states how to drop the ball, and includes these words . . . “If the ball touch the player, or if it come to rest against the player and moves when he moves, there is no penalty, and the ball shall be played as it lies.” The player’s action can only be regarded as complete cowardice, and we can only hope that should she see these words she might determine to mend her ways; so that next time she goes to Hanmer she includes, among her woods and irons, a good, strong, long - handled loofah. *