GOLF.

Dominion, Volume 18, Issue 57, 1 December 1923, Page 19

GOLF.

(By

“Niblick.”)

SHORT PUTTS “Keep yer ’ee ’a the ba’ and dinna press” is ridiculed by a golf author as advice to the highly-strung AngloSaxon. “A golfer needs an alprt attitude towards his ball,” he soys, and this sloppy frame of mind is useless. Glare at the ball, and smite it.” Miramar is holding a ladies’ day on Thursday. . . In view of the presentation of trophies at Miramar by His Excellency the Governor-General to-day, the professionals and amateurs four-ball at Ranui has been put off until next Saturday. A curiosity of the Broxbourne tournament was the play of F. H. ITrostick, of St. George’s Hill, who in his first round broke tho record of the course with a 69, and then, with an 84 for the second failed to qualify. .

At many clubs the longest drive is from the station to the course. H. A. Black, the former holder of tho Mornington title, and thp runnerup this year, was down for a week with influenza recently, just as he was getting into very good form. He 'diould, however, show up well at the .Johnsonville championships.

WELLINGTON CHAMPIONSHIPS

What rifle shots would characterise as a fish-tail wind took possession of tho Heretaunga links over the weekend, when the qualifying round for the Wellington Club’s championships was lioing played, and this, combined with what were quite fiery fairways for Heretaunga, led nearly all players into trouble. Heretaunga golfers are used to getting the most out of their second shots, as there is generally very little run at tho end, but the links 'arcl now browning with the breath of summer, and the balls irund’e merrily. The greens, on the contrary, though in perfect order, were not quite so fast as they looked, and, while approaches, aided by the wind, often went too well, a lot of putts were short. The seeding rough is dense, a splendid trap for the pullers and slicers, who are wont to find tlieir halls teed up off the fairway here, and there was so much life in the tuff that balls with a modicum of slice or hook found trouble.

The best card in tho morning found was that of J. Duncan, who did a 76, remarkably good golf under the circumstances. Out, his record was 5/?.’i30453, in. 545354445, the 37 out (5 under bogey) being an outstanding performance. K. Duncan also did a 76, and wound up his afternoon round with three 4’s. Tucker played very steady golf, a round of 81 in the morning, and three under bogey 77 in the afternoon.

A. D. S. Duncan, who went round with J. B. Mac Ewan, was not free of trouble, but showed his quality as a golfer by emerging with a 78 and a 75. Ho was suffering an attack of pulling with all his clubs. His cards read 454434656, 444533434. At the third he found the bunker at the left, and then went right across the green. At the fifth he found the hunker to the right of tht> green with his tee shot, but holed out in 3. The sixth was a neat 4. At the seventh he pulled into the bunker with his second, and d'd not get out, and that hole cost him 6. A pulled teo shot into the long grass at the ninth could not be found, and, playing his third from the tee, he took a 6. He had a clinking drive at the tenth, level with tho big tree, and that hole and the two next were taken in neat fours. At the twelfth he played a fine brassie out of the rough under the trees. His second at the thirteenth ran through thp green, and perched on the bunker. His approach putt was short, and the hole took 5. A fine long approach putt gave him tho fourteenth in 3. He was over the bunker at tho short fifteenth, narrowly missed a putt over the bunker, and was down in 3. A perfect 3 was recorded at tho seventeenth and eighteenth. Few players would have emerged so well from such a series of mishaps. The tenth in the afternoon cost MacEwan 8, as he pulled out of bounds, and sliced his next into the rough, taking two to get out. He found the pot-hole bunker on the left at the first, struck the mound bunker at the eighth and stayed there, and got into the rough at the sixteenth, with the tree close in front of him, but played a splendid niblick shot on to the green. With an 8, and three 6’s, his afternoon round was 85. The first round of the championship will be played this week-end. ARTHUR HAM FOR ’FRISCO Arthur Ham, the Heretaunga professional, has shaken the dust of New Zealand off his feet in favour of America, for which haven of professional enterprise he left on Tuesday,' with many photographs of the Heretaunga links, and a bag of old balls to drive off the fo’c’sle head on the way across, to keep his hand in. He had no fixed plans when he left, nnd will no doubt cover quite a lot of America before he settles down. Ham is a neat and. crisp player, with every club in his hag, and with more practice than he got in Wellington with players of his own calibre, should do well, if he can master rhe temperamental equation in golf. Perhaps rightly, ho says that more money is being freely spent on the sport in America than anywhere else. LE ROI EST MORT Twinkle, twinkle, golfing star, Winning out in under par, Champion now —a superman, Next year, who knows? An also rail I Nineteen hundred and twenty-three, as usual, has been a year of slaughter for golf champions who won their crowns last .'■wring, summer, and autumn. At the start of the season Sarazen was United States ojien champion, Hagen was British, open champion, Sweetser was United States amateur champion, Holderncss was British amateur champion. Miss Wethered was British women’s champion, Miss Collett was United States women's champion. Here are six great champions: Hagen, Sarazen, Sweetser, Ilolderness, Wethered, nnd Ccllett. Yet not one was able successfully to defend a national title, except Sarazen, and that only by a brilliant week's play. There is no fluke champion m the new list, none that hasn’t proved golf greatness before 1923. In America Bobby Jones has proved his great skill year' after year, ever since ho was fourteen. ‘Max Marston, amateur champion, been playing scund golf for years. Nino years ago he came close to beating Ouimet. who later won tho title. Oniy other brilliant golf has ch'.fked his mareh boforc.

In England both Roger Wethered and Arthur Havers, two <.f the new champions, have been near the front rank for several years. \\ ethered tied Jock Hutchison for the open title at St. Andrew’s in 1921. IS THE GAME TOO EASY ? Golfers read with astonishment that in the Midland professional championship at Edgmaston, Birmingham, one of the players who tied for first place, Ernest Hanton, had eight 3’s in nine consecutive holes. Not many years tigo (Air. R. E. Howard writes in the “Daily Mail”) it was a rare thing for anybody to obtain four 3 s in a whole round. ‘Now —when courses everywhere are longer than they used to be—it happens frequently that rows of 3’s appear in a score with nil the symmetry of peas in a pod. The prevalence of low scoring raises mevitaablv the question as to whether golf is becoming absurdly easy. To the late beginner, who is. constantly struggling with adversity on . the links, tho suggestion may seem grimly ironical, but it is a fact that firstclass players do nowadays make the game look ridiculously simple. I' or this state of affairs it is customary to blame the modern ball, with its tremendous capacities of carry and run. But it is by no means the, only agency at work. Watching important golf in many points, 1 have become convinced during tho past year or two that an equally important factor in the simplification of the game is the evolution of the inashie-niblick. With this club approaching has been robbed of almost half its difficulties. Some years ago virtually all approaches were played with a mashie, whichi called for infinite skill in the application of bhek-spin, or side-spin, in order to impart “stop” to the ball, or else judgment so as to illow accurately for the run. The mashie-niblick has solved the problem. It lifts the bill high into tho air and makes it fall almost perpendicularly, so that a long run is impossible, and back-spin, therefore, unnecessary. At distances between 90 and 120 yards, one sees champions playing artless full bangs with it; the shorter the distance the. ball has to go, the higher they thump it into the air. The old art of regulating the strength of the shot is passing. This it is. nearly as much as the ball, that is making golf scores often look ridiculous. WOBBLY GREENS WSbbly greens are becoming more and more popular. They certainly add to the fun of the game, and every course should have at least a couple of them. Flayers who are used to the dead-level green find themselves hopelessly at sea when they go to other links. The new seventeenth at Heretaunga has a ' well-defined hump down the middle, so arranged as to make for careful approaching. It runs in tho same line, more er less, as the approach shot, and rhe playei who gets on the wrong side has to putt over this bald-headed biuiker. When the greens are dry, a putt that tops the ridge has an alarming arncunt of run on the down grade, nud it is very difficult to gauge the pace so as to hole out. A. D. S. Duncan allowed what can be done in putting over ridges last week-end. He was over the bunker at the fifteenth with his tee shot, but, instead of taking his niblick, he used his putter. The bunker lay lengthwise between ball and hole, and tho ball had to be played along the side of the bunker and over two side ridges, yet had it been played a little more softly it would have holed out. Tim annoying part of these wobbly putts is that direction so largely depends on pace, and both must be exact to succeed.