A LONG DRIVE

Dominion, Volume 25, Issue 248, 15 July 1932, Page 7

A LONG DRIVE

Bird Flies Off With Ball INCIDENT ON GOLF LINKS What is probably the longest golf drive ever made by a Wellington player was accomplished by Mrs. Wallace on the Shandon links on Wednesday. Mrs. Wallace was playing in a competition arranged by the Shandon’MidWeek Ladies’ Club, and hit a spanking drive off the eighth tee. “That was not a bad one for me,” she remarked, but it was even a better one than she imagined, as a huge bird swooped down and, grabbing the ball in its beak, rose into the air, and soared across the Hutt River with it. Alighting on the opposite bank, the bird, no doubt imagining the golf ball to be an egg, proceded to have morning tea. Finding the ball the hardest nut it had ever attempted to crack, it picked up the ball once again and flying back across the river, deposited it close to the spot on the eighth fairway from which it had taken it. Deciding, however, to have another try at this stubborn “egg,” the bird swooped down and picked up the ball again. One of the groundsmen on the links then took a hand in the game by throwing the rake he was carrying at the uninvited caddy. This inhospitality offended the visitor to the links, who, dropping the ball, headed straight out to sea. The players all declared that the bird was an albatross, and it may hqve been identical with the one seen in Wellington harbour about a month ago. Ball-Stealing by Crows. “With the golfing season in full swing, the usual tales of ball-stealing by crows are flowing in,” states the Sydney "Bulletin.” “During a competition at Mildura (Vie.) the crows were so thick and determined that a man was sent ahead of each pair of players armed with a gun to keep the raiders off. At- Killara, Sydney, the sooty nuisances were so bad during the annual tourney of the Old Sydneians that most of the players lost valuable balls during the round, one man having to replace as many as three—and with balls at 3/6 each that is no light matter. One associates’ foursome came back to the 19th eight balls down between them. Crows in other countries seem to have no taste for golf balls. In South Africa, and India, where the black ruffian is always ready to thieve anything else, golfers make no complaint of him. In Britain one hears of an occasionttl theft by a seagull from seaside courses. Anyway, what does the crow do with the balls? He is a wise fowl and is not likely to harbour the delusion that the things are edible after one experiment.”