GOLF NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CIII, Issue 141, 17 June 1922, Page 13

GOLF NOTES

(By "Bunkers.")

It is to be hoped that the leading centres of golf in the Dominion will be able to guarantee £40 each to ensure the visit of Hagen and Kirlnvood. The Golf Council has approved of the visit, if the clubs assure the council of sufficient financial support, and replies must be forwarded before the next meeting of tho council, in order to allow of the arrangements being made before the touring professionals leave the- United States In October.

the contest for the British Open Championship opens on Monday next, and will, as usual, be decided by four rounds of stroke play. We notice that Jock Hutchison has crossed from the States and is in England to defend the title which he won last year after playing off a tie with the Oxford amateur, Mr. Wethcred.

We do not wonder that the critics are busy with the Scotch-American in regard to his iron clubs. Last year the British governing body plainly indicated that it regarded the heavily-ribbed irons need by the Americans for getting back spin on the ball as a departure from the traditions, and that so much ribbing would not be allowed in future competitions. We fead that Hutchison has endeavoured to evade the letter of this ruling by having holes bored in his mushie. Such holes can only have been drilled with the idea that the sharp edges would have the same stopping effect as ribs, and the practice is a clear breach of the spirit of the ruling. We shall be very much surprised if the council in control ,does not act very firmly to prevent a competitor obtaining any such unfair advantage over his fellows. , _ ■ It was very sporting of the Otaki Club to be able to muster a team of twelve at the Hutt last Saturday, considering that the visit involved over a hundred miles of motor driving during one winter day. Two tars came down over the Moonshineroad, but the drivers were sufficiently impressed with that route to avoid returning the same way, and went back via Ngahauranga, though it involved an extra ten miles. , One party had four punctures coming down and three returning. Such travelling iv the cold is not the best preparation for playing a match, especially on a course never before visited. It has been suggested to us that we should invite golfers to send us in what they consider a good golf story which is not a chestnut, We cordially do so, and invite responses. Our good friend Mr. Oka Heketa has returned to the charge and sent us the following letter:— You were kind enough to publish my suggestion as to what may be regarded as the reason for J. H. Kirkwood rising on his left toe before the club moves on the backward swing, and, as your scientific researches revealed, it cannot possibly be intended to secure proper timing or transference of weight. Perhaps the following notes by Abe Mitchell on 'when the left foot should move" may give Some assistance. It seems by these notes the left foot moves either up or down before the club, so as to ensure their work.Vg in harmony at the moment of contact. We never suggested that Kirkwood did not consider his peculiar left foot work conducive to good timing. Our own theory is that Kirkwood first raises his left side by raising his left heel straight up off the'ground in order to secure the easy flow and pivot of his body without swaying, arid '*■ certainly does have this effect, and adds enormously to the chances of timing the blow with .the maximum speed and weight behind it, the body having resumed its firm position on both feet with preponderance of weight on the left log held firm at the moment of impact. Abe Mitchell is known as one of the finest of living match players and longest and straightest of big hitters, though he docs not shine in stroke competitions. His contribution to the problem we have been discussing is valuable and illuminating and appears based on sound practical arguments. I-l^says: "There has been a great argument as to the functions of the left foot in golf: what they are and when they operate during the period of the swing. Some say that the left foot rises before the club head moves away from the ball, and others that it only begins to move at the same moment as the club head starts.

It is important that whatever the left foot does it must work in unison with the pace of the club head. If the left foot he a shade late in beginning to turn, there is nothing surer than that it will be engaged in a desperate struggle to catch up with the speed of the club head. This will tend to make the stroke a hurried -one, and the club will not be under control all the way both up arid down. Though it may n'ofAbe perceived by the eye or recorded by the camera, the action of the left foot really begins sooner than the initial movement o£ the club away from the ball, for the pace of the club is .faster han the body can conveniently work, and in order that both should be together it is better to start the foot action slightly before the club. That, too, will ensure the left foot being set firmly on the tee ready to withstand the shock of the blow. The blow must be delivered with both feet on the ground and with most of the weight carried by the left foot. If players ;would practice to control the actions of the left foot and to see it went up and down fast enough to be the initial movement in the swing I am sure their driving would become- vastly longer and better."

- Now, the above theory is contrary to the general one taught by the professionals, but we have near at hand a striking example of its successful practice. The swing of Brooks, the Hntt professional, exactly conforms •to Mitchell's theory. His left foot and body begin to turn an appreciable time before his club head leaves the ball in a leisurely manner, and when in the return swing the club head is about three feet from the ball the body has resumed its firm stance, and is braced.to withstand the shock of a remarkably swiftly delivered blow where the hitting is done at the bottom of the swing. Brooks is neither tall nor heavy, and yet we have seen no golfer in New Zealand to consistently outdrive him.

Willie M'Ewan was a popular man at the New Zealand championship meetings, md filled the "pro.'s" position at Middlemore, Auckland, and at Heretaunga. He won the professional championship in match play at Napier three years ago, under extraordinarily trying conditions. He was suffering from gastric inflammation during tha tournament, and a doctor, a friend of the writer's, doped him each day with just sufficient opiate to deaden the pain and allow him, to struggle through his matches to the final, which lie won; and ho afterwards gratefully a-cknowledged that the medical sport won the event for him. M'Ewan was given letters o£ introduction by a local M.P. and golfer to the club officials in California, and has secured a good post, ns first professional at the Praesidio Golf Club. How he recently sustained his' New Zealand reputation is graphically told by newspaper special correspondents in a match where he was partnered by his fellow club professional against Jim Barnes and Jock Hutchison, the American and British open champions respectively, the lattar pair only winning on the sixteenth green by three and two. fie certainly held his own against either of the big gonSj but naturally could not

play their best ball. In publishing part of the correspondents' reports of tho match, we draw special attention to what is said about the value of putting and the excuses made for weak potting, because on this head we propose next week to enlarge. Not half enough attention is paid by golfers to the value of sound putting. " Hutchison is a merry fellow and an unfailing source for anecdotes and stories. Barnes is as droll as Jock is merry. Barnes showed a flash of crackerjack golE with his birdie four for the eighteenth yesterday .afternoon. But where he and his pard really shone was on the nineteenth green. There they showed some speed, I'll say. But as tho Bard of Avon would have said, ' the golf's the thing.' And as to yesterday's golf, the best that can truthfully be said to those not present is that they missed a pleasant outing in good company for one thing, and the first public try-out of the new 'pro.' from New Zeaalnd for another.

" M'Ewan won everyone by the plucky golf he played. Ho took the occasion vtry seriously—too seriously for the pcod of iiis own game. He went into the match much too tense—too much witi: the air of 'the mortgage on the old homestead will be foreclosed if I don't beat both champions to-day.' I felt sorry for .John MacO rogor. He's a r.ice feJlow, and ho knows golf. But with him it seemed to be a case of being publicly butchered to make a golfing holiday. His game was out of repair, and he knew it. That is a sad plight to be in on a public occasion.

" M'Ewan had Feel of the Greens frequently.—l heard some excuses made for the champions because the course is still new in part. Also the time-worn alibi, 'the green,' was dragged out on their behalf. The most equitable retort to that seems to be that they putted doggone poorly on a number of greens on which - M'Ewan putted right well. On the first green M'Ewan putted 25ft for the hole, and failed by only a few inches. The second hole he won with a 12ft putt, when the two champions' putts were N.G. It was up to M'Ewan again, on the fourth green, aud he holed out finely for a three. His putting on the sixth was best. Both champions were on the seventh green from the tec, but each took three putts. Both wore on the eighth in two, but neither holed out. From champions onlookers expect a birdie at least every now and then. Hutchison did hole his mashie approach from fringe of ninth very finely for a birdie. But M'Ewan barely missed halving it with a long ■ putt that shaved the cup. Jock failed with a five-yard putt on tenth, and then foozled one of two. feet—oh, ho can be just as punk as anyone, even though he be a champion, if you want to know the truth—but M'Ewan holed his second putt for the half. M'Ewan again had a ten-foot putt to save the eleventh, and sank it cleanly. From far corner o£ thirteenth M'Ewan putted finely for. a two, and lay dead for a three, which won the hole. On fourteenth M'Ewau and Barnes ■> each putted for a three. M'Ewan's hung on the rim, and he won this hole when Barnes missed a, second putt which was barely a yard. On sixteenth hole M'Ewan shaved the cup again with a very long putt for a birdie two. On seventeenth Mac sank a longish putt to win in four. So don't tell me it was 'the greens.'"

A comparatively short time ago there came about a sharp division between the American Golf Association and St. Andrew's Rules of Golf Committee in regard to the playing of stymies. The ancient authority has always consistently stood out for the preservation of the stymie despite its very general unpopularity— on the ground of unfairness in closelycontested matches. The American Council yielded to the popular clamour, and allowed various .district councils to modify the rule. The several attempted modifications have caused such unexpected complications that even the Western Union", which was always strongest against the stymie, has at last given in. The supreme council has finally decided to revert to the old St. ' Andrew's rule, and he stymie has been restored to its full placo in the game in the United States. The same rules govern the game practically wherever1 it is played.,