THE WILL TO WIN

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 1, 1 July 1922, Page 19

THE WILL TO WIN

AUTO-SUGGESTION AND GOLF.

. The present vogue of auto-suggestion in connection with disease has inspired the golf critic of the London Daily Telegraph to discuss the subject in its possible relationship to that game. Can auto-suggestion be applied to golf t This, thought flashed across my mind whilst at Stoke Poges on Saturday, "he writes. I was standing by the fifteenth tee, vaguely wondering why it is that at times we play so ill that our game is hardly recognisable, when I was startled out of my reverie by hearing this strange chant—"l will win a hole; I will win a hole"; and then, emphatically, "Yes; I will win a hole." Looking up, I saw a vary distinguished golfer, no less a person than Mr. JR.. H. de Montmorency, a severely practical gentleman, especially where golf is concerned, muttering this odd monologue. It is hardly conceivable, but nevertheless true, that Mr. Montmorency, an'awesome individual with a plus two handicap—it was plus four until everybody's status came down a couple of niches —who played for England against America last year, and hopes to be at Boston this summer to take his, rsvenge on Master Bobbie Jones, had trudged round fourteen holes of Stoke and had never won a hole. Arid, tnlth to tell, He had never looked like winning one. All measures —desperate, fantastic, and otherwise—'had been of no avail, so as a last resort he was driven to treatment of his multiplicity of golfing diseases by autosuggestion. "I will win a hole," he declared, and, by Jove, he did. It was the fifteenth—472 y^rds—where he had his longest drive of the day, and was down in four. "I wish I had thought of M. CoUe before," remarked Mr. Montmoretlcy, who had not enjoyed his golf one little bit. .. i • ' The fifteenth' was his solitary ewe lamb; he had either forgotten ; the formulae at the last three holes, or it failed to..function. However, whether auto-suggestion, with the parrot-like repetition of ejaculatory phrases, can be explored to advantage in the playing of golf, against a seen or unseen adversary, I must leave'■ to each golfer to determine for himself/ But it is not unreasonable to suppose that if a man stricken with, chronic rheumatism can, by application of the'doctrirje of'siig-'. gestion, leap into iho air and run a hun»dred yards, a golfer slibuld,'without;much> difficulty, be able to cure •.the disease of topping or the ,Joathsdm6 plague ,df slicing. "I am getting better, ..better, better every day" irtay/yet become. a ; ' slogan; of the links. It may not sound nice, it may; even sound churlish, but there" is sonier thing very comforting in seeing, even1, if it is only once in a lifetime, a great golfer in abject despair. ■.' ■','■■;■;„ ■'•