GOLF

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 140, 14 June 1924, Page 18

GOLF

[BY "BAFFT"!

June 21—Bogey at Miramar June 21—Hutt v. Otaki, at Otaki. Nortn" HUtfc T' Manawatu- at Palmerston June 2G-British Open, Hoylake. July 2-Wellington v. Hutt (ladies), at Hutt. shf ser I~American Women's ChampionSeptember a—Sew Zealand Open and Amateur, at llnldtemore.

The latest. in freak handicapping is reported by "The Post's" special correspondent in London. He writes:

"Mr. Harry Rountree, the well-known artist (formerly of Auckland), woh a golf match played under novel conditions at Littlehampton. He was opposed, in a better ball match, by Ted Ray and George Duncan. Instead of tho usual stroke start, the amateur was conceded ah allowance of 150 yards, to be used as the amateur saw fit. In using this distanco he was permitted to move his ball say from a bunker on to tho fairway, the distance between the two points being deducted from the 150 yards. That the professionals underestimated the value of such a concession was exemplified by the fact that Mr. Rountree won by 6 to 5, having used only 50 yards 2 feet of the allowance. An incident •which showed the impotence of the professionals under the conditions occurred at a hole where a full wooden club shot is required to get on to the green Duncan got a magnificent tee shot dead on; Ray was short, but he holed out in two. Mr. Rountree was short too, bul he took 20 yards of his allowance to halve the hole.

With an allowance of 150 yards one should Manage to save anything from two to three strokes at every hole in a round, and the difference between the players would require to be very great. If any of my readers try the experiment it might be advisable to experiment with allowances of ten to twenty yards. HAVEKS v. SARAZEN. Arthur G. Havers, British open champion, completed his American tour in a manner fitting the holder of the world's •^*t°'JS ht-after B°lf title by defeating Bobby Jones, holder of the American open title, as described in this column a couple of weeks ago, and by then making hay of Gene Sarazen, who has had such a remarkable career in. match play, and who during the winter downed Havers 5 and 4 for the unofficial world's championship. In. the more recent match Havers won 5 up and 4, a"nd the pah- are to meet again, probably in England, to decide the business. Sarazen has trounced them all—Hagan and Barnes and Hutchinson, Ockenden and Havers. When the first half of his second match was over it looked as if he could deal with Havers at his own sweet leisure, and remain unbeaten king-pin of all he surveyed, in the land of the bunkered fairway. The messages describing the match state, inter aliaNew York, 27th AprU.—Arthur G. Havers, British open champion, succeeded to-day in accomplishing a feat that has baffled all of the master technicians of golf except one. The tall young Eng-! hshman defeated Gene Sarazen, holder of the P.G.A. title and .one of the greatest match players that the royal and ancient game has produced, by 5 up and 4 to play on the championship course of the Westchester-Biltmore Country Club. Adding to the brilliancy of Havers's deed was the fact that he. started to-day's round three holes in arrears. Yesterday, in the opening round of the 72-hole engagement, played over the Cedarbrook Club course in Philadelphia, Sarazen outplayed the British golfer at every turn, and was leading by 3 up when the two started out for their concluding rounds this morning. Havers lost no time in reducing his opponent's lead, for after the sixth hole had been played to-d;vy the match was all square, Sarazen dropping the first, second, fourth, and sixth. Havers took the lead at the seventh, lost the eighth to make the match, all even again.but started to pile up a lead at the tenth, and from this point on he was-never headed. He finished the morning round 4 up, having won ten out cf the 18 holes, while Sarazen gathered in only three. GENERAL NOTES. Jock Hutchinson declares that the Red Hill Golf Club of Upland, California, has the only real three-shot hole he ever played. Most holes, even those of 600 yards, can be reached by a long driver in two wood shots and a mashie pitch. But the fourth hole at Red Hill requires two long drives and- a full iron shot, and under normal conditions no player in the world can hope to do much better than this. .This 600-yard hole has an uphill fairway from tee to green, with a slight I dogleg to the right about 400 yards from the tee. At this point a bunker extends _ half-way across the' fairway from the right, and it is necessary to carry this bunker on the second shot if there is to be any possibility of reaching the ' green with the third. A shot played around the bunker does not leave the player a chance to get home with the j third. The crowning difficulty of this ! hole is the third shot. This shot must : be all carry, because the green is at the crest of a sharp rise, and a ball striking i the slope in front of the green will not roll on to the green. Almost everyone who has played this hole pronounces it the most difficult S-par hole they have ever seen. Probably not one round in 25 sees a par here. This would be a good hole for some of the experts to work out on when they get too sure of their ability to reach any green in two shots -

Golf is really a mirror. It makes the grandness of good men seem ever more splendid, and opens a vista into tha player's make-up in which the things that are not quite right stand out like storm shadows on an autumn sky. Golf and a card game known as poker are akin in one respect. There is no other stimulus to the emotions so capable oE showing a man as he actually is. In either game you may read a man fairly readily almost at a glance. Such facial camouflage and temperamental direction as he _ may possess is subject to such a battering stress that sooner or later it crumbles. Then the soul of the man

FREAK HANDICAPPING

EFFECT .OF 150 YARDS IN 6000

HAVERS' BRILLIANT RECOVERY

COMING EVENTS.

stands out, etark as the ghost of despair, as miserable and petty as a discovered cheat. . , . .

The story is told of a golfer from Aberdeen who was in another town, but ow-. ing to very bad weather golf was impossible. The traveller wanted to have a look round the town, but did not wish to carry his bag of clubs all day.. The charge at the railway station for looking after his clubs was 3d, which naturally alarmed the Aberdonian, so lie went into a pawnbrokers and pledged his clubs for 2s 6d, and in the evening returned and paid the extra id and redeemed them, thus saving 2i-d, says tha "Dundee Observer."

The first big professional tournament of the British season was woh by Ted Ray,_ at the Roehampton Club, Barnes. In his golfing career, which includes the winning of the British and American Open Championship, Ray had never won an important match-play tournament until this success, in which he defeated Rowland Jones, 53 years of age, by the narrow margin of■ a single hole. It was a magnificent achievement. Ray started well by heading the list oi players:who qualified on the first day, and ou the last day he paved the way for his success by defeating George Duncan, who was as strong a favourite for the tournament asa player had ever been, in the semi-final round. But though Ray did so well to win he owed his triumph to his power with the niblick and the putter. There is only one way to describe Ray's golf through the green, and that is to call it erratic. But Ray is most dangerous when his long shots are off the fairway. No golfer plays a niblick approach from the rough or sand as well as Ray, and many a time he not only saved himself from the probable loss of a hole but actually won holes that he seemed to be losing by grand niblick shots, while it seemed that he was dead when anywhere within two or three yards of the hole, bo deadly was his putting with an aluminium club. It was in thia manner that he beat Georga Duncan in the semi-final. Duncan' started well enough, and held a lead early in the match, but on' five greens Ray took a single putt, and.many of those putts were long ones. That ac« counted for the downfall of the favour* ite. The other semi-final was betweed Rowland Jones and Fred Robson The former did deadly work with his mashis and the latter with his putter, hut Jones never held the lead until he laid Ms opponent a stymie on" the nineteenth, green, and thus won the hole for the match. There was never more than * hole between Jones and Ray in the final, and the loser played the better goli through the green. He was extremely steady, but not so powerful as Ray, and to describe the sixth and fourteenth Aolesis to epitomise the match. At the sixth—a short hole—Ray pulled his te* shot fully fifty yards dff the line, took his niblick, and put the hall less than two yards from the pin, and holed the putt for three. Jones on the edge of the green, and behind a hummock, was not dead in two, and this gave Ray the lead. Again, at the fourteenth Jones was on the green from the tee, but Ray was m a bunker to the left. He played a beautiful shot out an* holed a good putt for a half. The match was square at this stage, and for the first time Jones" took the lead, when Ray did what he' had more than once' done during the round—missed his drive.. Ray squared' at the sixteenth—a long uphill hole, too long for Jones, took the W at the seventeenth with a faultless pitch and putt, and halved the eighteenth to win tb.6 match.

Aot so very long ago I had the pleasure of teaching an. elderly man/ who, after jnquines, I discovered had been playmg for over 20 years. He wanted a lesson with all his clubs, he told me starting with his driver. This I thought, was only natural, seeing that the majority crave to drive first." remarks Arthur Le Feire, the well-known Australian professional. "But, with all due respect to his 20 years of experience with golf and •golfers, 1 could see in a flash that he had no more idea of hitting the ball correctly, let alone hitting it 100 yards, than of flying. At any rate, after ha had been given a good, sound lecture, with a few demonstrations, the next 15 minutes were devoted, to driving the ball, the like" of which—to use his own words—ho had never driven before. However, that is hardly the point. According to his own request, we started with the driver. The next thing was a lesson with the medium iron, which also resulted in 15 minutes' very successful shooting; but to my surprise after I had said 'Good shot' for tho umpteenth time he said, 'But they don't go half as far as they did with thafc wooden club !' The same thing occurred when he used his mashie niblick, and it was not until I explained what the' different clubs were for~(I must confess 1 felt a little embarrassed, realising his vast experience in the game)—that he realised that the clubmaker had nothing to do with teaching the different clubs to play tricks with their owners. Onecan hardly conceive anything more dreadful than this, but nevertheless it> is perfectly true. The man had been Paying golf for over 20 years, yet failed to realise why he did not get as far with ius medium iron—or mashie niblick, f6r that matter—as he did with his driver." Among the members of a London golf club_ there is a well-known Hariey street specialist. Although an even-tempered-man, he has one pet aversion; ha strongly objects to being called "doctor on every occasion, suitable or not On the links one morning, a fellowmember hailed him across the course; with the greeting: "Good morning, doctor ! ' "Good morning, chartered accountant !". came the sarcastic reply

In its original stats tho goose quill is tough, pliable, and full of pith. It is softened by insertion in clay and Uiert goes through the process technically; known as "clutching." This means bculr hold tor a tow moments in.a glowing coal fare and pressed on a. hot iron plate. Hold once more in the fiw, the quill springs to ite normal shape »nd ttttt B* ishins is ready, te be g^ "^