CRACKS ON THE FAIRWAY

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 131, 30 November 1933, Page 20

CRACKS ON THE FAIRWAY

A new rule obtained at the Pioneer | Hill Club, Great Britain, when tho* southern section of professionals held their qualifying test to provide 28 com-! petitors for tho match play stages of the British £1040 golf tournament. In view of the number of cracks on the fairway, fore-caddies were employed at a number of hoies, and a now regulation provided that a "ball lying in a crack on the fairway may be lifted and dropped without penalty." On the day before the tournament, when all the 14& professionals were practising, several balls were lost in the cracks, threatening all sorts of dire disaster for good medal/rounds in the making. On the opening day Abe Mitchell, playing in his greatest form, was thp ,un-witting victim of a minor golf tragedy. On the sixth green Mitchell had holed out in par figures when his partner, A. J. Lacey, discovered that, both of them were playing with the wrong ball- It appeared that the mistake had occurred when Mitchell had played his second shot, but the players proceeded to the ninth hole, near tho clubhouse, where they reported tho matter. Mitchell insisted that he had erred, and in the circumstances both players were disqualified, to the regret

of everyone, especially as Mitchell, who took only 32 strokes to the turn, had the record of tho course'at his mercy. As it was, this was broken by three players, for A. H. Padliam, E. Whitcombe, and Percy Allis all returned 70.