GOLF NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 136, 5 December 1935, Page 27

GOLF NOTES

A LOW STANDARD

PLAY JX THIS COUNTRY

COURSE IMPROVEMENT

SHOULD PAR BE ADOPTED ?

■ Visitors to this country have often remarked that New Zealanders appear to have an unconquerable feeling of inferiority to other nations as regards sport, as in other things, but those who have seen the exhibitions oil golf given by overseas visitors to the Dominion and those privileged to have toured in other countries can have no < doubt that we in New Zealand are lagging far behind other lands in the general standard of play. It must be conceded at once that this standard has improved to no inconsiderable extent during the past ten years, and it must be admitted, too ( that New Zealand has the largest number of golf clubs in proportion to its population of any country in the world. But this does not alter the fact that our standard of play Is low—very low. When a player has reached the stage when he can play eighteen holes in 85 or 90 nothing can do as much to improve his game as play on well-l.aid-out courses; and these are conspicuously lacking in New Zealand. • The remarks passed by Mrs. Hodson, captain of the British team of women players regarding the play of women in New Zealand, were very pertinent. She said "you must lengthen your courses, or they will never improve your game," that "there'are too many holes in New Zealand that need only a mashie second," and further, that "our courses at Home are much more bunkered than those in New Zealand, and are much longer." These words I are quite true, and plainly indicate the need for better test courses in the Dominion for women and for men. With very few ■ exceptions they do not provide real tests of golf—if the length is there the bunkering and trapping is wrong, or vice versa. COURSES TOO SIMPLE. Our courses are too simple; their architecture is stereotyped, and monotonous, and they lack character. Bunkers are laid down without any thought as to the length of the holes, or- as to the shots required to reach the greens. There is, moreover, a lack of "rough" off the fairways. •' "There should be very little opening into greens of oneshot holes, say up to 200 yards, and the same applies to greens which can be reached with a drive and a pitch from a 3, 4, or 5, iron," writes M. W. Horton, who has had much experience of course construction in the United States. "At long two-shot holes where a full iron, spoon, or brassie is required for second shots to reach the greens, the latter should be large and not too closely trapped. There are hundreds of holes in New Zealand of lengths varying from 350 to 450 yards with the greens trapped wide on each side, and with clear openings of y) to 1 15 yards. The laying out of such ! holes is entirely wrong. They have no character, they require very little ability to play them well, and their I worst feature is that they do not, and cannot, .help, to improve the standard of play." ' ■ ■■•''•?-.. I There is much sound sense in this | argument. Our courses, as Mrs. Hodson pointed out, are fair shorter than the championship courses in England and the United States, and they are inadequately and unscientifically bunkered. In many ■ holes it is only necessary for the player to hit a hard, straight ball and- chip reasonably accurately to return good figures. In so far, then, as they are too easy, our courses do not tend towards the improvement of the, standard of play. Yet there is nothing to prevent a player from bettering his own performance. STANDARD SCRATCH SCORES. There is also another means oi improving the standard of our golf: The adoption of par instead of the standard scratch score, for men's courses. The New Zealand Golf Council is more or less compelled to use the standard scratch score which is adopted throughout the British Empire, and which is based on the lengths of holes with allowances for "peculiarities" and other factors. This set score is a mark midway between the wretched old bogey and par, and is therefore neither one thing nor the'other. The present S.S. score is in some instances as many as four strokes higher than par, with the result that we have in New Zealand several or more amateurs with a plus handicap, which is a pure admission that the S.S. score is, wrong, since these amateurs are players only for the reason that they return scores on their own club courses, which are lower than the set S.S. score. In the United States, where par is used, .there are possibly only two or three amateurs on the scratch mark, but in the British Isles where the S.S. score is used, there are dozens of plus, and many scratch players. Par compels a player to reach for a higher standard of play. The United States amateurs have always beaten the British amateurs in Walker Cup matches, not because the former are generally better equipped but because they learn to play up to, and continue to play up to par, a very high' standard. Their game is based on.par which is set as near as possible to the following, allowing two putts on the greens:— \ Holes up to 220 yards .... Par 3 Holes from 220 to 480 yards Par 4 Holes from 480 yards up .. Par 5 How.many holes are there in New Zealand of even 200 yards in length with an S.S. score of 3? Almost invariably it is 4; and this sets a low standard. This being so, the S.S. score as adopted in New Zealand is not conducive to the improvement of the general standard of our golf. At Shirley, which is one of our best courses, par is 69 and the S.S. score 72, yet scores of competitors in this year's championship tourney returned cards of under 70; this was not due to good golf, but to a course that was too simple. At Miramar the S.S. score is 74, and par 70, and at Heretaunga they are 72 and 68 respectively. There is thus a difference in each case of 4 strokes, which represents the difference between moderate and good play. It may and may not be desirable to introduce par as the standard in New Zealand, but the present state of, affairs is clearly unsatisfactory. In the meantime, something can be done to make our courses more difficult and more scientific.