MUCH IMPRESSED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 107, 2 November 1938, Page 10

MUCH IMPRESSED

GOLFERS AND COURSES

BOBBY LOCKE INTERVIEWED

NEW ZEALAND TALENT

Belief that the best golfers in Australia and New Zealand, would compare very favourably with the finest amateurs in England was expressed by Bobby Locke, the South African g_»lfer, in an interview with a "Post" representative at Palmerston North today. Locke declared that J. P. Hornabrook, the present New Zealand open champion, with whom he played an exciting match at Masterton yesterday, was comparable with Jim Ferrier and H. L. Williams, the finest Australians, and he gave the opinion that Hornabrook on a tour Home would develop into a great player.

"The courses in New Zealand," said Locke, "are very good, and I have been much impressed with them. Comparing them with Australian and English courses, the chief lack seems to be hard fairways and hard greens, on which it is hot possible to play stop shots. However, I was impressed with the Hastings and Masterton courses, and I was also impressed with the capabilities of several players I have met, including A. Murray at Auckland, A. J. Dyke at Hastings, and I J. P. Hornabrook at Masterton." His liking of what he had seen of the country of New Zealand and of the people he had met was mentioned by Locke. He had been shown considerable kindness, and especially at Gisborne, where he had contracted ptomaine poisoning and a touch of influenza at the same time, a good deal of trouble was taken on his behalf. He has hopes that his attempt on. the New Zealand open title at Dunedin next week will be successful. He will leave New Zealand on November 20 and play a few matches in Australia before returning to South Africa. There he plans to remain for about three months before going to tackle the British open again. "I have no doubt at all," he said, "that England should be the Mecca of players from the Dominions. In England you have to play good golf to be at all successful, and I am perfectly certain that the finest players in New Zealand, as in Australia and South Africa, could do very well indeed, given adequate opportunity of acclimatisation, in the Old Country. Speaking in the golfing sense, I believe that the great trouble with the Dominions is that they are too much inclined to under-rate the capabilities of their best players. Experience will show otherwise." This afternoon Locke was to partner T. S. Galloway, of Rotorua, against B. M. Silk (New Zealand amateur champion) and 'K. S. Glendinning in a fourball match on the Horowhitu links. Rain had fallen all the morning, and i the course was very damp for the match. Locke will come on to Wellington this evening.