DOUGLAS FOR SCOTLAND

Evening Star, Issue 18046, 14 August 1922, Page 7

DOUGLAS FOR SCOTLAND

BID FOR WORLD’S GOLF HONORS. E. S. Douglas, open champion golfer of Now Zealand, has decided to carry out a long-cherished desire to have a tilt for world honors, and with this end in view he left Now Zealand for Edinburgh by the Arama. Four times open champion of Now Zealand, there is no necessity (says the Dominion ’) to enlarge upon she fact that Douglas is a very fine exponent of the game. Ho hails, as can be readily recognised by his accent, from the “ Land of Brown Heath and Shaggy Woods,” the veritable cradle of golf. Here at the early age of twenty he finished amongst the first twenty in the Scottish Professional Championship at Cardross. Had he stayed amongst the lochs and fells he might to-day have been as well known in golfing circles as Abe Mitchell, Ted Ray, or George Duncan. But young Douglas, like most of his countrymen, was of an adventurous disposition. He “ yearned beyond the skyline, whore the strange roads go down,” and at the age of twenty-two he packed his grip, and, not forgetting his bag of golf clubs, set out for America. In Scotland he had been associated with the Newton More Club (Perthshire) and the Fort George Club (Morayshire), The young Scotch professional on arriving in America had no difficulty in obtaining an engagement with the Preselio Club, San Francisco, where he remained for three years. He then secured a better appointment with the Menlo Park Club, San Francisco, and held this for two years. . Douglas did well in professional tournaments in America, finishing third in the professional championship of California at Del Monte and fourth at Ingleside. Ho never once failed to be amongst the prize money in America, nor, indeed, has he once failed in this respect in any professional championship for which ho has entered since leaving Scotland. Douglas arrived in Now Zealand In 1912, and at once demonstrated to golfing circles in this country that a great player had come amongst them. He won the New Zealand open championship in 1913, and again the next year. Ho was in great form in 1914, winning not only the New Zealand open, but the professional championship at Auckland and the professional tournament at Horetaunga. In the latter contest, Isles (Shirley) was loading by ten strokes at the end of the seconcl round, but Douglas came to light with a 70 in the third and a 71 in the fourth round, which enabled him to aggregate 296, which beat Isles by two strokes. Like most true sportsmen, he promptly answered his country’s call when the Great War broke out m 1914. He enlisted with the Rifle Brigade, and saw three and a-haff years’ service with the N.Z.E.P. in Franco. He spent the greater portion of the time right up in the firing line, practising short approaches with Mills bombs into the Hun trenches. He did not have any golf in England during his short periods of leave. As he himself put it, his mind was upon other things, and as soon as the fighting was over he was keen to get back to New Zealand and tackle the big problem of “ reconstruction.”

Safely back in New Zealand, Douglas did not take long to strike bis best form again. He won the New Zealand open championship in 1919, and again in 1921, and carried off the professional tournament at Shirley in the latter year. He was leading professional in New Zealand in 1920, the year that J. H. Kirkwood visited the dominion. Possessing such a record, can anyone be surprised if Douglas is anxious to have a tilt at the world’s best?

“It has been a long-cherished dream of mine,”.he informed “Niblick ’’ last week. “ I intend to go Home to Edinburgh and devote six months to steady practice, and then will have a tilt at all the big championship tournaments in Great Britain, commencing nest spring. I have been so busy coaching and club-making in New Zealand that I have never been able to get into anything like true form, and was never in sufficiently good condition to last out a week’s play. _Now_ I intend to get into form, and it will afford me great pleasure to go Home and rub shoulders with the world’s best players, and in this way find out just exactly where I do stand.”