HOLIDAY GOLF

Evening Star, Issue 19050, 19 September 1925, Page 22

HOLIDAY GOLF

t:je value of cohspetitiohs [Written oy Ha nay Varmm, Jot tlie ‘Evening Star.’] This is tho season of holiday golf, with its accompaniment of innumerable competitions on seaside courses. There are a great many players who ordinarily have no fancy for taking out cards and pencils to count their scores or see what they can do against bogey. Indeed, it is probably a reasonable estimate that in (he average club only about At per cent, of the members take pari in the periodical competitions. The others have certain cire>.i ot tri-mis'wii.il whom thev like m engage priv.'-' matches. The summer vaca--1 inn, ho.vevcr. prompts nearly everyI,.„| v 1.0 try his inch for a medal, a note or >■ ton -ver the pri'/.e may he. 'J hero Is h.ii rill' slightest doubt, _ I

j rhink. that frequent appearance m compei.iiinns is an excellent thing for •i nrrvin’s "hd Indeed, nobody ha« over boon voTv good at Hie game Without serving Mich an a.pprenijce.slup. Then* tire many players who say : ’ don’t want to compote for ‘ pots, bivo mo a keen match with somebody 1 know, so that we can be companions as well as rivals all the way round. 1 shall enjoy that far more than trying to win a medal in a scoring competition, and shall he 311st as good a golfer as if T went in constantly for tournaments.” . It is fair to suggest that a player with all the makings of a champion lias as much right as an ungifted individual to hold this view. But the truth is that T have never seen anybody develop real skill at the game, and never heard of anybody doing it, by concentrating on what may he termed private golf and eschewing competitions. These friendly matches for hah a crown —or multiples thereof—afford admirable entertainment and exercise. Tim proof of their attractiveness is that they constitute the regular mode of the golfing life among about 75 per cent, of the players in the country. Many of such players, too, are most kfv'ii to improve : thev study the theory of Iho game to tlio last letter, and are '.■cry troubled when the shots go vrn'ng. All the same, they do _ not make the same progress as competition I golfers. , . „ | .Ml competitions and 110 fnendiv j matches would make the pastime very ! dull indeed, hut the former have their I unmistakable value. They impel the Iplnver to think move deeply than i! sc at about bis next shot as he walks towards the hall. Thev promote a now clement of determination and emulation that cannot fail to help in the oncM of efficiency, At the start of a medal round everybody feels greater tmed for concentration than at the beginning of a private game. 'WHERE SCOTLAND LEADS. The holiday tournament idea has boon developed on a higher scale in Scotland than in England. There is an atmosphere of importance—with the spirit of holiday pleasantry pone the less marked on that account—about the affairs which take place in July and August at Cruden Bay, Peterhead, Lossiemouth, Dornoch, and other seaside resorts in the Highlands. _ While the handicap players have their share of the excitement, _ the principal part of the programme is usually a tournament on level toms, with sixteen players to qualify in an eliminating stroko competition for the match stages. Sometimes, ton, there are several divisions. There is no reason why handicap goiters should not take part in scratcYtournnmeuts so long as they arc graded in sections —say up to 5 ! handicap for section 1, from 6 to 10 for section 2, and from 11 to 10 for I section HI. It is a change from the I eternal giving and receiving of strokes, 1 and there is always a special joy for ! the player who wins a match on level I terms against a person from whom i ordinarily he would receive a stroke or i two; and we know well enough that it I can often bo done. I In England holiday competitions are I usually somewhat lacking in imagination. As a rule, they consist of modal rounds—a very good form of training and discipline, but not so to the average golfer as events comprising some measure of match play. It is sometimes said that private matches constitute the backbone of the game, and, so far as concerns their volume, the claim may be jmstified. But I would say of competitions that they are the life blood of golf, for their tendency is to increase the standard of play, and the better people play a game the more they like it, and the ; greater, therefore, becomes its success, lilt is only those who make little or no 1 progress at golf from the time that i they start to play who feel inclined to give it up in despair. TRIALS. Tournaments, while they incite that little extra touch of needle-pointed rivalry which nearly always leads to an advancement of skill, find the {►layers just as companionable off the inks as those who rest content with friendly games. When Braid, Taylor, Herd and I were at our best more or less contemporaneously, we made _ a point, whenever possible, of travelling together and staying together at the same hotel. We were companions all the time, as, for example, during the ! months occupied by the foursome over four ftreons in which Braid and Herd opposed Taylor and mo for £4oo—hut no four mon could have been keener rivals at golf. Competitions certainly have their trials. Two in stand out in my memory. One was in connection with the open championship at Prestwick in 1914, when Taylor and I were drawn together on the last day, with practically the certainty that whichever of us beat the othor would win. About halfway round in the afternoon my ball disappeared into a bunker. The dry, loose sand swallowed it up so that it could not he seen. An official scraped aside sufficient of the sand to enable me—as allowed by the rules—to sec the top of the hall. Several times he did this, but the sand was so loose that it kept on rolling back and covering the ball again. So at last I had to go for the shot without a sight of the hall. It came out and finished on the green, but I might have driven it deeper than ever into tho sand, which almost assuredly would have meant losing that championship instead of winning it. I was in a real agony of apprehension as tho club descended. Tho other occasion was when I beat Rav by one hole in the final of the professional mateh-3>lay championship at Smmingdale in 1912. At tho eleventh hole in the afternoon, when it was touch-and-go as to who would succeed, Ray drove into some ground from which ho was allowed to lift without penalty, and tho referee said that lie could drop tho ball as far behind tho spot as ho liked. Tho result was to simplify tho shot for him hv enabling him to avoid some trees which would otherwise have been in his line. Ray and I aro_ old friends, but 1 writhed so under this decision—which seemed to mo to ho wholly unreasonable—that I could hardly hit iho ball for several holes. However, all came right in the end. Competitions have their trials, but that is part of their value as schools iof training.