GOLF TEMPERAMENTS

Evening Star, Issue 19758, 7 January 1928, Page 14

GOLF TEMPERAMENTS

THE PROFESSIONAL ATTITUDE [Written by Harry Vardon, for the ‘ Evening Star.’] A correspondent writes to me on the subject of a recent article concerning the difference between firstclass amateurs and first-class professionals. ' ■ “The student of psychology at golf must have had it borne in many times upon his mind that amateurs and professionals are of different temperaments on the links,” he says. “ A match between two first-class amateurs is an obvious duel of mental dispositions as well as playing ability, it is so in a greater degree than a match between two first-class professionals, because somehow the professional never seems to. wear his heart ou his sleeve quite so conspicuously as the amateur. This may lie a natural consequence of the fact that, to the individual who derives his livelihood from the game, a measure of exterior calm in a trying situation is an essential of his personality. “ He lias to drill himself to produce it as part, of his stock-in-trade. He has to be like the business man who, desperately anxious to bring off a deal, does’ not let his anxiety manifest itself to the other fellow.” This may bo true, but it has happened frequently that two professionals have been so utterly exhausted, mentally rather than physically, at the end of a hard contest as to he almost incapable of speaking to a friend, muon as thov might desire to do so. And yet, during the struggle, you would never guess from their appearance that they had the slightest real fear of one another. This was so in the contest for £SOO a side in which Walter Hagen heat Abo Mitchell by 2 and 1. Hagen looked the picture of complacency from beginning to end, and yet, immediately after tho finish, ho was in such a worn-out condition that he had to lie down and rest for a long while. There was n similar condition of affairs when ,T H. Taylor and I wore drawn together on the last day of the open championship at Prestwick in 1914. HOPES AND PEAKS. With one round to go the issue rested solely with us. And we were coupled. I am told (I cannot remember anything about it) that we were standing half-a-dozen yards apart in the rest tent, both looking into space, for ten minutes before we were duo to go out for tho last eighteen holes; IVe were exchanging not a word with one another, nor with anybody else; the mind of each of us had been transported to some far-off world of alternating hopes and fears. And yet I venture to say that during that last round nobody could have deduced from our demeanor that each was frightened of tho other. Wo went on playing shot for shot as if it had been the first round of tho championship instead of the critical last round, contested under conditions of exceptional tension. This is a trait that the professional golfer seems to develop. The amateur, pursuing the game lor the recreation that he derives from it, does not often succeed in schooling himself so thoroughly ns to go round the links in an important contest as though ho had no particular worries about the result. His temper may bo perfect, bis decorum complete, but, as a rule, lie cannot help disclosing Hi little ways how lie is feeling. Tho state of his mind, in all its varying phases, is communicated to his opponent, whose mental state goes up or down according to the ticituro or tho signs in the man whom ho is tryim>- to beat. Thus it is that, in a match between two first-class amateurs, you usually see an exceedingly human struggle. Mr John Ball, probably more than any other British amateur in the history of the game, had the gift of hiding his feelings beneath a cloak of placidity. HIDDEN PEELINGS. It must tie a struggle for Mr Bobby Jones to make himself look, as he does, so inscrutable as the Sphinx during, his rounds in a big tournament. Everybody who knows him well agrees that he ‘is naturally of a very highstrung, sensitive disposition. Alter he had accomplished his record round of 66 in the Southern qualifying competition for the open championship at Bunningdale he was so frankly and, boyishly excited about it that he had to "0 for a nine-mile walk m Windsor. Great Park in order to calm himself and prepare for the round, of the tallowing day. And yet all the while he was playing, he looked as tranquil as an elderly man pursuing the game for the sake of his health. Mr Jones has conquered his inborn tendency to show his feelings on the. links by a determination to pay no heed at all to anything that his rivals may bo doing. It is no shock to him to lose a hole in a match when opponent accomplishes a birdie in fact, there is a strong impression that he does not always realise then that he has lost it. . . He has told us that he plays solely to accomplish each hole m the par figure, or better if possible on the principle that it is no use letting the other fellow influence your own lino of action. This indeed seems to be. the policy of all the leading American golfers. Somebody told me the other flay that when Mr Watts Gunn the runner-up in a recent United States amateur championship, won a bi match be bad to bo reminded of the fact that the game was over. “1 didn’t know,” he said. I have simplv boon playing for the figures. It seems on the whole to be a veiy effective scheme. It is indeed the process which the professionals—the British professionals long before their American rivals counted for anything -have adopted regularly during the past generation or so. Their business being to produce a high standard of pfay they go for the scores whether the event be by holes or strokes, and, as a consequence, _ they cultivate this calm outward bearing and detached attitude towards their rivals.