TOPICAL TATTLE

Evening Star, Issue 23128, 30 November 1938, Page 4

TOPICAL TATTLE

(By H.P.S.)

NEWSY NOTES ON SPORT

Unusual Golfing incident. An unusual incident marked the play between Norman von Nida and C. Booth in the semi-final of the New South 'Wales professional Rolf championship this month. On the twentyfifth green Booth put his third loft beyond the hole with a chip shot, and, apparently with the idea of conceding the hole, he hit the ball with the club held hi one hand.' To his surprise, and that of the gallery, the ball rolled down ftlr !the' Halving four. It was one of tr>e few good “putts’' by Booth throughout the meeting.

Eti’ipire Champion Turns Professional

fiddio Scarf, light heavy-weight champion wrestler of the British Empire, and holder of the Australian title, hat. turned professional. Scarf has trained with the American wrestlers, Dean Detton, Ray Steele, and Paul Jones, who have spoken highly of his ability. . He has been Australia’s outstanding amateur wrestler for a number -of- years. He competed at the Olympic Games in 1932 and 1936, He was third in the light heavy-weight division at Los Angeles in 1932.

Otago Varsity Players in Edinburgh. In a report of a match at Glasgow recently between Edinburgh ■■University and Glasgow Academicals, which the former won by 16 points to 13, there appears in the Edinburgh team the names of two former Otago University players, P. Green and 0. Baragwanath. The former played for the Varsity A team for several years, represented Otago, and was . one of the players chosen to train for , the New Zealand team against the Springboks last year. Baragwanath was a member of the .University B team before leaving Dunedin. Australia's Champion Sculler.

A report from Sydney states that the rowing, and particularly stroking, .of Cecil Pearce, Australia's champion sculler, is one of the outstanding features of the present Reason! - He .must he- given great consideration, it is stated, to ; a place in the-King’s' Cup eight, l perhaps in the stroka seat. . ■■

Sportsman’s Death. Hawera lost a fine young sportsman recently,- when Harold Sagar. died at the early age of 24. Ever since his school' days he had been -a keen cricketer; footballer, and golfer (says, an exchange)'. He played for ,South Taranaki at. cricket, being a promising wic-ket-keeper and opening bat, and last year was runner-up in the South Taranaki golf championship.

Phenomenal Golf. Although Bobby Locke holds that Norman von Nida is the best golfer in Australia, there are many who believe yon Nida is not as good a golfer as Ferrier. ’Von Nida has now another rival in ■Eric Cremin, who beat him 12 and 10 in the New South Wales professional championship. Cremin is assistant to the professional at the -Kensington -course, Sydney, .where the championship was played, arid his scoring was sensational. In the final he was sis under fours for the 26 holes.

V. Billiards Leads. , Which is the most popular and scieni tific ball.game played? Lovers of golf, ' tennis, baseball, football, Soccer or = Rugby, would be likely to make claim ' for their particular sport if asked the ' question. But listen to .. Walter , Lin- • drum, the greatest champion in sport. He says: “Billiards wins by millions.” A census of sport in America recently . proved that 26 million people played billiards./while fishing was the pastime . . of 14 millions .and golf and.tennis play- , ers were between .11 and 12 milkons.

Dominion Bowling .Tournament. The New Zealand Bowling Association’s annual championship tournament will be held in Auckland, commencing on Monday, January 9. The singles will be played on the 9th and 10th, the pairs (three bowls) on the 11th and 12th, and the fours competition will start on the 13th, there being four days’ section play of two games of 25 ends per clay. Entries '■ close at Auckland on Friday. December 2. ■ :

Big Crowds. Soccer football has a tremendous grip in England. Several weeks ago the total attendance for one Saturday afternoon was 8-57,000 (says an exchange). Three “Derby” matches attracted between them no fewer than 167,000 fans—6s.ooo at Birmingham v. Aston Villa, 52,000 at Tottenham v. West’Ham, 50,000 at Sheffield United v. Sheffield Wednesday. Veteran Official’s Success. Lord Aberdare, president of the British Olympic Committee, .recently won the amateur tennis championship at the Queen’s Club in London. What makes this slightly unusual is that Lord Aberdare is 53 years old and is the oldest player ever to win a title, a remarkable tribute to his. physical fitness, t Compulsory Swimming 'lnstruction. Although; the . number of swimming pools in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland are greater than in other European countries, a recent congress at Oslo considered ways and means of increasing the swimming facilities and of introducing compulsory swimming instruction in schools. From Sweden to Finland. Sweden is seriously considering the advisability of having its Olympic athletes “ commute ” to Helsingfors in 1940. The idea is that special aeroplanes will take to Finland each day those competing that day and then will bring them back that same evening. In that way there will be no disadvantage due to the change of climate.