MOST “PUNISHING” SPORT

Greymouth Evening Star, 17 April 1940, Page 12

MOST “PUNISHING” SPORT

GOLF, SAYS TOMMY ARMOUR. LONDON, March 16. Which would you rather do; stand up in the ring against Joe Louis or play a golf tournament. Listen to Tommy Armour, past winner of the American and the British Open championships, a Great War veteran and a keen follower of boxing, football and baseball. Asked this week in London which sport inflicted the severest punishment ho said: “There isn’t even an argument. The answer is golf. “Someone fights Joe Louis and is probably knocked out in a few rounds. He has only to absorb physical punishment for a short while. Physical punishment is one of the minor ailments.

Firpo was knocked down seven or eight times by Jack Dempsey and less than an hour later was the same as ever, having a big night in a cafe. “Golf is different. The physical part is a minor matter. The suffering in golf belongs to nerves—and also to the brain, attempting to concentrate. ••“It is like having a nerve pulled from a tooth. In golf you take this beating from, four to eight hours a clay during a big tournament. “This is actual suffering, when things are not breaking correctly. Any ox can take a physical beating. That is no test of courage. Courage has little to do with the physical side. It has almost everything to do with the nerves and the mental side.

“It takes no bravery or real courage to be knocked down and get up again. Ent to force yourself to battle against jumpy nerves in golf calls for real courage. “Golf calls for the courage of the civilised human being—not -the human animal.

“I remember more than one golf tournament where I. would . rather have slapped Joe Louis or . Dempsey across the mouth than tackle a 3ft putt? when I had the ‘jitters’; and knew what the putt meant to me. “I have seen Bobby. Jones suffer far more than Jess Willard ever suffered against Dempsey at Toledo —far more than Joe L.ouis or Max Schmeling ever suffered in their... .two. ' fights. . where both were knocked out.”

A sportsman who knows baseball will agree with Tommy Armour. He had seen Christy Mathewson, one of the gamest baseball pitchers who ever lived and Gene Tunney, one of the gamest fighters of all time, not only blow up completely in a golf game but also refuse to accept the nervous and mental punishment.