GOLF.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 June 1924, Page 10

GOLF.

Two Wellington golfers, having driven off the tee at a two-shot hole, on walking up to play their second found that one hall was in an unplayable position and the other was lost. Thereupon they called it a half and carried on to the next tee. “To crash the ball 500 yards to the green is to Abe Mitchell simplicity itself. To get the ball clown with the ’putter with two more shots is the very deuce.” So writes a contributor to the London Observer. J. H. Taylor, one of the great English “triumvirate”—Vardon, Taylor, arid Braid —has taken to spectacles. The long holes, which are “two shotters” for the big hitters, have become two-and-a-bit for Taylor .and Vardon, and, like his contemporaries, Braid has seen his best days. At the age of 57. on the other hand, Alex. Herd, affectionately known as “Sandy,” is playing golf as well as he ever played it in his life. For Herd to tie for first place in the qualifying rounds of the recent £2OO tournament' at Roehampton, with the whole pack of professionals thundering at his heels, was no mean achievement, and goes to show that whatever may have happened to others he is still a force to be reckoned with. Herd nbw plays the game with a lighter heart and Ihis may have something to do with his success

Query.—ln playing a four-ball match, suppose a player’s ball strikes another ball lying near the edge of a. sand trap, and knocks it into the trap, has the owner the privilege of recovering it from the trap, if lie chooses, or must it die played where it stops ? Answer: The ball must be lifted and dropped as near as can he told to where it lay before it was disturbed. In a three-hall or four-ball match, any hall that is displaced must be returned to the approximate position that it occupied. Oil the putting green the ball is placed, elsewhere it is dropped. The American experts .sesrn to think that this will be a Walter Hagen year. ■"Recently on a G4OO yard course he made four consecutive scores between 66 and GS. “Hullo, George, who’s your friend?" “Hush! Here’s where I get even. He’s the man who designed this course, and I’ve got him eight down.” A goiter. after three full days on the links, returned home on the'third occasion late for dinner. Perhaps naturally. his wife complained. “Since you ve been playing golf,” she said, “you re never at home. 1 always have to keep the meals waiting. And you never take me out.” “Well, if you grumble, T”1 stay away for a week,” replied the husband. His wife eyed him speculatively. “f wonder, she said, “if 1 could he sure of that.” How .the golfer is wondering what she meant,

“GOLF” TEArPER A A TENT. Describing the golf championship niirtch between Miss C'ec-il Leitch and Miss Wethered, at Northwood, which ended in the defeat of Miss Leitch by the convincing margin of 5 and 3, Mr Ct. W. Greenwood (in the Daily Telegraph) says that not by word or gesture, not even by the. movement of an eyelid, did Miss Wethered betray what was passing through her mincl. She was as emotionless as a graven image, and it wa s only when Miss Leitch gave the sign of surrender on the fifteenth green that Miss Wethered relaxed. A fiaint smile flickered across her face as someone —it may have been Miss Leitch herself—said, quite audibly, “Well done, Joyce.” To see Miss Wethered, calm, cool, and amazingly collected, perform before several hundreds of people, one’ wonders to what extent her priceless temperament plays in the work of destroying the enemy. A tremendous lot, to he sure. There is nothing so disconcerting, nothing so calculated to get one's nerves on edge as to stalk round a golf course with a foe who absolutely refuses to be jostled or hustled. This is Miss "Wethered; without hurrying and without fuss she attends to the business of dispatching the ball, and whether the hitting is for good or ill she displays neither pleasure nor annoyance. I have met only two golfers like her in this respect: one is Mr. John Ball and the other is Braid. It is the perfect golfing temperament, and translated into values it is worth a couple of holes. Did not Miss Leitch herself marvel at it when they met for the first time at Sheringham four years ago? As Miss Wethered was putting on the seventeenth green, an express train dashed by with a fearful and disturbing rattle. ‘ To Miss Leitch’s aston. ishment, her- opponent proceeded with the stroke ivithout a second’s pause, and afterwards completely confounded everybody by stating that she was totally oblivious to the fact that a train had passed. Concentration ffuch as this is so rare a gift that it is hardly surprising Miss Wethered lias swept everything before her in so short a space of time.

N.S.W. CHAMPIONSHIP. EXCITING FINAL. There was more than ordinary interest taken in the final between" IT. W. McLelland and H. R, Sinclair (says Auld Reekie in the Referee). Sympathies were about equally divided," as both had been runners-up in the Australian and State amateur championships—McLelland in 1922, in both, and Sinclair in 1923. The golf, under the prevailing conditions, was perfect. There was a' strong north-west wind blowing across the course which made length extremely difficult to obtain in the second half, McLelland was getting tremendous power into his tee shots, and out-driving. Sinclair, at times, by a very large margin; almost unbelievable. Where he gets'his power from is a. mystery, and yet I doubt if anyone in Australia could have much more than held him in the drives. A NEW AMATEUR RECORD. Playing in the New South Wales Championship, H. Morrison came third with 149 (says the Referee). His morning round constitutes a new amateur record for the course. The figures were : Out. 4 5 4 3 4 6 3 5 5 —39; in 5 3 3 3 4 5 2 3 4—32. In the first half he was steady enough, hut in the second half he was positively brilliant. Strangely enough he was making superb and uncanny recoveries, a state of things which would hardly he associated with such a. score. At the twelfth he was bunkered, but then left himself a 12-foot putt, which he holed. He hooked his drive into a clump of grass at the thirteenth, hut banged it to five feet of the pin. At the fifteenth he sliced into the scrub, but the hall was lying well, and he got his five. ,H® took one putt at the sixteenth and seventeenth, and finished by holing right across the green at the last. In the afternoon he seemed to tire, and took: Out. 55426534 4—38; in, 5 3 444 64 4 6—40—78. At the fifth he sliced into the ferns, and then failed to get over the bank in 3 and took two. putst. At the fifteenth a foot and a half putt was missed, while at the last, after two good shots, Morrison made some poor strokes.

THE BRITISH AMATEUR, It would have been interesting to have had a brother and sister in R. H. and Joyce Wethered, champions for the year. They have been champions for about a, month, or since Miss Wethered won this year, for R H. Wethered won the amatuer championship in 1923. Dr. Gillies, the New Zealander and the man who plays with the rubber tee of tower-like proportions, was knocked out in the first, round. As he did not use the tee, that might have been the reason. C. J. H. Tolley was defeated by Kyle—presumably the man who made such a deep impression on E. L. Apperly when he was in England—in the fifth round. Mur ray beat another well-known player in Torrance, while Holderness beat E. Storey, the Cambridge captain, by 3 and'2, who had ibeaten R, H. Wethered the round before.

Holderness was knocked out in the third round of the amateur championship last year, but won it in 1922, when he defeated J. Caven._ Holderness in the present event beat a very strong opponent in R Harris in the round before he beat Murray in the semi-finals. Mr. Eernard Darwin, writing cn great golfers in present-dav golf," savs of Holderness: “Another Oxford golfer who has come comparatively late into his kingdom is Mr. Holderness, perhaps at this moment the best amateur golfer in England, a lovely player of strokes, who lacks only the power of not allowing the game to take too much out of him.”

GOLFING FAMILY. The Wagg family of the Lower Hutt Golf Club is probably unique in the number of its members that play real golf. Ran a Wagg is settling down to a steady .game again, and though not always reliable in his long shots, has got over a rather bad attack in this respect, and is, as always, good with his intermediate and " short game. Pearson Wagg is also driving a very long hall, and ;s showing signs of being steadier than before. Jack Wagg plays some very brilliant holes. The bubv of the family. Terence, who has just been admitted to the Hutt Club after a promising apprentieeship. had his first inter-dub match with Damn on Saturday-, on the 14 handicap ma’rk. .He was 2 down and 3 to play, hut by skill and determination retrieved Iris position, it was only by a misunderstanding that Wagg senior was not playing in the same match, which would probably have constituted a record. All five are taking part in the "W ilford Cun contests. THE FULL SWING. Gene Sarazen’s swing with his driver appears interesting and worth studying.

He says: “I prefer the open stance for the drive. The right leg is extended a little forward, the left leg slightly hack. The line from the right toe to the left toe is diagonal. Hie ball should he on a direct centre line between the two feet. The stance should be comfortable, and at the start of the swing the weight of the body is evenly balanced on both feet. As the club-head is taken hack the right knee stiffens, ajid the weight is shifted slightly to the left leg. The left hip and the left knee are turned in towards the ball. All these things should be done together—not disjointedlv. This action is called the pivot. In developing this stance it is a good idea to draw a line from right toe to left toe, so as to take the same stance each time until it becomes natural. The feet should not be spread too far apart, nor too closely together either. Turning in the left knee, which causes a slight lift ing of the left heel, allows the club to he swung back easily and aids in getting power into the swing. On the back swing- the club is taken back slowly. Never hurry the hack swing. The club is held firmly with the interlocking grip throughout the swing. At no point in the back swing do I break my grip. You will notice that when the back swing has reached the apex the right leg is perfectly straight, with the right shoulder in alignment. The left arm is extended straight across the body, and the right elbow is held close to the body. The left knee and the left hip are thrown in towards the hall, and the left heel i.s raised slightly. All this is done in unison. You will note also that the head and body are held in fixed position. They must not move out of the position and, above all. the bead must not be lifted. Note that the club-bead is closed slightly, and that the club extends diagonally across the right shoulder. The hands on the back swing are raised no higher than the right shoulder —not quite as high, in fact.”

Visitor: “That chap talks a lot about his golf. What does he generally go round in?”

Member: “Oh, about 120 out here in the sun —ami 70 in the shade of the club-house.