GOLF.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 20 December 1924, Page 10

GOLF.

An old farmer was recently induced to try his hand at golf. On his return from the links he was asked for his impression on the game. “Well,” he said, “sometimes it were like hoeing weeds, and sometimes it were like digging for worms.”

In concluding a descriptive article on the new course at Royal Wimble door the .Times critic says:—

“I think everybody admired the hew course—some with an admiration akin to terror—and thought that Mr. Colt had done his work most skilfully. It is uncommonly long; it is many a. day since I saw so many brassev shots, and in a club which is not celebrated for the juvenility of its members it is possible that there may be some jpatheric complaints. One member past the first flush cf his youth told me that lie had taken 56 to get cut, and hoped humbly to get this down to 50 in time. But is must be remembered That the tees were a long way back and the ground slow and damp. In normal seasons I hesitate to say the course will be too. long, and. it most certainly will be most interesting.”

The purchase scheme holds sway as the outstanding feature in the local golf world, and the committee and members are giving, the matter a. lot of thought, It is a big question and demands the best help of everyone in the club. The ladies are right loyal in their decision to back whatever the meh\decide upon. V At the special meeting on Wednesday -cordial appreciation was expressed of the. generous help given by the Tonks Estate during the past ten years in allowing the club the use of the course free of rent, and in farming the land to suit the game. A motion to this effect was put on the minutes of the club. A programme is to hand of the Christmas toiirhament of the Christchurch Golf Club for December 26, 27, and 29, at the Shirley links. The club expects a very laTge entry. The Miramar tournament promises to be the finest thing ever started there and should see some fine golf. Entries are coming in already. They close on December 27. UNPARALLELED FEAT. The .unparalleled feat of winning a national championship on five successive occasions lias been accomplished by Miss Joyce Wethered, the holder, in the English ladies’ championship, as on the Cdoden Beach course she retained the title, says the Manchester Guardian. Thus in consecutive years Miss Wethered has won the championship at Heringham, St. Annes, Hunstanton, Canton, and chi the Sussex course, whilst over and above that she has won the British title in two years out of the last three. In the final she beat Miss D. R. Fowler, the Somerset player, bv 8 and 7, after being 5 up on the first round. There was no question about the superiority of Miss Wethered. although she putted rather poorly. Her wooden club play was the deciding factor in the game. Although Miss Fowler is an extremely strong player and has a full range of shots, she was decidelv outclassed, and in

finesse Miss Wethered' was always her master. The champion kept a fine direction with her long shots, .and this made her approaching a much easier task than her opponent’s. On the outward half , in the morning the golf was indifferent, and Miss. Fowler turned with a one-hole lead. She took the lead at the second, lost it at the fourth, but went in front again at the seventh, Where Miss Wetherecl- failed to reach the green with her tee shot at this short hole. It was not championship golf for both, players to reach the turn in 42 on a father short course ; more especially for Miss "Wethered, hut on the homeward half she shewed her true merits. The champion squared at the tenth, fourteenth. fifteenth, arid seventeenth holes, to finish the round 5 up. The nervous tension had told on Miss Fowler from the turn, and she could not keep her head down, and smothei-ecl many shots. In the afternoon Miss Wethered won the first two holes and was 7 up; Miss Fowler won the fifth where her opponent missed a tiny putt, ;but the holder won the seventh and eighth to become 8 up. The Somerset lady holed a 10ft putt to win the ninth, but Miss Wethered won the tenth, where Miss Fowler was stymied.' The. end came at the next hole, where Miss Wethered was content to secure a half iii 5 for the match bv_B and 7. Miss Wethered took 81 and 49 (for 11 holes), against Miss Fowler’s 87 and 52.

LONG DRIVING

LOOSENESS NECESSARY

The open English chanipion for 1923, A. G. Havers, gives some excelfent advice to those desiring length of the tee in Golfing: . Take up your position to address tlie ball in an easy fashion, devoid of rigidity arid stiffness; in particular guard against stiffness of ' the knees and wrists. lii freeing your knees hack you throw the.weight dri the heels and there is an abseric© of balance. Addressing the hall while in a. rigid poise means that you Will continue to hold yourself stiffly throughout the swing, and that is a certain-method of ensuring short driving And bad play. \V ork the. wrists as freely as you can with comparatively little arm movement, and in time you wall develop the right quality of looseness of wrists, which lies at the very root of the art of driving a long ball. Reinember that the addressing of the ball and the initial swinging of the club constitute an. index of the correctness Witli which the stroke will be made.

The up- swing must not be- 5 taken too quickly, or power is lost in the down swing. Neither must it be too slow, or there will be jerkiness of club or body, or both, which' will'produce a bad shot. When nearing the top steady the club' without pausing, and at the moment you are starting to bring it down, and not before, concentrate on the'liit. If you have done all I have suggested—maintained loose wristband guarded against stiffness of arrii and leg —the club-head will have travelled up' from the ground in a circular sweep, the left arm pushing tli© club away from the ball; the wrists will fall into position underneath, the shaft, and the arms a ill bend at T he elbow until at the top of the swing the left forearm .wall, be almost at right angles to the upper part above the elbow. All this will com© about' naturally. Care should be observed to see that the right elbow does not stray from the body, hut remains fairly close to it; but this also will result automatically if the right hand grip is as it should be —well over and not under the shaft. For making the down swing and Hitting the ball, the main consideration is to hit as hard as possible without jerkiness or pressing. The same looseness of wrists and afins Which I have already insisted upon Must be preserved in the downward movement. At all costs, avoid stiffening the arms or straightening them out too rapidly. The process of extending the arms so that the club-head goes out to its striking position must be a gradual one while the. down swing is in progress, as by that means you secure arm movement plus wrist play. What you now have to do is to see that the full outward stretch of arms and wrists is not reached until the moment of impact of club-head and ball. If there is any secret in the hitting of a long hall you have it in those few words, -and the reason underlying it is that this is the action which pvoi duces the full limit of striking power, i To secure this result, first of all bring the elbows down with the forearm still forming an angle and the wrists still . underneath the shaft. When the ■ elbow is descending, the forearm and ' wrist's begin to revert to the posi- ■ turn they were in when addressing the ball; and if in accomplishing this the ’ stretch of th© arms reaches its fullest extent in the very act of striking, the ball will be hit with the greatest ‘ amount of punch at your command. If, however, the ariris should be pushed out befoi-e this stage is reached —that is, whilst the club has still some distance to travel to the ball—the loosepess of the wrists hitherto maintained ; will be nullified, and the effect'will be that of a stiff arm stroke. And vou cannot get a really long ball with a stiff arm.” A PROBLEM IN BISQUES.. (London Times.) " I am more than half afraid that this may turn out a statistical article, and statistics ought to be burned by the common hangman. At the same t-mja, I had, the other day, a rather curious illuminating experience of the nature and habits of bisques, and cannot refrain from inflicting it on somebody else.

The match I played was one of nine holes after luncheon, and I gave my opponent nine bisques. I do not say this to flatter myself nor depreciate mm. He, indeed, was in much the same case as the unfortunate gentleman who some, years ago was 18 down m a team match and wrote to the papers to say that he- had had influenza and was playing with somebody else s clubs. My opponent had lately left a:sick bed, and though he had his own clubs, anybody else’s would probably have done just as well. Still, one must be accurate in a. statistical article, and I did give him nine bisques. Hie match was ultimately halved, and I should like any reader to try to. guess, without the meanness of looking on, at how many holes my opponent* took bisques and how many he took at a. time. Further, I should like to bet the reader that he will be wrong. And now for my story. In deference to my own modesty I will call myself B and my adversary shall be C. I will tell the story in a summarized form in nine chapters, and, that it may be more dramatic, in the present teiise. Chapterl. C hits his drive, but exhausted by his effort, hits nothing else. No question of bisques arises. B one up. Chapter II. —A short role. Halved in a perfect 3. A dirty trick on C’s part. Threes are “not doiie/’ He fakes one paltry bisque and squares the match with eight bisques still instact. Chapter lll.—One long foozle by O. B one up again: but those eight Damoclean bisques still overhang him. Chapter IV.— Most important and cruical. B down in 4 and 0 in 6. His caddie says: “It’s not good taking bis-

ques to halve a hole when you’re down. Yo.u must either take none at all or take three and win' it.” B preserves a. sphinxlike demeanour. C, only half convinced, takes tlifee, bisques, wins the hole, and squares the match. Only five bisques remain. _ Chapter Y. —B gats another 4 (B seems to he playing rather well). C brilliantly steady and dowfi iii o. In the enthusiasm of the moment proposes to. take tw© more bisques and become 1 up'. The caddie says: “No —take one and keep all square.” Agreed accordingly. Four to play with four bisques. Chapter VI. —C misses short putt for a 9. B one up again. Chapter VII.—A short hole with ridiculously forward tee, enabling C to avoid the lake in which B had put his trust. Neither reaches the green from the tee. Despair of B, who, however, gets a rather contemptible 3 after all. C plays ping-pong across the green and takes 5. What should O do? He must take at least two bisques or B will he dormy. Caddie says only manly course is to be true to principles —-take three and win it. AIL square, but now there is only one bisque left. B, ostentatiously sympathetic,. says, “you never can tell,” but,thinks in his heart he !is sure to win. Chapter VIII. —A Kaleidoscopic change of fortune and well deserved rebuff for B. C rises to dizzy heights, plays masterly masliie shot over stream, aiid gets a 5. B, unnerved, misses putt for. 4. C’s one priceless bisque makes him dormy I. Chapter IN. —B’s agony not long duration, since C gets into thd rough and stays theue. An “approximate” 8 would he charitable. Match halved. C has taken his nine bisques at five holes in two lots of 3 apiece and the other 3 singly. One or two further observations may be made. First, to show the difference in value between bisques aiid strokes. If B had been giving a stroke a hole instead of nine bisques, he would have been four up instead of all square. Secondly, to. show liow uncertain life is when you play with people of C’s erratic genius, B did those 9 holes, admittedly from very far forward tees, iii 35, which was a reasonoblv good score.. He might have done them in 39, which would not have been good at all, and yet won the match. At the holes where' C did hot takb bisques; B wasted A’s where s’s, of even 6’s, would have, done as well. The one 4 it was crucially essential for him to get was at the 17th, and he failed. Thirdly, to show how very ciinhing a mait was C’s caddib, let the reader turn back to Chapter IV and put himself in C’s’ place. Would he not have let the hole go ? Would lid not have been 2 down With 5 to play, hut he would have had the stupendous balance of 8 bisques left. Surely, he Will say, the caddie must have becii Wrong. Let him, however, Work out the problem on those lines. He will find that Cis all square with 1 hole to play, aiid 2 bisques left, and they arb of no Use to him. He is iii the most humiliating of all human situations—that. of the bridge player who has “bottled Up” an ac§.

Some time before the match ftas over I recognised that the eadclife was my real enemy. Without his masterly protection G would have been my prey, and so, wheii we were frieiids again, I asked hitii to develop km theory of bisques at greater length. He could, however, only reiterate his grand principle that When you are dOwh it is iib good taking bisques to halve a hole I think perhaps he would have added, had it not been for a fear of hurting C’s feelings, that with players of his class one bisque in the hand is worth an almost unlimited number in the bush. In any cai.se . I believe his principle is a sound one. I can hack ft up by the words of another wise man on another branch of sport. The author of the Badminton volume on athletics, once a great runner and pow a learned Judge, wrote this : “If you decide to pass an antagonist you had better spurt to do so and not try to pass him slowlp, as this may end in to pass hiin slowly, as this may end in by an antagonist you may possibly take the neart out of him and he ihay shut up like a. telescope on the spot.” He is hot quite so eminent a golfer, as he wus a quarter-iniler; but were I to offer him a bisque (Heaven defend me from such presumption!) I am sure he would take it in this virile and decisive manner.

WOULD BE WELCOME. In-suggesting that Moss and McIntosh, of New Zealand, should go to the open championship 6f Australia, the Referee says that Moss and Mclntosh might pair against some of the New South Males and Victorian professional?- they also quote the Score Moss did when beating the record of 71, held by R. D. Wright, the champion of the Auckland Club. The bogey is: Out—--4 5 4 5 5 4 3 4 5—39; in—3 4 5 3 4 4 5 5 38—77. The length is 6200 yards. Moss’ figures were: Out—4 5 3 5 44 3 3 s—3g. i n —34 4334344 —32—67. ETIQUETTE OF THE GAME.

It is interesting to note (says the Kereree), that the teutnament committee again specially impresses on menibers the urgent necessity of observing the etiquette of the game, in order to enable players to enjoy the maximum of comfort and to promote harmony on the course or replacing divots and seeing tnat footmarks and holes made in bunkers are smoothed over.

1 LENGTH OF SWING VERSUS FORCE.

You will fine nearly all beginning golfers and many of the advanced playe£s +l a^em ?^ to gauge the distances ot their shots by force alone—without regard to the lengths of their swings. Ihe two elements, force and length of swing, enter into every shot in varying proportion, and it is impossible to separate them of to eliminate either oi them, let there are times when the shot requires a concentration of our efforts upon one or the othc-r. lor putting and for the vast majority of shots through the course of the me a of the amount of swing-back necessary to send the bal! to the desired ‘p int should be uppermost in the mind. In the drive, where the maximum of distance is desired, then a. f-ull swum viih the maximum force that can : e controlled is the thing to strive for. Here force and swing share the honours equally. But when it comes »o bad lies and recovery shots, force of swing usually dominates length of swing. The length of swing is much more easily gauged and controlled than force, and "therefore strongly recommended to the beginner that he develop the habit of gauging the length of the shot by the length of his swing rather than l.v the forcefulness o.f the blow. —Golfers’ 'agazine. Attack the hole, always be shooting at it. ' Play with your head as well as with the club-head. To become a good player we must form the habit of keeping the ball down to the shot until after the hall has been dispatched.

FRENCH GOLFERS

Writing on the subject of golf in France, Harry Vardon says m the Christchurch Press:—

“Massy gave his compatriots their cue by winning the British open championship on the Royal Liverpool in fcs at Hoylake in 1907. That was the sear cf iust- about the worst- wind in vhir-h I remember ally championship having been played. It was so strong that the short fourth hole, which can often be reached with a mashie, called for a full bang with a driver, and even then one did well to get up to the green.” The massive frame cf Massy helped him considerably in that turbulence, and his victory fired his compatriots with the spirit Gf emulation. It was no doubt a moral factor of considerable influence when a. large party of the leading British professionals went over a week or two later to- try to wrest the French open championship from him. Not only did he win again ; almost the unkindest cut of all was that another Frenchman, Jean Gassiat, until then unknown, finished second. The leading Britisher wps James Brand, who seemed tliird place. Gassiat, aiicthei'..Basque, baulked me of that championship one which lias always just eluded me —five years later. I had founds of 71, 73, 72, ami 74, which seemed good enough, hut he was a stroke better, thanks largely to a brilliant third round of 68. Gassiat lias done well in golf, biit not quite so well iik this country as the student of the game might have expected. He is tremendously keen on practising, which is a valuable disposition at golf, and a very fine putter with that curiously shai>ed instrument which looks .like a large square slab of wood attached to a shaft. THE NON-GOLFER’S PRAYER, (By One Who Has Suffered). Lord let me hear as beat I may .. The talk of gblfiiig hoiks, Who seem to think I’m hound to want To hear about their shores.

Oh, should they talk to me aboiit This game I do hot play, Grant me an opportunity Of getting soon away.'

If ill a. train I find myself Cooped up with men who shout Golf talk at irie, give me a chance At least of getting but. And if I can’t, and murder one, My sin forgive! forgive! For surely, Lord, it is not meet That bores like that should live!

Beaumains, in London Referee