GOLF.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 27 December 1924, Page 10

GOLF.

COMING EVENTS. January 1-3—New Year Open. Amateur Tournament, at Miramar.There are holiday events at many of the big clubs, and where there are not members' are enjoying play which on many courses is the best of the whole f ear ' i , The fairways are . fast, giving long balls, and the greens are good and hrm, demanding extra - skill in approaching and care in putting to hit firmly and exercise judgment. It will be a joyous time for the enthusiast who can give up other games which many aver are more suited to the season. Blit if only they knew the delights of the course they would also he there. However, actually even to the keenest enthusiast the thought readily comes that the more active energetic gamei are fitted and most appropriate for the young man, and one would regret to see | .him .who is fi p and strong not playing the more strenuous games. Hawera course is certain to attract an players who cannot get away abroad. Some,.however, who can travel and get the time are going to sample other courses. Such tours are ideal holidays. The trippers see new courses perchance, and certainly make a lot of new friends. ON BEING BEATEN. (London Times Correspondent.) K To be beaten is always and obviously annoying. Only very foolish golfers would deny it. For myself I hope to be annoyed every time I am beaten for years to. come, and when defeat loses all its smart it will be the time to. distribute my clubs to my grandchildren, together with the postage stamps I collected at my private school. A more difficult question, however, is what are respectively the most and least annoying margins by which to be beaten. The obvious answers are ten up and eight to play in the one case, and one up in the other. The first answer, may possibly be right, though there is a certain completeness and. as _it were, rotundity about ten and eight; moreover, .in course of time one might begin dimly to perceive the humour in it. As regards the one hole being the least annoying margin of defeat lamby no means so sure. It all depends.

Suppose, for instance, you were three up. with four to play, and then—but

the subject is one unfit for a Christian pen. Leaving such horrors on one side, the worst of losing by onO hole is that clearly you ought not to have lost at all. At the molheiit yoii may lie able to say that it was a splendid match, that in such a edge nothing else matters, that the adversary 'deserved to wjh, with other. iilethdUieiOuh pirititiides of that sort, .But jrist wait till yliri go td>. bed. Then little black riialigi narit deriions will perch upon riiy piiloiV saying, “I ani the putt yoii missed fit the loth. If yoii had holed me you would have been one Up at the ‘crisis,” or “I kin the shot yoii put ihtb tlie bunker at the 12th aftef yoiir enemy had gone in first. You got the worst lie there and vori deserved to. Ha l Ha!”

It is humanly 'impossible ’ not to recollect at least two slips that would have turned the one down ihtb -brie up. ThO shnie remark applies iii a milder degree to two up and. one, and even three up and tw ; o, the iatter being the outside limit of what riiay be called a good match.

“We now coine,” as Mr. Montague Tigg might observe, to the ridiculous amount of four and three, but tve can hardly answer, wit it Mr. Pecksniff, “Arid that would bo equally objectionable.” Four and three represents what plight he called Sri honest lickirig. Those_ Haunting self-accusations ought riot to be So insistent. It shorild be easier to wipe the Whole thing but of the rriitid as a bad job. There, is, of course, a peculiarly subtle arid hateful little demon that whispers ‘‘Four arid three—poo! If you had played the first two holes decently, you know quite well that the enemy worild -heater have got their tails up. "They were As neivous as kittens, arid then you 'put your first tee shot in the bunker, arid were short with your riin rip; arid, of course, they cheered up.” Brit this opfens up so. vast a! field of speehlatiori. Tli.at particular deriiori we bright to he able to exorcisfe if we are not Consumed by vaiiitv. There. are Some people that will always allbw themselves to be tortured. I fenieriibef a chahipionship in which A heat B ill the first round after a reasonably hard match, A went tHuriiphantly on his way after that, and reached the semifinal round, and I was watching him •play his iriSt iiiatch. Against the ultimate charripibii in B’s editipahy. “Ah!” said B, looking at, A with crivious eyes, “I bright to be playing in that match, if I KAd riot blissed brie ;putt.” That is a pitch of magnificent folly tb which comparatively fejf can attain. Next conies five and four, a good found 5 number, . as tb...which I Aril at the riiofiieht well qiiaiified to speak. At this: point yoii cease tb tantalise yourself as to what might have been. Gif the other hand, what actually was is in itself thoroughly uripleAsaiit. It is a defeat that bn several couises—Prestwick arid .Woking are two .that Occur to me—finishes, the match off lit a pbirit very pear tb the cliib-hbnse. tibnsolation is thus instantly 'attainable. On' the, other harid, yoii have the uneasy feeling that the adversary could have beaten you earlier if be bad Wanted to, but waited to “snod” you at this. conferiient baiting-place.; Still, five rind four is distinctly arid unquestionably better than six arid five. When it comes to sixes, kind' people who write in the newspapers will begin to furbish up their vocabularies and talk about massacres and annihilations. At least, so I should have thought, but it happened to me the other day—qt happens: so rarely that I may fairly boast of it— win a match by this precise margin. . My most gbod-humoufed Opponent ' declared that six arid five was nothing;, it was;, only sevens that blattered. • Perhaps he was right. If he Was satisfied I cbftaiiily was, arid we both agreed that eights were hateful. On one point I believe there is very general accord, Thiee arid one is decidedly more ohjectiorlable than,two arid one, and so on up the. Scale; . When the erieriiy is dorriiy we like to die fighting; or at any rate to. appear ~to. do so. Three arid one,.has the air of a sporige Chucked ripr My own .latest five , arid fbrir to which T alluded was virtually six and four, and yet I derived a real sensation of relief —to my shame I-inust admit it —when 1 iiiy gallant partner holed a putt, quite uselessly— to srive the greater heating. This is a ebriiriibri, though riot .an amiable ’ .weakness. When wp look through the results of a tournament there are’ few of the superfluous butcheries implied by six arid four. Really, no doubt there were plenty, hut the winner was magnanimous, and the loser took advantage of his niagrianimity to give that little sop to. his own variitv The next time I am beaten by six and four I shall .tell ariy tnctleSs inquirer that I lost oil tlie 14th green. It does sound hettei.