Golfing

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 256, 13 October 1923, Page 16

Golfing

THE SEVEN SAGES OF GOLF. FACT AND FALLACY. The other day | was delving at random in that mine of fascinating information. the “Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,” by the late ingenious and reverend Dr. Brewer. There among the Seven Sleepers and Seven Dials and Seven Deadly Sins 1 stumbled on those agreeable gentlemen, the Seven Sages of Greece. Each of them had. according to Dr. Brewer, a little motto of his own and, as I read, I began to picture them as golfers preaching their resective mottoes to the young layers in their neighbourhoods and putting them into practice on the links. The kindly author refrained from giving their dates. Therefore I eotld imagine them all contemporaries, playing home and home matches against one another, and perhaps from their mottoes and matches some useful golfing lessons may be drawn. Solon and Cleobulos. Two of them were essentially pawky old gentlemen, invaluable partners in a foursome, and good match makers. Those wore Solon (Athens), whoso motto was “Know Myself,” and Cloobulos. who alwavs entered from Lindos and upheld “Th- Golden Mean or Avoid Extremes.” Solon was never tired of telling Ids young mon that it was no good going for a carry when the odds were against their doing it. “Is it probable.” lie would sdv to them, “that you will suddenlv hit the hall further than you over hit it before? Ts it not more iwobahlo that in trying to do s'« yon will press and miss altogether?” And anticipating a modern

sag?- of North Berwick he would ad. risn them rath-r to “trust to a pitch and a putt.” Tn his own matches ho would never try for more than lie know ho could do and his game had, of course its limitations, fie never could really master the firm half shot with iron clubs, which is the hall-mark of the great, anil so resolutely refused to attempt it. “I find it simpler,” he remarked “to have a series of irons wfth graduated lofts and to take a full swing with each of them,” It was wonderful how well ho got along with them too, except now and then when there was a very fierce wind blowing.

Cleobulos was somewhat depressing teacher. He had one theme on which he harped continually. “You find out a cure,” he said in his gentle, weary voice, “and all goes well for a little while anti then von exaggerate it and you are worse than before. We all go on doing it until we die. The only thing to do is, once vou are on your game again, to try without forgetting it altogether, not to think too much about your cure. But, of course, I know none o' you will listen to me. You’ll think that you really have found th«* secret, AVell. go on. Aft°r all it’s rather fun thinking you’ve found out secrets.” anl then after a little pause, “when you’re young.” Young golfers who felt sorry for him and eased off ae r, ordinalv often had cause to regret it. - hen he began holing long putts all over the green. The Canny Chilo,

Then there was Chi'o of Sparta, another canny play er whose motto was “Consider the end.” Nobody over saw Chilo on that sternly hunkered Lacedonian course trying t:) hit the cover off the hall. If the hole was a twoshot hole, “the end” was to get dotvn in four, not to drive the green in one. He dinned the doctrine of “Play to the score.” into his pupils’ ears till they were sick of it. He did not produce Champions, but year after year his classes contained a punibar of two and three handicap players a little lacking in dash and length but very hard to beat at their points. At any rate he was an honest man. which is more than can be sail, I am afraid, for Bias. His motto, whif h he cynically proclaimed, was “Most men arc had,” and when among friends ho .woud add with an unpleasant wink. “And so you can win their drachmas.” Jt is not to be wondered at that the Lest people in Priene barely nodded to him.

Bias has one victim to whom he assiduously clung. This was Pittacos from Mitylene, pleasant creature, but far too impetuous ever to make a player. “Seize time by the forelock” was pinned up in his room, whereas a far better text for a hgolfer would be “Seize time by the heel of his hind leg.” He mistimed every shot from a drive to a putt, and the way in which his body- lurched forward on the gre-an was quite heartbreaking to see. Cleobulos used to try to coach him. “My dear Pittacos,” tie said to him one, day. “Do remember that the ball won’t run away. It yvill sit there as long as you like, yvaiting for vou to hit it. Noyv make up your mind to count quite sloyvly as you syving. and not to hit till you pome tn- seven.” But it y» as no good. Once the demon of hurrying has got hold of n man. even if he is a sage, it can hardly be evoi*‘is.?d. The Beet of the Seven.

The other two—and I think they were the Lest jJayers of the seven—yyere 'I hales of Aliietos and Periander of Corinth- Tnales was olways saying: “Who b.itetn suretyship is sure.” Jt is a cryptic remark, but yve get a clue to his meaning from the fact that he ha tea inursonies. He thought that they yyere enervating; that a man came to depend too much on his partner and becarn? frightened when he had to stand on Ips own legs. “We shall never get the Cup hack," he thundeied, '“until our young men train themselves by playing nothing but hard singles.” A dour golfer, Thales, and nut amusing to play yvith, but a good man at a pinch. When once, with the match all square, he pitched short into that tricky little hunker that guards the 17th green at Miletos, it was the town talk ior months afterwards. Periander was not the kind of golfer who draws the crowd; he was rather sloyv and laborious, but he was good. “Nothing is impossible to industry” was his motto, and he lived up to it. He had by nature, a bad style, with far too much jumping on the toes and his elboyvs too high in the air. He was a terrible slicer ,and since the cours? of the Bimaris G.C. at Corinth was between two seas, lie sliced into one sea all th > way going out and into the other all th? way home. I should be afraid to say hoyv manv balls he lust. However, he pegged his feet down to the tee and practiced diiving with a handkerchief un.der each armpit, so that whenever, the handkerchief fell out he kneyv that his elboyv had gone too high. People laughed at him at first, but he stuck to it so nobly that ho became uncommonly popular, and yvhen lie b'at that beast "Bias., who thought he had found another pigeon, the whole of Corinth went mad with joy - (“The Times.’”)

There’s saying that there’s nothing new under the sun. but everv once in a while something is heard that contradicts this statement. Tn a recent tournament two yvonien golf Mayers started out in match iJay. They yvere both rather new at the eamf — o"o norticularl’- did not tn know who) it was r ll ab'ut as tl)°v walked down the first fairwav she turned +o Tv>. opponent with the remark: “T sMdmn nlav more Hmn nin n Jinlnq pnd if T tired will it be all right with vou if mv daughter finishes the game for me?”

Last year a total of 13,200.00() golf balls was used in the United States. Another example of what lengths the inhabitants of the land of the Ford will go in order to satisfy their craving ior statistics! * * * A golf philosopher was asked the other day for a. few epigrams anent the Ko.yal and Ancient game. Hero they It’s a long hole that has no short putts. Practice makes perfect putting possible. A topped hall gathers no speed. Bad shots should Ih l seen and not heard. You can drive a floater into the water, but you can’t make it sinkEven the little animals are becoming fascinated by the royal and ancient game. In a squirrel’s nest found on the Augusta Country Golf Club, Manchester (U.S.A.), was a hoard of 31 golf balls. • * * 'I he only woman golf professional in Jic ».orid lias maile her appearance on the s< one in. England and eonsequenly America has for cine been beaten, ihe lady i s a Miss Wingate, who has oecn appointed to assist her brother on the new Temiileuou sani municipal course, « * “Golf," writes Professor William Lyon I'iiolps in “'rhe New Republic,” •has done mere for swearing than any oilier modern employment ; it has made taciturn gentlemen as efficient as team sters. The disappointments of golf are > i immediate, so unexpected, so overwhelming. Nearly all men, and yvonien too, must swear naturally in their Jn light s : else hoyv explain such easily acquired o/f.ci: m y!” » Sf I Mr. Israel Side.bottom. the new Che shiro champion, is one of the most complete waggiers in the game, Sandy .ierd not excepted. In this connection (says the “Liverpool Post’ ) be told a good story in the clubhouse after his . ictory oy er M. Si hunck in the Cheshire iinal. Explaining a dreadful chip shot out ol the rough at the left of the tenth green, he said, so the story was told by one who heard it: “1 had decided that twenty- ‘waggles’ were necessary for that shot, and when I had made fifteen I heard someone behind me say: ‘Why he’s yvaggling yet !’ I lost my temper and hit too soon.”

Jovial Dick Banks, the veteran Vic torian professional, had a very “roiigJi’’ spin at Seaton during the open golf championship. At one hole, lollowing the. standard he set himself at every pre: eding holo, he put his hall into a bunker. Descending therein, with the intention of playing an “explosive” shot out .he caught the ball as clean as a whistle, and away it sailed far over the green into the middle oi a cactus bush, which was more than well equipped with fearsome spikes. ,Carelli ily straddling this extraordinary “hazard.” Dick had a bit, and something brown streaked out of the desert herbage. Banks says: “It was a rabbit. I kneyv because it had a white tail.” The ball was still in the cactus. It still is for all Banks caresTn two matches between Yorkshire and Cheshire at Leeds, Doris Chambers, the British lady golf champi®, was tyvice defeated by Miss Wiagg, whj won the Yorkshire title two years ago. Ln the first game Miss Wragg won as early as the 14th hole, but in the afternoon she had to go to the 19th hole before defeating the national champion.

A. Ham, the Heretaunga professional and runner-up in the open championship of Australia recently, played a .inc. third round of 76 in hall a gale n the New Zealand open championship. and with the last to go ied the field hv three strokes, his total ivr the three rounds being 230. Then ne crashed and took 85 for the last round.