PLAY-DAZE MALADY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXVI, Issue 146, 5 June 1936, Page 15

PLAY-DAZE MALADY

When Mind Gets Tired

GOLI’’ VICTIMS

(Own Correspondent—By Air Mail). "Play-daze,’*’ a form of mental black-out due to over-concentration, is becoming an increasing problem in the world of competitive sport. Tennis players often suffer from it, cricketers know it; it is particularly common in golf—and attention is again focused on it by the decision of Mi Harry Bentley, the British Walker Cup player, to take a compete rest from golf. Mr Bentley, who is suffering from general muscular strain after winning

the English Amateur Championship at Deal last Saturday, told a “Daily Mail” reporter at his home at Hesketh, Southport, yesterday: “My doctor will not let me take part in the Lancashire County Championship at Formby next week. “As soon as I got back from Deal my nerves seemed to be all wrong and I felt terrible. My doctor told me to put my clubs away for a while. This week T have been watching the Dunlop’ Southport tournament instead of play ing, and I feel better. I am hoping to be fit again for the British Amaeur Championship at St. Andrews.” Mr Bentley’s friends believe that by these precautions he may have escaped a severe bout of “play-daze.” Only on Wednesday at Southport Charles Whiteombe, the British Ryder Cup captain, fell a victim. His ball became embedded behind a bush. Four times he hacked at it, then threw it

across the green, disqualifying himself. “My mind just went blank,” he said afterwards. “I was in a haze.” Jack Maclean, the Scottish international, said yesterday: “I have sufferfrom the same complaint. It is very curious. One min'd just doesn’t want to play golf.” A doctor described “sport-daze” as a condition of nerves. “It is the result of over-coneentration,” he said, “and the brain longs for variety.”