FANTASTIC FEES IN U.S.A.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 14 October 1922, Page 4

FANTASTIC FEES IN U.S.A.

America has become the professional golfer's El Dorado. Month by month artd year by year- tlie exodus of British, players to the States is steadily increasing. It is in America where the "big?J money is, and it is not surprising,, in view of heavy taxation and dwindling incomes here, that there : shoxild be a rush to share in the spoils. The statement volunteered by Walter Hagen, the new British champion, that Ms income, or earnings, purely from golf during the next twelve months willi'be £10,000, throws a piercing ray of light upon the finance of the game as • viewed from(the American standpoint. •* No ' such sum has ever been earned by any two British professionals in any one year. _ The fact \ that golf-, has become a positive fever in the States largely accounts for the ability of certain famous golfers to earn sums "which, a few years ago. would have; been regarded as fabulous,, and, in-' ■deed, fantastic, writes the golf correspondent of the Observer. % Golf is conducted on a far more ex-j pensive scale in -America; than it is In England. . ; Only: the United States could support, or conceive,V: a .ischeme like the Westchester-Baltimore- Chiby-n-air New York, where the capital is 8,000,000 dollars, and there are four eighteen-hole courses. It is the re- . sort of millionaires. A first-class,golf .ball costs the, equivalent in English Unoney from 5s to 6s, and a golf club from 35s t0..405. A good full set of «!übs_would run to about £20, exclusive, or the bag. No wonder that Charles Mayo washable to save more an the two years/ he was engaged at iheiEdgewater C;lub, Chicago, than he could have done in twenty years in Jock Hutchison, the son of a fisherman, who as a child ran bare-' footed over the classic jinks of St. Andrews, went to the States, when «ighieen years of age, and js now in a state of affluence. James Burnes, who began life on the Lelant links in Cornwall and is now at the exclusive Peih-am/Country Club, New York, has met ■ with the same measure of success. No doubt the 'fruits are. few, Tvf to those who are in a position toj . pluck them, they are very luscious. '