PROFESSIONAL GOLF

Manawatu Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 2305, 25 November 1925, Page 13

PROFESSIONAL GOLF

04 BIKW IS' MATOBWPLAX TEST '(By Harry Vardon, six times Open Champion.) What is now largely Known as the "professional match-play championship” is fixed! for decision next week beginning on Tuesday ,at Moor Park, Rickmansworth, near London. e If there were a properly-constituted event bearing (his title, it la fairly certain that it would be the practically unanimous wish of the players themselves that all the matches should be over 36 holes. Still, perhaps a name does not matter very much, and this is, at any rate, a title of convenience for a tournament, in connection with which 64 men qualify from,every district of the British Isles and then proceed on the knock-out principle In single-round contests until two players remain to contest the final over two rounds of the course.

In the past, the event has served to bring quickly to the front a goodly number of young professionals who without this opportunity, would probably have had to wait a great deal longer before finding themselves discussed as possible champions in embryo. Once they have qualified they unquestionably possess a very considerable chance of dashing Into prominence in these short, sharp bursts of 18-hole matches. In encouraging young players of promise, the tournament has done much good, and it Is sufficient solace for the professionals of established reputation that never has one of them been beaten in the S6-holes final by an entrant of quickly made fame —that fame which comes of success in preliminaries that have all the elements of sudden-death duelling.

On the long, hard road, the old dog has always been triumphant. Whenever there has been a wholly unexpected winner—Bert Seymour, George Gadd, and B, G. Wilson may each be said to have supplied this condition In the seventeen tournaments held to date —he has had an equally unexpected opponent to beat In the final. All sie players of well-proven worth in championships have been put out in the neck-or-nothlng sprints of the earlier rounds. Precedent. It will be interesting to see whether any member of the rising generation can change this order next week. All the accepted bright, particular stars of the younger battalions have qualified with the exception of Percy Allis, whose failure to survive the scoring test is a misfortune, for he has as true and a convincing -way of swinging the club and hitting the ball as anybody I have seen among the players of his era. This golfer of Yorkshire birth and training, will do something big one day. A final between a potential champion, as, for example, Archie Compnton or Charles WHiitcombe, and one of the long established powers, such as Abe Mitchell, George Duncan, J. H. Taylor, or Alexander Herd, would be an ideal final. And -who would win? It seems to me that' precedent points mostly to the likelihood of a victory for the more experienced player. His difficulty is to rise superior to the vicissitudes of the fluky single-round matches that precede the test of the last two survivors. Instituted in 1903, the tournament produced in each of its first four years a finalist who was a struggler for distinction. At the outset, there -was Edward Ray—then far less polished and skilful than he is now—and he was emulated in the succeeding seasons by Alfred Toogood, Tom Vardon (my brother), and C. H. Mayo. These were all good; and yet they could not get through the 86-holes finals. The winners in those four years were James Braid (twice), J. H. Taylor, anc 1 Alexander Herd.

In many respects the elysium of the rising l talent was Nottingham In 1&06 for then It seemed that nothing could save the champions of renown from complete discomfiture. First there was '.Duncan, who, up to that time, had clone nothing of note, being, indeed, virtually a debutant in first-class golf. Only four years ear lier he had attended his first open championship—the one which Herd secured at Hoylake and the time when wo had our Introduction to the rubber-cored ball —and Duncan went to that cha.mpionshlp as a spectator because he had no faith in himself as a player. At Nottingham, however, he set about him to such a purpose that he beat Braid and Taylor, then at the zenith of their glories, in the earlier rounds. He was checked in the semi-final by Herd. C. H, Mayo also made his name on that occasion by reaching the final, although not by such, a devastation of champions as Duncan’s. When it came to the 36 holes test, however, Mayo lost to Herd by 8 and 7. Points In the Draw. So it has always been when the old hand In these affairs and the young player of euddenly-mado fame have met in the final. There is a fairly even distribution of the talent in the draw for next week’s tournament, although it is a pity that Archie Corapston and Arthur Havers have to meet in the first round. The winner, too, can come into contact with Abe Mitchell in the round before the semi-final. In their half of the draw is Herd, who has the advantage—lf It can be called an advantage—of playing on his home course. What a wonderful thing if he. were to win again at tho age of 57! I have not the least hesitation setting down Mitchell ao the best golfer in tho field, but this is always an event of surprises and Herd may quite conceivably be the hero of tho meeting. He keeps wonderfully fit, and goes to great pains to do so, for there is hardly a morning in tho year when he omits to perform a course of “physical jerks” adapted to the requirements of a golfer. Charles Whitcombs is In the other half of the draw, with a chance of opposing Duncan for a place in the semi-final, although Duncan has first to put out that extraordinarily longdrhing Irishman Michael Bingham, whose chief enemy at present seems to a be a very high-strung temperament.

/Ja tibia ihal£ a£ tbs drags*, faav ssa

have such men aa J. H. Taylor and George Gadd, Ifc ia Impossible to resist a strong fancy for Mitchell, althiugh I keep pn HpMmoS „abput SEes& w