WOMEN V. MEN AT GOLF

Northern Advocate, 23 May 1928, Page 8

WOMEN V. MEN AT GOLF

THE TERMS OP HANDICAP.

(By Harry Vardon, Six Times Open Champion.)

(All Eights Reserved.)

One of the gala days of the London season is that on which the animal match takes place at Stoke PogeSj Slough, between teams repre* sentative of ladies’golf and men’s amateur golf.

This year, it has the distinction of opening the programme of big events in the Metropolitan district. It is taking place on Saturday, April 14. As a social affair, tinged with the element of a pitched battle between the sexes, it is splendid. Regarded solely in the light of a pitched battle, it has one serious flaw. The ladies are nearly always beaten. At least, they have been successful only once in the ten contests so far decided.

Up to the present, the principle has been for each male to concede nine strokes to his feminine rival. This is the accepted formula of handicapping when first-class players of the two sexes come into competition. It has tradition on its side.

It was what Mr Horace Hutchinson used to give the Misses Orr, of North Berwick —ta wonderful family of golfing sisters, of whom three reached the semi-final of the ladies’ championship at Gullane in 1897 when all these players were in their heydey. It was what Mr Harold Hilton at his best gave Miss Rhona Adair, the Lady Champion of 1900 and 1903, and I think they halved. He tried to give nine strokes to Miss Cecil Leitch in a 72 holes match over the Walton Heath and Sunningdale courses, and failed. Miss Leitch was very young at the time—nineteen, if I remember rightly —but she won by 2 and 1 by means of a brilliant finish, after having waged an uphill fight most of the time. In the same year, and under the same handicap, she beat Tom Ball, then one of the leading professionals of the land, in a match over his home course, West' Lancashire. Miss Joyce Wethered has found an allowance of six strokes sufficient to enable her to defeat her brother Roger, Mr Cyril Tolley, -and other first-class amateurs.

A SYSTEM FOUND WANTING. Consequently, it may be argued that there is no need to alter the mode of handicapping in these matches. But the fact remains that only one or two -of the best lady- players prosper under it. To receive a stroke at every other hole may be very useful. It is obvious, however, that the playing of the alternate holes on level terras is desperately difficult for the ladies. For this reason, they begin to lose ground early in the round; and every golfer knows that a start which is discouraging to the degree of being burdensome is apt to provoke all kinds of rash endeavours and disconcerting results. Often it happens, too, that the holes at which the ladies are allotted their strokes are the very' holes at which they do brilliant things, and need an allowance from no man. This, at least, is their contention, and no good can be done by arguing about it. Miss Leitch has long held the view that a better way would be for the men to give the ladies six bisques instead- of nine strokes, and the scheme has much to recommend it. It met with much approval in a private team match between the sexes at West Hill, Brookwood, a few years ago. Bisques—it should be stated for the benefit of people who never bother about such things —are strokes that ean be taken anywhere, and in any quantity up to the limit of their number, instead of players having to accept an allowance of a stroke at certain pre-arranged holes, where the concession may not be wanted. It is usually computed that the better player ought to give, in bisques, slightly more than half the number of strokes that he concedes when he knows in advance exactly where he has to give them. Under the latter system —the ordinary sys tom —he can adapt his play to the requirements of the situation. Under the bisques principle, he never knows quite how he stands.

He may halve the hole, and then have it counted as a loss against him because his opponent says: "I’ll take a bisque here."

CONCERNING THRIFT. There is a feeling that six bisques w r ould be of greater help to the ladies than the automaticaly allotted nine strokes, by keeping them steady at the start, where so often they lose ground in these matches. It has been declared that ladies do not know how to take bisques; that they nurse up their allowance until the match reaches an advanced stage and they are a lot of holes down and several bisques in hand, but not sufficient to save the situation.

This is a compliment to their thrift, but it is no other kind of compliment. There is only one way to use bisques. It is to use them early so as to win holes which otherwise would have been halved, and thus establish a lead—with all its normal effect on the opposition. I believe that Miss Leitch has played a number of matches on long courses against first-class male amateurs under these terms; she has wen several and lost others only on the thirty-fourth and thirty-s'.vta greens.