SOME WEIRD GOLF SHOTS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 11 August 1928, Page 9

SOME WEIRD GOLF SHOTS

CONSOLATIONS FOR THE AVERAGE PLAYER

(By llarry Vardon, Six Times Open Champion:}

(Specially Written foi* “The Mail’ )

Sonic of the shots that one sees oil the links are wonderful in their excellence. Others are almost weird as examples of blundering misadventure. The latter have their value as lessons and consolations. Every now and again, one reads a symposium of articles by prominent golfers under some suclititle as:—“The best shot I over played.” It would be even more educative lO' collect the views of the'same people as to the worst shots in their memory. They would have a, human appeal to the ordinaiv straggler with the game.

1 leally think thero is an immense amount of secret satisfaction when a champion makes as bad a bungle of a hole as any 24-handicap player might do. It is a touch of nature which makes the whole world kill.

Personally, I have suffered two sucii experiences The first was at Bury, where, appearing as open champion, I took I‘l for a short hole after playing the first few ho ,o ~ well. The 'eooncl was at Muswell ltill when fagain as open chamnion) 1 took 9 for a ; mpie little drive-an.d-pitch hole I got into a ditch and needed seven shots to reach the green. How excited and refreshed the members looked ! This was something like a spasm of the punishment which they expected, to suffer—and did suffer —from time to time. The ditch was photographed from every point of tho compass. They may have had much sympathy wllli the player, but they were tier, ‘.,ble to recall proud days when they had done that hole in four, and perhaps they had had an occasional three at it. Yes ; they could play golf when they felt in the mood. And a champion could plav like the worst when things went Knrilv. He could take 9 at a dvive-and-pitch hole. They, too, had totalled something like 9 for it in periods of adversity. A funny game, golf. BUNKERED OFF HIS PUTT It is pleasant, after all, to think that we are all fallible oil occasion. When James Braid won the open championship in manner so magnificent at Prestwick in 1908, he did a thing in the qualifying round that the longest of long-handicap players would have felt like kicking himself for doing. Braid was nicely on a greet!) in two, about fifteen yards short of tho hole, which was cut five yards from the bunker guarding the hack of tho green. Braid putted—and went into tho hazard. Bunkered off his putt ! He had to take his niblick and hack his way hack to the green. That wonderfully fine all-round athlete. the Hon. Alfred Lyttelton, who roso to Cabinet rank as Secretary for the Colonies during his Parliamentary career, was a good golfer. Ho had a handicap of three in the Royal and Ancient Club. But this standard of skill did not save him from being the central figure in one of the queerest misadventures ever suffered by a player at St. Andrews. It happened at the first hole. Mr Lyttelton made a mess of his drive; it did not go very far, and it was badly sliced. The consequence was that he had to play his second shot from a spot immediately behind one of the iron seats that stand close to the fore-shore on the right-hand side of the course. He made a terrific swipe and hit the seat full, with the result that the hall rebounded past tho club-house and left him to take his third shot close to the Martyr’s Memorial, a hundred yards behind the tee from which he had started. The stow mierht'have been improved hv bis hall coming to rest behind the memorial, and his third shot hit-tins that obelisk with such force as to recoil another 150 yards away from the proper scene of operations, but we will leave it without embellishment.

REPLACE THE DIVOTS! At my home course, South Herts, they tell a tale of a man who once lost his ball without hitting it. The affair ham pened in this wise: A lot of rain had fallen, and the course was more than usually soft. Our hero was not a good player, and in executing a full bang with his"mashie, he was guilty of the common fault of looking up before the clubhead reached the ball. The consequence was that he raised an enormous divot. He felt satisfied that he had struck the ball, but nowhere could he see it. High and low he soueht without success In due course came the explanation : let us hone that it brought balm to his soul. He had missed the globe, and the ponderous divot which he had extracted had neatlv turned over on to the ball, obscuring it from view. The moral of this stow is that, if vou always renlace the divots, even when vou are without a caddie, you at least will not lose the ball if vbu happen to miss the globe. HOLING OUT IN 123 Perseverance, obstinacy—call it what you will—leads . some players to extraordinary lengths, to say nothing of the scores. There is a story, and it has the merit of being true, of a player who took 1-23 for one particular hole. It was on a course in Hertfordshire. The hole was a short one. hut the green was placed at the top of a steep hill. Tn-drv weather, it was absolutely necessarv to putt the ball on the green from the tee. or it would roll back to its starting noint. The plaver \n- ouestiou essaved the task. He failed,' not once, but time after time. His efforts to reach the plateau soon develoned from a test of skill into a test of physical endurance. Try as he would, he could not reach the top where safety lav. As fast as he played file shot, his hall came running hack to him with a persistency that was positively heart-breaking. But ho succeeded at last, and holed out in 123. It is probable that this golfer holds the record for the highest score for any one hole.