DUKE AS GOLF INSTRUCTOR

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXII, 28 January 1939, Page 15

DUKE AS GOLF INSTRUCTOR

ADVICE TO SCHOOLBOYS INCIDENT RECALLED AT CHANTILLY •By Air Mail—Special Cor respondent 1 LONDON, 24th December. An example of the Duke of Windsor’s excellent memory was provided this week by Mr’ P. B. Lucas, a well-known amateur golfer, who had met the Duke a few days previously at Chantilly. In 1933, Duke visited Stowe, a noted English public school. After he had made his speech about half a dozen of the boys were called on to entertain him to tea. Mr Lucas, who was one of the boys so honoured, writes in a Sunday newspaper:— The headmaster introduced us to him and then left us to make conversation. Just about the first question our guest put to us was: “Do any of you fellows play golf?” Some one said that Lucas played a bit, and so, very nervously, I stepped forward and started talking with his Royal Highness on this particular subject about which I happened to know something. To this day I can remember as well as anything what he said. It was this:— “I am quite sure the way to improve your game is to take out 100 balls and just go on hitting them and hitting them. Look at that field down there/’ he said, pointing to a practice ground we had. “You could find time to go and hit shots down there, couldn’t you Archie Compston tells me that is the only way to make your game better. The reason the Americans always beat us is because they practice like that.” At Chantilly last Monday 1 met his Royal Highness again, and with all the same trepidation I had shown five years previously, I said: “Do you, sir, remember by any chance coming down to Stowe in 1933?” This was hia reply : “I do, indeed. I remember asking at tea whether any one played golf, and then you were pushed forward and I said to you: “the reason why these Americans are so good is because they practise so much more than our players do. If you get the chance you should go out and hit ball after ball. Then you won the boys’ championship the same summer, didn’t you, and I remember thinking at the time ‘I wonder if he has been practising.’ ”