GOLF TOPICS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 20114, 27 November 1928, Page 13

GOLF TOPICS.

PLAYING IN SUMMER TIME. PRACTICE IN GREAT BRITAIN. PRAISE FOR SHIRLEY COURSE. B V FAIRWAY. At the present time golf courses in New Zealand are nearly all at their best. The adequate supply of rain has kept the fairways and the greens strong and full of their proper colour, while tho summer weather helps to improvo the greens and to produce a certain springiness in the fairways. Tho courses, which may be somewhat hard and bare in January and February, are now in good condition and invite the golfer. And yet it is precisely at this season that numbers, probably the majority, of Now Zealand golfers put away their clubs becauso of tho convention that golf is not a summer game. One reads reports from different parts of the country to the effect, that tho golf'club has "closed for the season." These reports give the impression that this closing of the. golfing season is as inevitable as the coining of summer. In Great Britain ono never hears such a phrase as tho closing of the golf season. There is no such convention. Golfers continue to play all (ho year round; some liavo even been known lo play in snow with rod-coloured balls. A Golfing Holiday. As for the summer, which, for temperature and its effect upon the golf courses, is closely akin to our New Zealand summer, that is the very season for golf. It is in summer all tho courses are at their fullest, and tho seaside resorts crowded with players and their families spending a golfing holiday in the most, enjoyable way.

Tho mention of seaside resorts reminds mo of the great number and variety of these places in Great Britain. Along tho coasts of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, there are hundreds of pleasan* little towns ami villages, into which, in summer, train-loads of holidaymakers movn in order to stay for a month Dr inoro. Golf and tho seaside arc the attractions. And these visitors aro not "trippers." They usually come in families, sometimes accompanied by neighbours and friends. They belong to the well-to-do middle class, and to other classes with still greater financial resources, and they usually frequent their favourite seaside townlet year after year. Often they seek quietness, and they find themselves led to the nioro distant parts of Wales and Scotland, and there they find a number of quite first-class golf courses, which are at their very best in tho early summer. Leading Players' Practice.

We cannot, point, as yet, to any similar seaside golfing centres in New Zealand to which people may resort for their summer holidays. One reason for (his may be the fact that most people regard golf as unsuitable for summer. It is hard to say wliv this convention about not playing golf in the summer months has come to have such a hold upon tho Dominion. But it is possiblo to say its hold is slackening. Each year a greater number of golfers refuse to recognise the. "close of the. season," and go on enjoying their golf throughout, the summer. This practice of pursuing tho gamo right through tho holiday season is followed, especially by tho leading golfers, both because they enjoy summer golf and because they see no reason why they should cease to play for three or four months of the year, lhe practice of the leading players will presently become general with all golfers. I lie. \\ elhngton and tho Christchurch golf cltibs recently played the second of their two annual matches for tho Tuson Cup. Christchurch won by 8 matches to 4, but the Wellington Club had the satisfaction of pointing to victories by its three loading players against Chri.sfrht'nch. Arthur Duncan, lan MacEwan and Douglas White, playing iri that order, won their matches against Ewen Macfarlane, Donald Grant and Louis Campbell, respectively. Although lie had hardly played for six months. White went, round in 74 to beat the Chiistclnirch Club champion, Campbell. MacEwen, champion of tho Wellington ('lull, was ono above fours at, the sixteenth, where, his match against Grant, ended, and Duncan had practically the same figures against Macfarlane. Veteran Impresses.

The veteran impressed everybody by his fine golf, and especially by his long driving. In tho company of younger players who drive well, and who performed up to their usual standard, Duncan repeatedly outdrove tho others. This revival of bis driving power is particularly gratifying to Duncan and to many others, for his long game has been unsatisfactory during the past two or three years. The Wellington players praised the Shirlev course, as those North Island golfers had done who played there on Labour Day when tho championship candidates passed through Christchnrch on their way homo from Dunedin. The two champions and the two runners-up were, there as well as those who had been merely candidates. "Tf it continues to improve at the present rate, it will be equal in a year or two to a first-class English course." These, or similar words, were spoken by Duncan, and they remind one of what Ivo Whitton said last, February when lie played at Shirley: "The best greens I have played on since I last played golf in England." The Shirley course is really in good condition at, tho present time, and tho greens have never been better. Nevertheless it is probable the premier course of New Zealand, iri a few years time, will be Tilirangi, if all that is reported about, that fine layout is correct. Progress o! Game. These facts aro further indications of tho progress the royal and ancient game has made in tho Dominion during tho past year or two. Besides Shirley and Tit irangi there are other courses m the countrv which could quickly be, developed into quite first class championship courses if only money were available. When Leo Diegel won the Professional Golfers' Association championship of America, at Baltimore, over a month ago. lie, encountered in sequence three of America's most formidable goiters— Hageri, Sara/,en and Espinosa. The lastnamed won the medal in tho two qualifying rounds with 70, 72—142, on the difficult, course with par at 70. He played par golf all the week and met Diegel in tho final. Diegel putted better than Espinosa and so beat him with " golf that would not ho denied." By excellence in the, same delicate art Diegel ousted in the semi-final Sarazen, who up to that time and after the defeat of Ifagen, had been regarded as the probable winner. In the round previous to that Diegel met his old rival Hagen, was 5 up on him at the ninth, and won only at tho thirty-seventh, after one of Hagen's characteristic rallies. It is interesting to notice that Diegel. whoso consistently good putting brought him this championship, is one Of the few outstanding American golfers employing the pendulum stroke with his putter. The usual practice among the Americans, one gathers, is to make the putting stroke very much a right-hand stroke with the left hand and arm operating as an immobile limb against which the right can smoothly work.