CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22412, 7 May 1936, Page 5

CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF

CONTESTS IN BRITAIN AMATEUR AND OPEN TITLES The British amateur and open golf championships will be ot especial interest this year owing to the tact that .lira Ferrier, the brilliant Austxauan, will bo taking part. The amateur will be played at St. Andrews, commencing on May 25 and the open starts on June 22 at Hoy lake. . The amateur championship is decided by match-play throughout, although tho number of entries received usually totals approximately 250. To stand up to nine or ten rounds of solid match-play, physical fitness will be essential, and Ferrier lacks nothing on that score as ho stands six feet two inches and weighs 14 stone. He is in good form as in his first tournament in England last month he tied for fourth place in the Northern open championship. After a poor start in tho first round he played the next three rounds in 72, 75 and 71, his final score being the best round of the day. The first Britfsh amateur championship was played in 1885 and in 1904 the late W. J. Travis, who was born in Australia, but later became a naturalised citizen of tho United States of America, won the title. The first player of other than British birth to be successful was Jesse Sweetser in 1926. Bobby Jones, 1930, was next and he was followed by W. Lawson Little, 1934 and 1935. Little will not lie eligible to compete as an amateur this year, as he has joined forces with Jones.

In 1927, Len Ncttlefold, the Tasmanian left-hander, and amateur champion of Australia in 1926 and 1928, visited Great Britain, and he performed well in the British amateur championship. He survived five rounds and was then beaten bv the ultimate winner, Dr. W. Tweddell. Ncttlefold later took part in the Swiss amateur championship and it was not until the final that ho was defeated.