GOLF.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19019, 15 November 1923, Page 4

GOLF.

By Divot.

The Mastcrton Golf Club has engaged Mr A. James as professional and club-maker. Owing to the death of his father, A. G. Havers, the British open champion, has can-' celled a proposed immediate visit to the Knited States to play Sanizen. Havers and Ockonden will probably tour the United .States early next year. Keeping the head down is the supremo passive factor in golf.' If we fail in that, nothing else matters very much. Not the least evil effect of head lifting is to impose a drag or check on the follow-through. With tho act ol* linking up there is an inevitable slackening of effort. This is merely an instance of that correlation between the visual and motor functions, commonly enough observed. When (ho head is raised prematurely, the hands fail to go forward and upward in that comfortable and ample sweep which characterises a good finish. Rather do they continue round the body, carrying tho club awkwardly across the line of flight, to produce a slice in addition to loss of distance. The final for tho Welsh open amateur championship, played on the Southerndown links, situated on a vast and beautiful tableland 300 ft above the Bristol Channel, was won by Cyril Tolley on September 29 for the second time in three years. He defeated Major C. 0. Hezlet by two and one. A notable lack of courage on tho part of the runner-up in hitting tho yard putts made a difference of four holes at least Really it was a most, pathetic display on the part of a man who was encompassing easy distances with wood and iron, and generally keeping a wonderfully straight lino. When he came to the green he seemed to bo overtaken by a species of putting paralysis. On the second green he took four putts, requiring three of them from a distance of tut. Tho match started in a dense sea mist, which swept up from the Bristol Channel and enveloped the entire links. Every landmark was blotted out, and ns it was possible only to see 70 or 80 yards ahead tore-caddies- were necessary to indicate the line and to mark down tho balls. “Cleek," writing in tho Southland Times about evening* stunts, has an appropriate story to toll. Ho says: “During a recent holiday at Waikonaiti our house party, five of us, had some amusement a little out of the ordinary. It had been a perfect day, and the nigh) was just as flawless. There wss not a cloud in the sky, and in all the myriads - of stars sparkling in the heavens there was not one that did not seem brighter than the usual. Through them sailed a peerless moon, flooding the country with silver light.. Dinner over, we were having a smoke on the verandah before beginning the usual rubber, when our host, C. W. Rattray, said half jokingly that it was sacrilege to play bridge on such a night and ‘what about a few holes?’ It was a night for moon madness if ever there was one, and in five minutes wo were out on the ninth fairway, approaching the ninth green from 70 or 80 yards and putting out. From 8.30 till nearly 10 o’clock we carried on at the game, and, though the green is guarded well by gorse. it was not until the Inst flutter that, one of the party lost a ball. The number of threes got was extraordinary, and there was an occasional two. From 80yds the green was invisible, to sav nothing of the flag, yet, on the players found the green a good deal better than some of them had done in the broad light of day. On the green the cup wa« only a sort of hazy suggestion, yet the putts (with the mashie) found it again and again. It was an extremely pleasant ad venture—especially for our host, who turned to the house with a considerable weight of metal in his breeches pocket ” We hoard at tho time of Walter Hagen's •©turn to • the United States from the open championship tournament at Troon that he unburdened himself-to tho American pressmen on the subject of the alleged bad treatment he, personally, and the American professionals generally, had received whilst In Great Britain. An equal amount of pub licity was not given to tho fact that Mr Robert Harlow, tho manager for Hager, and Kirkwood in their tour as exhibition golfers, wrote an Article for an American paper which disposed pretty effectually of Hagen’s allegations, The storm centre, of course, is Troon, but Mr Harlow loads up to the subject hy -paying a handsome tribute to the warmth of the reception accorded at Leeds and Lytham and St. Anne’s, whore the American professionals were feted and banqueted, and the clubhouses at both places thrown open to them. At Troon it was different; Hagen was not officially welcomed by the mayor, nor was the entire clubhouse, placed at hia disposal. No doubt, says, a, correspondent of the Obthe fact, has been overlooked that the Hig prize-money tournaments at Leeds and at Lytham and St. Anne’s were promoted by newspapers, whose object is not far to seek. To make the events successful, the Americans had to be enticed somehow to play in them. No wonder the men from the States were immensely delighted with their treatment. This pampering was not good for them, because when they arrived at Troon there Were no banquets, no bands and business, and no pedestals. The attitude of the Troon Club was, quite properly, perfectly impartial; everybody from the lowly professional to the princes of the game wore treated alike. Because at Troon, in comparison with Leeds and elsewhere, the Americans were given what is known in tho States as “the ice.” and because a neurotic woman laughed in derision in Hagen’s face when- ho-missed a tiny putt, the charge that the British people are bad sportsmen is not sustained. Air Harlow admits this freely. Perfect silence, he says, was maintained while the Americans were playing. “Human nature is much the same on both sides of the Atlantic,” observes the American manager. “No nation can lay claim to all of tho good sportsmanship in the world, or can it be guilty of all of the had sportsmanship. There are in all larpe crowds a few persons who may bo downright bad sports, but ’the crowd in which they mingle, or the country to which they belong should .not be made to stand the blame for the unsportsmanlike conduct of a few.” Referring to the charge that -when .Hagen sliced his second shot into a bunker at the last hole and thus ruined his chance to repent his victory of the previous year, a small group of British professionals cheered. Air Harlow says: “The championship cup had twice travelled across the Atlantic, and the British professionals were more than ordinarily l kee-n to regain it. It, was right and proper that they should lie. If under the, extreme pressure of the moment they uttered noises of satisfaction, I prefer to believe it was merely an expression of joy that the cup was safe for Britain rather than anv bad sportsmanship, or an attack upon Hagen, who is popular personally with all in Great Britain, save perhaps a few* who are jealous of his success.” Remarking that this is quite a new aspect of the Troon affair, the Observer correspondent writes:—“l was standing on the verandah of (he clubhouse when Hagen made the fatal mistake with hia second shot at the last hole, and I certainly did not hear the group of British professionals who were anile close, cheer, or see them demonstrate at sight of the American’s misfortune. Unquestionably, there was applause, rather subdued in tone, but it came from quite a different quarter. I am inclined to think that the applause was occasioned not because of the grave that Hagen had dug for himself, hut because of the knowledge that n Britisher had won at last.”