IS GOLF “SELFISH”?

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21980, 15 June 1933, Page 14

IS GOLF “SELFISH”?

One man’s game is another man’s penance. The many who have talked golf to auditors who heard them not gladly should grant liberty of speech to Dr Cawadias in his mission to preach that “golf is really a selfish game” (savs the, London Daily Telegraph). His conception of golf, however, they will not admit to be adequate. Its functions as he sees them are merely to give the middle-aged a little flexibility of •body and a decent control of temper. Whether the tempers still uncontrolled in middle life will be any the bettor for golf experience suggests grave doubt. We must not expect spiritual miracles of any game. The moral defect which Dr Cawadias finds in golf is that it is the worst of all games for developing the team spirit. Most people will go so far with him, that a boy had better he brought up on Rugger than on golf. But no idealist has yet proposed to make golf the £l game of schools. The practical difficulties of exercising hundreds of young barbarians adequately therewith are overwhelming. Yet why should the doctor reckon golf more selfish than other games in which a man must play for his own hand ? Is it because the golfer is more prone than other men to tell ns of his prowess?