REPUTATIONS ENHANCED

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19743, 23 September 1938, Page 10

REPUTATIONS ENHANCED

H. COTTON AND R. LOCKE

CHALLENGE GOLF MATCH

YOUNG PLAYER'S FAULTS

Of the four players taking part in the recent £SOO challenge golf match, which evoked such widespread interest, two emerged with enhanced reputations. One was Henry Cotton and the other Bobby Locke, the youthful South African golfer, who may play in this year's New Zealand open in Dunedin.

"Though on the losing side, Locke emerged in a playing sense with even greater glory than Cotton and, having watched him carefully at Portmarnock in the Irish open and then at Walton Heath, I am convinced that the South African will take his place among the world's most distinguished players, if, indeed, he has not already done so," comments a writer in the London Observer. "His rise to fame is not dissimilar to that of R. T. Jones, the famous American. At the age of 14 each won a junior championship, an achievemet which set them on a career of conquest in national events. Locke's snail-like progress and extreme deliberation are not only a source of extreme exasperation both to opponents and spectators, but i? a strange and unbefitting altitude for a youth of 20 to adopt. While admitting that the playing of first-class golf demands care and concentration, these can be so overdone as to become ridiculous "Tedious Preliminaries."

"Locke is approaching the stage where the opponent, as was the case in the Eden tournament at St. Andrews some years ago, takes out a camp chair and rests whilst the other fellow goes through a host of tedious and wholly unnecessary preliminaries. Ridicule, the deadliest, of poisons, killed his antics.

"Having embraced golf as a profession and consequently as a means of livelihood, Locke must understand that the great golfing public are his customers, and as such they will call the tune. It will not, I assure him, be of the funereal kind. They will tolerate a good deal, but nothing in the nature of a pose. "Seeing that there has been so much adverse comment on his slow play it is only fair that Locke's views should be stated. He told me that, because of the lack of proper st9\varding, the public crowded the teeing-grounds, gave him little room on the fairways, and got in the way of his approach shots. In these circumstances there was naturally some delay between the shots. 'For me, it was a desperately important event, and each shot had to be played with deliberation and thought,' says Locke. Difference in Technique,

"The techntque of Cotton and Locke is totally different. In the case of the swing—the foundation of style— Cotton's is of the three-quarter type, and notably slow and measured, while Locke's is full, and, by comparison, quick. In each the common factors are smoothness and rhythm, without which there can be no lasting success in golf. "Some players swing slower than others; but, whatever tire pace, it must be rhythmical. Of all the great golfers none swings slower than Cotton, and precious few drive better or further.

"In a long experience I have seen many remarkable drives, but none more extraordinary than the one which Cotton hit at the twelfth hole at Walton Heath in the last round of the dramatic challenge match. He and his partner were 1 down, and having seen Whitcombe, safely on the course, and with a certain 4 to come, Cotton decided to go for the green. It is a dog-legged hole of 370 yards, the short-cut to which is a carry of 300 yards over a veritable jungle of bracken and heather. Failure to carry the jungle means a lost ball. Without apparently making any extra effort, Cotton not only carried everything, but finished on the forward part of the approach to the green. That mighty shot proved the turning point of the match, which up to that stage had been running in favour of the South Africans.

"While people marvel at the lowness of Cotton's scoring, it is his own belief that if he could swing slower he would be a better golfer. It is often asked: 'What is the secret of Cotton's length?' While a combination of several things—a beautiful pivot, a braced left side and arm at impact—he contrives to get into the shot a quick and decisive slap of the right hand as the clubhead meets the ball.

"Locke, on the other hand, gets his effects by perfect wrist action. He Is what one would term a 'wristy' player, while Cotton makes greater use of his hands and Angers. Locke is leaving shortly for Australia, where he will take part in a playing tour, but had he remained permanently in England I feel that he would have constituted a danger to Cotton's position of eminence. T am coming back to have a go at him,' was Locke's parting shot."