GOLF.

Southland Times, Issue 18945, 19 May 1923, Page 12 (Supplement)

GOLF.

(By “Cleek.”)

June 14 —British open championship at Troon. June 18 —Professional Tourney at Gleneagles. July I—French1 —French open championship, Dieppe. July 9—American open championship, Inwood. Sept. 6—N.Z. Ladies’ Championships at Nelson. Sept. 21—N.Z. open and amateur championships, Wanganui.

The Flag Match, which was played on the Park on Monday last, produced some very good play. Scoring was very close, Mrs Carr and Mrs Masters both reaching the 20th green. Mrs Masters, when she finished the round, had six strokes to play. These she used to’ the best advantage, getting a 4 at the 19th and two gcod shots at the 20th which left her about a foot from the pin. Mrs Carr’s ball was only about a yard from the pin, a position which gave her second place in the match. Mrs Broad had 4 strokes to play after the 18th and Miss Oughton 2, scores which were good encugh to win on a day when the standard was not above the usual. A party of ten players journeyed to Wyndham on Wednesday to play in the local Club’s opening-day foursomes and enjoyed a splendid day’s cuting.

The Park Club was fortunate in the weather conditions last Saturday for the first match of the season, a medal match. The morning was wet and a big storm seemed to be threatening, but the sun came out and the afternoon was perfect for golf. The entry for the match was the largest for many years, and augurs well for the progress cf the club during the match season. The medal was won by W. S. Ayson with a score of 87—16—71. The other players whose scores were under 80 nett were as follows:—G. F. Ferguson 92—18—74; A. McDougall, 85—10—75; C. A. Masters, 77—1—76; A. W. Morgan, 90—14—76; D. Cochrane* 100—24—76; W. J. Brooke 97—20—77 ; H. R. Dundas, 98—20—78; J. Macleod, 99—20—79. Next Saturday another medal match will be held. Following is the draw for the medal match to be played at Otatara to-day:—E. C. Sare (14) plays C. A. Masters (4) ; C. W. S. Cox (12) plays F. A. Barclay (9) ; W. Stewart (8) plays A. J. Hawke (9) ; R. J. Gilmour (5i plays G. Henderson (4) ; A. A. Cramond (12) plays R. Sommerville (10) ; R. A. Wilson (2) plays J. F. Lillicrap (14) ; J. Mackintosh (10) plays R. B. Caws (16); A. B. Haggitt (22) plays J. B. Reid (18); J. G. Macdonald (24) plays J. P. Butler (24) ; C. E. Yates (17) plays M. H. Mitchel (22); J. D. Mitchell (22) plays J. McLeod (24); N. E. Hubbard (24) plays G. Millar (15) ; S. E. Wootton (16) plays A. F. Grenfell (20); C. R. Andrews (16) plays G. F. Ferguson (24); C. B. Tapley (16) plays T. W. Vickery (22); A. B. Macalister (24) plays C. B. McNatty (24) ; B. W. Hewat (24) plays C. C. Jennings (24); G. Cruickshank (18) plays A. Dickens (16); S. C. Sutherland (24) plays D. Macpherscn (24); R. S. Galbraith (24) plays J. E. Cuthill (16) ; H. B. Farnall (16) plays A. S. Gilkison (22) ; C. F. A. Jones (22) plays A. W. O. Johnstone (24); I. Carr (22) plays R. R. Binney (22). The international match between Britain and America for the Walker Cup was fixed to be played at St. Andrew’s yesterday. In the matches for the Otago Club’s championship J. R. Callender beat R. G. Scott (the present champion) 2 up and 1 to play; R. B. Lambert beat H. Ramsay on the twentieth green; There was a field of 73 in the medal competition at ftlamar (Wellington) last Saturday, and J. H. Drake won with a fine card showing 76 —2—74. Others who got under 80 were A. E. Conway 78 and J. T. Tucker 79.

Local golfers will regret to learn that the captain of the Invercargill Club, Mr Wm. Thomson, is at present laid up with a bad knee. Some time ago Mr Thomson knelt down on the concrete floor of a garage to fix something on his car. A little while later he became sensible cf a stiffness in one of his knees, but paid no particular attention to it. It got worse, however, and Mr Thomson considered it advisable to take medical advice. The upshot was that he became an inmate of a private hospital, where he is likely to stay for a week or two. It appears that the chill of the concrete floor reacted upon some old strain of the knee and set up trouble which only rest and time can cure, and so while Mr Thomson is calling upon his reserves of patience he loses his golf and the Invercargill Club loses its skipper. His many golfing friends will wish Mr Thomson a quick and complete recovery. A communication from Queenstown shows that the Lake Wakatipu Golf Club has got going again on the course at Frankton. The

-reens are expected to be in gcod playing rder by the end of this month. The ’rankton course could be made quite a ;ood one, but with its small membership he Wakatipu Club’s difficulty is finance, nd it intends asking the Tourist Department for a subsidy. As a golf course Is Iways a strong additional attraction to a curist resort, the Queenstown Club has a air claim to consideration. Gdlf could be layed with rare pleasure at the foot of he majestic Remarkables. Members of the Invercargill Club should lote that a ringer competition is included n the list of fixtures for this season. For the purposes cf this competition the player takes from his cards for the monthly medal rounds the best figures for each of the eighteen holes, and the lowest score so compiled wins. Of course the cards have to be signed in proper form by the marker and put in, and a competitor whe has good scores at individual holes for the ringer match should put his card in even though his medal round is not good enough to win. A card with a few threes and one two on it is excellent for ringer purposes thcugh the total for the round may be 120. All cards should therefore be marked and signed properly and handed in. The Wellington Golf Club has abandoned competitions at Heretaunga during the winter. When the Wairarapa team visited Wellington $ fortnight ago their visit to Heretaunga was cancelled, the course being unfit fcr play as the result of continuous heavy rains. The weather during the visit of the Masterton men was atrocious. The Heretaunga players are getting their competition golf at Miramar.

One of the Australian metropolitan courses has nineteen holes. The first hole does not count, and is played with a view to enabling the player to extend himself and Icosen up. The second hole is the first of the eighteen which are then proceeded on. This is somewhat of an innovation, and one that would be appreciated by all golfers.

Women golfers have just gained another triumph. After many agitations, the Northwood Golf Club, in Middlesex, England, has decided to elect 100 women members. Hotherto they have been barred. Northwood is one of London’s senior golf courses. It was founded 32 years ago, very largely by Harley Street doctors, who are still numerous in the membership—in fact, it has the tradition cf being "the course in the world on which to be taken ill!” An unusual, and rigidly enforced rule of the club is that no game of cards shall be permitted in the clubhouse. Presumably the Miss Chambers who is the new British lady champion is the Miss Doris Chambers who has for years been looked upon as one of the best players in England but who has never before quite succeeded in winning in competition the place to which her skill entitled her. Miss Chambers reached the semi-final of the championship as long ago as 1909. Some time later she went to India and won the ladies’ championship of that country. Just before the American ladies’ championship last year Miss Chambers developed blood poisoning and pneumonia, but when she got over that began to play golf regularly, and her golf steadily improved until just before this year’s championship it was recognised that she was playing brilliantly. Partnered with* Miss Wethered, Miss Chambers won the ladies’ foursome in March, and in her game showed a concentration and determination that were remarked upon by golf writers at Home. She carried her full share of the burden and was not overshadowed even by her famous partner. It was expected that she would give a good account of herself in the championship and in this instance fate, after dealing somewhat unkindly with her, seemed disposed’ to be a little more friendly and Miss Chambers was in the opposite half of the draw to Miss Wethered. Mrs Macßeth put Miss Wethered out of the way and Miss Chambers beat Mrs Macßeth in the final. The crown of British women’s golf is on the head of a very worthy wearer. Miss Chambers belongs to Wirral, and is this year Captain for Cheshire. In the United States Golf Association there are now enrolled 584 clubs, a gain of 51 in 1922. The eligibility list, those whose handicaps entitle them to play in the amateur championship, totals 200, as compared with 325 in 1921. Every effort is to be made to keep the number under the 200 mark. The receipts last year, due to the charging of admission at the amateur and open,* came to 40,000 dollars, of which sum 23,000 dollars was taken for admissions.

The second qualifying round for the St. Clair Club’s championship was played on Saturday and C. B. Wight turned in an aggregate which gave him a lead of no less than 27 strokes from the next man. Those who qualified and their aggregates were:—

It does not look as if any of the others have any chance against Chris. Wight. Club competitions at St. Clair suffered severely when the removal of the U.S.S. Co’s headquarters took J. H. Drake to Wellington and Millen Macbeth went to Christchurch to follow up his university studies. The sensation of the British ladies’ open championship was, of course, the defeat of Miss Wethered by Mrs Macßeth. Mrs Macßeth, by the way, is better known to golfers as Miss Muriel Dodd, who was a very prominent figure in women’s golf in the two or three years immediately preceding the war. It was in 1913 that Miss Dodd won the British ladies’ championship, and in the same year she annexed the Canadian championship. She reached the semi-final again in 1914. After her marriage she had other interests besides golf, but this year she has been playing regularly, and her game has been right up to the best standard cf her pre-war .(lays. It can hardly be said that Mrs Macßeth at her best in quite the same class as Miss Wethered. Reports will probably show that Miss Wethered’s defeat was due to the temporary loss of her skill in some department of the game—and no player is so great as to be immune from these attacks. Still, even when she is somewhat off her game, Miss Wethered is a formidable opponent, and Mrs Macßeth’s win was a great triumph. In England a win for Miss Wethered in the championship would be looked upon as a certainty. Miss Cecil Leitch at her best was never looked upon as a surer winner, for Miss Wethered is undoubtedly a golfing genius, and has no equal in Britain at the present time. It fell to Mrs Macßeth to put her out of the competition, and had it not been so we might have seen Miss Wethered winning the ladies’ championship at Burnham, while her brother, Mr Roger Wethered, was winning the amateur championship at Deal, and such a thing would have been quite unprecedented in golf. Captain A. P. Bullock-Webster, the New Zealander, whose name has been mentioned once or twice in cables from England concerning golf matches there, was regarded as "a discovery” when he defeated T. A. Torrance in a match between the Army and Sandy Lodge in March. Torrance is a Scotch international golfer, and the quality

of his game may be judged from the fact that in his match with Bullock-Webster he was out in 36. He got the third (150yds) in 2; the fifth (405yds) in 3; and the seventh (229yds) in 2. But Bullock-Web-ster was going so strongly that, despite Torrance’s 36 for the first nine holes, he was only one down at the turn, and after losing the tenth he got square at the seventeenth. On the last green he was laid a dead stymie, but holed out with his mashie and wen. Bullock-Webster, who was in the 2nd Lancers, resigned his commission recently with the intention of going to America. He had entered for the amateur championship, but was not mentioned by the cable man in connection with that event. " The man who wants great length in his drive may well be advised to cultivate following through with the utmost care, for three main reasons. The first of these is that, even if he can get a fair length without it, he can certainly get much further with it. In the second place—when once a player begins to neglect it, he is preparing trouble fcr himself in all other departments of his drive. Thirdly, when there is only a very short follow through, there is not so much control over the flight of the ball, nor so much run on it. . . . The very fact of following through makes a better insurance against pulling and slicing.”—James Braid. At the last monthly meeting of the N.Z. Golf Council at Wellington there were present: Messrs R. C. Kirk (chairman), H. R. Balneavis, A. D. S. Duncan, W. E. A. Gill, M. W. Horton. J. B. Mac Ewan, and A. F. Roberta. Matters in connection with the next championship meeting at Wanganui were discussed and the secretary read a letter from Wanganui suggesting the 4th or the 21st September as the starting dates. It was eventually resolved that the Tournament should start on Friday, 21st September, and conclude on Saturday, 29th. It was further resolved to accept 80 entries for the Open Championship (including the professionals), and that 32 are to qualify, and all matches in playing off to be 36 holes. This means that the Open Championship and the qualifying rounds for the Amateur (4 rounds) will be played on the Friday and Saturday, and the match play for the Amateur Championship will commence on the Monday. As the final for the Amateur will be played on the following Saturday, this will mean that there is one day to spare during the week in case of bad weather. It was decided that if there is no need to postpone any of the Championship matches on account of the weather, the Amateurs versus Professionals, will be played on the extra day. Another British amateur championship is over, and despite a strong American challenge, the title is ’till in good British hands. Mr Roger Wethered, like his sister Jcyce, is not merely a good golfer, but a golfer of rare and remarkable gifts. He is really a champion, but he has never before done himself justice in the amateur championship. He came right into the spotlight in 1921 when he tied with Jock Hutchison in the open championship at St. Andrews, both having aggregates of 296. Jock Hutchison won in the play-off over 36 holes, with a sccre of 150 to Wethered’s 159. Wethered had hard luck not to win the title, as he actually played only 295 strokes as against Hutchison’s 296, but he incurred a penalty by stepping on his ball when moving back to take the line of a putt. Nevertheless, while he did not win he made history, for his aggregate was the lowest ever made by an amateur in the British open championship, while his 72 in the third round constituted an amateur record for St. Andrews, and he went one better in the fourth round with 71. The other records which Mr Wethered has to his credit are: Worplesden (67) and Royal Dornock (67). Wethered was born in 1899 and is now in his twenty-fifth year. After the success of the Americans, Dr 0. P. Willing and Francis Ouimet in the St. George’s Challenge Cup, it was recognised that the invaders were in ferm, and, as it happened, it was Willing and Ouimet who got furthest in the amateur championship. The American amateur champion, Sweetzer, went out in the first round, but Willing and Ouimet kept on winning their matches in round after round, and played on until the end was within sight. Willing went first, but Ouimet won his way into the semifinals by defeating Cyril Tolley, the amateur champion cf 1920, to whom he administered a severe drubbing, winning 4 and 3. Wethered then beat him and the final was fought out between the two British players, the other being Robert Harris. The bolder of the championship, g. W. E. Holderness, was beaten by an American named Grant, who lives in England and played as a British entrant. Wethered appears to have played his best golf in the final. The match was played under vile conditions-—rain and sleet fell all the time, and a high wind imposed a further handicap upon the players. To go round the Deal course in 73 under such conditions was a wonderful performance, and Harris must have been playing excellent golf also to be cnly four down at the end of the first half. In the second round Wethered continued to play irresistibly, and won easily 7 up and 6 to go. The Harris referred to is no dcubt Mr Robert Harris of Dundee, for many years one of the foremost British players. He reached the final of the amateur championship in 1913, and has always been prominent in important competitions, a number of which he has won. He won the Royal St. George’s Cup (this year wen by Ouimet) in 1905 and again in 1920. The Americans are finding their quest for the British amateur championship long and arduous, but they are pursuing it in an admirable sporting spirit. While British golfers admire their keenness and wish them the best of luck, it is naturally a matter for great satisfaction that the amateur championship remains in British hands, and there would be great rejoicing in Britain ever the fact that the final was fought out by two British placers.

C. B. Wight .... . .. 77 76 153 W. G. Wight .. . . .. 90 90—180 W Clayton . .. 94 87—181 G. Forbes . 95 89—184 A. Laing .. 94 92 186 D. D. McCarthy . .. 97 89—186 W. 15. McCarthy . . .. 96 95—191 Dr Hunter . .. 98 94—192