GOLF.

Southland Times, Issue 20538, 14 July 1928, Page 6 (Supplement)

GOLF.

(By “Cleek”) Aug. 30—Britain v. America, Walker cup International, Chicago Golf Club, Wheaton, 111. Sept. 10—American Amateur Championship, Brae Burn Country Club, West Newton, Mass. Sept. 24 —American Ladies’ Open Championship, Virginia Hot Springs, Va. Oct. 12—20—N.Z. Open and Amateur Championships, Balmacewan, Dunedin. Stroke handicap on the Park to-day. Ladies’ match for the Scott Cup on the Park on Monday. The ladies’ bogey match on the Park on Monday last was won by Mrs Holder who finished three up. By her card in this match she has gained her handicap and has the honour of being the first of the non-handicapped players to earn her mark this season. The stroke handicap at Otatara last Saturday was played under anything but favourable conditions. The course was wet ■ and soggy with heavy rains and casual water I was plentiful. To reduce damage to the | course to a minimum it was made com- | pulsory to tee up through the green, and though the general condition of the fairways I and greens largely nullified the advantage gained from teeing the scores will not count for handicap purposes. The results in the

There has been further heavy rain since and the course Is now wetter than it has been for a long time. The first qualifying rounds for the club championships are due next Saturday, and it is to be hoped that the weather clears and holds fine between now and then. In most of the northern centres club fixtures have been badly interfered with by bad weather and postponements have been the order of the day. The Laing—Shield match at Gore last Saturday was fully reported in Monday’s Southland Tjmes and the results need not be repeated. The holders repelled the invaders, a team from Queen’s Park, Invercargill, very decisively, winning four of the six matches. The closest matches were the first and third. In the top match F. D. Scott (Gore) prevailed against A. Thom by one hole only, and the Queen's Park player is to be congratulated on making so close a fight of it with Gore’s number one, for the Gore course, though short, is tricky and local knowledge and familiarity with the shots count for a lot. In the third match that sturdy veteran W. Gellatly, won for Queen’s Park, defeating A. F. Houston 1 up. There is no great advantage in length from the tee at Gore, and Gellatly’s straightness and accuracy would tell at all the holes. On the day the Gore players were too strong for the challengers, but, as usual, the matches were enjoyed just as much by the losers as by the winners. Also as 'usual, the Gore golfers proved the most hospitable of hosts, and the little speeches made at the close of play were in the best golfing strain. Mr. F. Young, who had been a winner for Gore, spoke for the successful holders, and Mr D. Stalker for the unsuccessful challengers.

Next week four well known New Zealand lady golfers leave for Sydney to take part in the Australian championship tournament which begins at the Royal Sydney Club's Rose Bay links on Ist August. The ladies are Miss O. Kay, Dunedin, Miss M. Stevens, Dunedin, and Miss M. Payton and Miss Snodgrass, Rotorua. Miss Olive Kay is the St Clair champion who at present holds the provincial championships of Otago, Canterbury and South Canterbury. She has also held the Auckland Championship. Miss Kay is a scratch player—the only woman on scratch in the Dominion except Mrs Tempter of Waimate, who earned her scratch honours as Miss N. E. Wright, Timaru. Miss Payton’s handicap is one, Mies Stevens is on the 4 mark and Miss Snodgrass on 6. They are therefore a pretty solid quartette and should get some of the prizes going at Rose Bay. Their doings will be followed with interest.

Two members of the Invercargill Club had the misfortune to sustain injuries in motor accidents at the end of last week. T. S. Tomlinson was going home in a friend’s car on Friday evening when a collision with a tram car occurred. Mr Tomlinson was sitting in the back seat on the side which took the full force of the blow, and it was his bad luck to be the only passenger who was seriously hurt. The damage to him was a collar bone broken in two places and he suffered considerably for three or four days. He is now making excellent progress and should soon be about again, but he will not swing a golf club for a week or two. The other member whose luck was out was F. A. Barclay. Mr Barclay has not been playing golf for some time, neuritis having compelled him to give if a spell, and has been taking an interest in school football. He was a passenger in a car returning from a match at Pukerau on Saturday when a collision with a lorry occurred and the motor car overturned. Mr Barclay came out of the melee with two broken ribs and many bruises and is still in the doctor’s hands. He is making satisfactory progress however, and with luck should be out again about the end of next week. Neuritis which prevented him from playing golf was bad enough in all conscience, to get broken ribs on top of it was the worst of bad luck. The unfortunates have the sympathy of their fellow-members.

Many of the older players in Invercargill will be interested to know that Cyril Ward, Christchurch, has a 14-year-old boy who is shaping well at the game and is already down to the 11 handicap mark. With this handicap he won a cup at Harewood a week or two ago. In the days when the Invercargill Club played on the Park Cyril Ward was one of its stalwarts and his enthusiasm for the game is still unabated. He is on a very low mark at Shirley and Harewood. All the Wards are keen on the game, Vincent and Gladstone, like Cyril, taking their exercise on the links as often as the claims of business permit. In the natural order of things, therefore, Cyril’s son, (J. G. after his grandfather Sir Joseph) has played with golf clubs since infancy and grown up in a golf atmosphere. Now he is in the game at the right age and shaping as if he will become a golfer of uncommon ability. Cyril Ward, by the way, once figured in a match that came to as dramatic a conclusion as the writer has ever heard of. The Park links were the scene and his opponent was J. R. Webb, now an orchardist at Cromwell, but a solid player in those days. If memory serves Webb was 2 up and 3 to go. Ward had the honour at the sixteenth. It was a full iron shot and he played a beauty. It looked as if the ball would bole out, but it stopped two or three inches from the lip of the cup. It still looked as if he must get a win in 2 however, and one down and two to go would give him a chance. Webb then played. His shot was just as perfect as Cyril’s but the result was even better, for the ball ran into the tin as, if it was going home and the match was Webb’s 3 and 2. There was an amusing sequel. Webb lived near the course and sent his boy home post haste for the refreshment that the honourable traditions of the game require from the player who holes out in one. The boy was very young, and another member, a bit of a wag, intercepted him on his way back and induced him to part with the bottle for sixpence. The member then returned to the little pavilion and passed the whisky off as his own, making quite a show of his liberality. Time went on and Jack Webb kept looking out for his small son, white the assembled crowd got more and more pointed in expressing doubts whether Webb had any whisky in the house at all. Eventually Webb went off home himself and of course the fat was in the fire. Like the good sport he was, Webb returned to tell the joke against himself and laugh with the rest and produced another bottle which went the way of the first. It was a gay gathering in the pavilion that day.

THE AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP. T. P. PERKINS’S GREAT WIN. AN OUTSTANDING GOLFER. Files of London newspapers containing reports of the British amateur champion ship at Prestwick (May 21 to 26) came to hand during the week, and it is clear from them that the victory of Mr T. P. Perkins was won not by any one of the innumerable chances of the game but by sheer golfing merit. Perkins played consistent first class golf throughout the tournament and in the final also. Though Perkins had been runner-up in the English championship, and first amateur in the British open at Sandwich, he was not one of those upon whom most attention was fastened at the outset. Wethered, Holderness and Tolley are still the great names in British amateur golf—or were, before thus year’s championship. In the first round he met and defeated T. Mitchell (Kinghorn Thistle) 5 up and 3 to play and the game attracted practically no notice. In the second round he disposed of E. W. Fiddian (Stourbridge) 5 and 4, but attention was centred upon Heztet’s defeat of Tweddell and the downfall of Tolley and Mr. Perkins was an inconspicuous figure. In the third round Mr. Perkins’s opponent was J. Brock (Prestwick St. Nicholas) and Perkins won 3 and 2. Still no notice was taken of him. Lang put out Hezlet, McCallum beat Stout, and the veteran Pease settled Sir E. W. Holdernces, so Perkins went on getting his threes and fours in the quiet places of the famous Prestwick course, winning his matches comfortably and biding his time. On the fourth day two rounds were played. In the fourth Perkins beat H. D. Gillies (Woking), an ex-New Zealander who has made himself famous in British golf, 5 and 4. Perkins played the nine holes out in seven 4’s a 2 and a 3—33, and Gillies could not withstand the whirlwind. In the fifth round Perkins had to fight for his life against F. L. Rankin (Sunningdale) and had to sink a 7-foot putt for a three to halve the last hole and win the match. However he holed it as if he expected to and could do it any time it was necessary, and Mr Perkins now became the centre of much interest. In fact reports of the kind of golf he was playing got about, and he became equal favourite with Roger Wethered for the championship. In the sixth round he got home comfortably 4 and 2 from H. M. Dickson (Glasgow) and in the semi-final got all over W. Tulloch (Cathkin Braes) 6 and 4. In this match Perkins was even fours up to the point at which the match ended. And so he reached the final.

The other finalist Roger Wethered got through in very different style. His drive was shaky all the time and he hooked and sliced from the tee till he had his friends’ nerves shattered to pieces. But his irons held all through. His long irons were beautiful. Time and time again he recovered with a magnificent iron that covered the flag all the way, and his short work was excellent. In the first round he beat J. Birnie jun. (Inverness) 3 and 1, but his manner of winning inspired no confidence. In the second round he beat R. H. Oppenheimer (Royal and Ancient) 4 and 3 and this match he won well. In the third round he had a runaway victory from C. Aylmer, whom he beat 7 and 6. In the fourth round he won 4 and 2 from E. S. Brown (Pollock), but in the fifth just beat 8. L. McKinlay (Alexandra) at the eigtheenth, there being plenty of lapses on both sides. The match was played at an appallingly slow pace. The pair were timed to take one hour 5 minutes from the 11th tee to the 15th green and all enjoyment was ruined by the slowness of the golf. In the sixth round the veteran Pease took Wethered to the 21st hole before he accepted defeat, and in the semi-finals Wethered beat E. B. Tipping (Royal Ashdown Forest) 4 and 3. His golf was patchy all through and he came down to using his spoon on the tee. His friends did not like his prospects against Perkins but hoped that the final would inspire him and that he would find his best game. As it turned out THE FINAL was an easy victory for Perkins, who won 6 and 4 and this score in no way flattered the winner. The golf correspondent of the London Times wrote:—“lt is hard to restrain an inclination to over-enthusiasm in the moment of a great victory. Still I will take the risk and say that I have never seen better golf played by the winner of an amateur championship in this country. More brilliant golf, perhaps, I have seen, with more long putts holed or more pitches laid dead. Wethered’s golf against Harris at Deal a few years ago, to give one obvious instance from modern history, had more scintillating moments, but for solid crushing goodness for hole after hole played in the right figure and the right way, with no risks run and no vestige of helping luck, I think Perkins's golf may he put on a pinnacle of an equal height with that of any of his predecessors. He took the lead at the first hole in the first round and he never looked in the very least likely to lose it. His indifferent shots might almost be counted on the fingers of one hand. Add to them one short putt missed and the elements of criticism seem to be exhausted. “The match was one between a man who had been playing his best and soundest game all the week and knew that he could hit the ball, and one of equal, perhaps greater, genius for the game, who had scrambled into the final by sheer fighting qualities and had no real belief in himself. Before the match started we knew that we had to see a different Weth ered from the one we had seen in the earlier rounds, or else there could be but one end to the match. As soon as we realized that no miracle had happened, and that he was still the same gallant struggling, erring fellow-mortal we had been watching for a week, we knew that all was up, and a certain inevitableness cast just a touch of gloom over the proceedings. Wethered did nothing in particular very badly, his driving with a brassy was more accurate than in several of his matches. He made, as he always does, many fine iron shots. His putting, though he missed some, could not be called bad, but he was not confident, and no player, even of his high class, who was not confident could hope to go the pace that Perkins set and relentlessly maintained. As a match, in short, this final was a disappointment. As an exhibition of golf by the winner it was magnificent.” In the first half Perkins was out in 37 to Wethered’s 41 and 3 up. Both were home in 39 but Wethered had reduced his deficit to 2. Perkins was round in 76 to Wethered’s 80. Perkins went out the first nine in the second half in 37 again, white Wethered’s score was 38 this time and Perkins was 3up and 9to go. The twenty-eighth was halved in 4, but a 3 at the next put Perkins 4 up. The thirtieth was halved in s’s, but Perkins was down in 4 at the thirty-first (440yds) for a win, and another 4 at the thirtysecond (357yds > gave him a win and the match 6 up and 4. Thus Perkins was five over an average of 4’s for the 32 holes played, and (wrote the correspondent of the London Times) I do not think that that statement does at all adequate justice to his play, for never was a fine score done more easily. NOTES. Cyril Tolley gave a promising display in his first match, in which his opponent was L. Beesley, a London golfer from Northwood. Tolley was driving at his best and some of his shots were prodigious. One, played from an elevation down wind, was measured and the ball was 380 yards from the tee. The hole measured 510 yards, and with a mashie niblick for his second Tolley was within four or five yards of the pin. Tolley is no longer a championship winner, however, and in the second round he went out to Dr. A. R. McCallum (South Staffs), who ran home a winner to the tune of 5 and 4. It is doubtful whether Tolley, for all his ability as a golfer, is worth a place in this year's Walker Cup team. His reversals of form are surprising, and it seems to be quite impossible to say to-day how he will play to-morrow.

The first grand clash of the championship was the match in the first round between the holder of the title (Dr. Wm Tweddell), and Major C. O. Hazlet, the wellknown international. It was hammer and tongs from the word go. Hezlet was down in 3at the first (330 yardsi, but Tweddell retaliated with a 2 at the second (118 yards) A 4 at the third (492 yards), put Hezlet one up again. He won the fourth with another 4. The fifth was halved. At the sixth and seventh (357 and 433 yards respectively) Hezlet got flawless fours, but Tweddell was down in great 3’s and the match was square. And so it went on. Hezlet was out in 34 and 2 up, having won the eighth and ninth. At the tenth Tweddell struck trouble and was three down, but when he won the eleventh in 3 still had a chance. At the twelfth, however, Hezlet covered the 503 yards to the green with two gorgeous wooden shots and holed the putt for 3 to be 3 up again and 6to go. The match ended at the sixteenth, Hezlet 3 up and 2 to play. Hezlet’s score for the sixteen holes was 63, and TweddeH’s 67—great going for one of the best championship courses. In the next round Major Hazlet met his Waterloo at the hands of J. A. Lang (Erskine), the Glasgow champion, who played great golf to win 1 up.

Dr. A. R. McCallum, the young Edinburgh golfer, who now practices medicine at Wolverhampton, brought himself into the limelight when he settled Cyril Tolley’s hash in the second round, and the spotfight shone still more brightly upon him in the third round when he wrote “finis” to the prospects of the English champion J. A. Stout (Bridlington). It was a tight match but it ended in McCallum’s favour 1 up. McCallum’s next xictim was Douglas Grant (Royal St. George’s), a very fine golfer, who is expected to go far in any championship. It was nip and tuck up to the sixteenth where the position was all square. Then McCallum got the seventeenth (383 yards), in 3, and at the last Grant knocked his opponent’s ball in for another 3. the match going to McCallum 2 up. In the fifth round McCallum administered a frightful drubbing tc W. B. Torrance, a British Walker Cup player, and one of the best golfers in Scotland. Torrance could do nothing right and McCallum won 7 up and 6 to go. In the sixth round McCallum went out to W. Tulloch (Cathkin Braes). He was not b’aten till the 20th hole was reached. Tullich was dormy one, but a gallant 3 at the eighteenth (279 yards) squared the match for McCallum. The nineteenth was halved and Tulloch won at the twentieth. McCallum went out of the championship in a blaze of glory, having lowered the colours of some of the best players in the field. In the next round (the semi-finals) Tulloch struck Perkins, the ultimate winner, and went under to a string of threes and fours which gave Perkins the match 6 and 5.

The hero of the championship was undoubtedly Mr J. Beaumont Pease. Pease is now in his 60*h year and played for Oxford against Cambridge as long as 39 years ago. As chairman of Lloyds Bank he has other things besides golf to think about and now plays the game for the fun of it. And fun being what he was after he got it good and plenty in the championship, though some of his opponents perhaps failed to appreciate the joke. As a contender for the championship Mr Pease was hardly to be taken seriously. In the second round he met Lt.-CoL H. A. Boyd, another veteran, and a smart young golfer at Prestwick referred to the match jocosely as “the final of the boys’ championship.” The author of the quip was probably out of the championship long before Mr Pease, who accounted for Lt.-Col. Boyd comfortably 4 and 3. No one took much notice of that. In the next round, however, Pease had to play Sir E. W. Holderness, twice amateur champion and one of the favourites for this year’s event. Pease reeled off the first four holes in 4,2, 4,4, and won them all, and despite all that Holderness could do he stuck to his lead until he was 3 up and 4 to go. Then Holderness took the holes from him until he was dormy one and at the last he holed a great putt of 10 yards for a half in 4 and the match. So that was that. In the fourth round Pease beat M. McMaster (Durban Country Club), 5 and 3, and so got into the last sixteen. His next opponent was T. F. Ellison (Royal Liverpool), a player in the front rank of English golf. Ellison was dormy four on his opponent. At the fifteenth he missed a shortish putt for a half and the match, and before he knew what had happened the eighteenth ; hole was reached and the position was all ■ square. The nineteenth was halved in 4’s i but a 3 at the 20th gave Pease a win and he was into the last eight. In the sixth round Pease met Roger Wethered and a j' great fight ended at the 21st hole with Wetheretf one up. The London Times correspondent said truly:—“Of Pease it may truly be said that nothing in this tournament became him like his leaving it. He played a game which would not have held Wethered's best game, bu* came as near as near could be to beating his next best . game. He kept straight, he took his chances, he putted well; in short he did all that any human being could expect of him, and he died a hero's death.”

A grade were close, the best ecores being:— I. Carr .. 86—12—74 J. Mangan 81— 6—75 J. C. Prain 91—16—75 D. Cochrane 86—10—76 R. J. Gilmour 82— 6—76 In the B Grade the best cards were those of B. W. Hewat 92—22—70 J. A. Doig .... 7. .. 91—20—71