GOLF

Southland Times, Issue 20675, 22 December 1928, Page 18 (Supplement)

GOLF

(By “Cleek.”) Tournament abandoned. Entries not sufficiently numerous. Usual Easter dates will probably be ad- | hered to. As an experiment, and in response to representations that there would probably be a good entry from northern centres, the Committee of the Invercargill Golf Club decided some months ago to call for entries for a tournament to be held at Otatara on December 26th, 27th, and 28th. The principal events were the open amateur championship of Southland and the junior championship. A clause in the conditions reserved to the committee the right to cancel the tournament if in its opinion the entries were inadequate, and at a ‘recent meeting the committee delegated its authority in this matter to the Match Committee. Entries closed on Thursday and the Match Committee met yesterday morning to open them. After due consideration it was unanimously decided that the entries were not sufficient either in number or in quality to justify the club in proceeding with the tournament and it was resolved to cancel the fixture and return all entry fees. Outside entrants were immediately notified by telegram and local entrants by post. It is probable, in the circumstances, that the committee will decide to adhere to the Easter dates, on which the Otatara tournament has been held for many years. At a meeting of the Committee of the In. vercargill Club Mr. Ivo Carr’s resignation from the position of hon. secretary, rendered necessary by his removal to Dunedin, was dealt with. Due recognition of the value of Mr. Carr’s services to the Club having been made at the large gathering of meinbers in the Club House some weeks ago, the resignation was formally accepted by the committee. It bad previously been ascertained that Mr. Denniston Cuthbertson was willing to serve the club in the capacity of secretary, if the committee wished him to undertake the duties of the office, and he was unanimously appointed. Members of the committee considered that the club was fortunate in getting so experienced a secretary as Mr. Cuthbertson to succeed Mr. Carr. Mr. Cuthbertson is not only experienced and efficient in secretarial work, but is also keen on the game and keen on the advancement of the club and the improvement of the Otatara course, and the Executive of the club is indeed fortunate in being able to enlist his co-oper-ation.

The golfing members of the Southern Club had a field day at Otatara on Wednesday, when a varied programme of events was carried through. The first of these was a teams match between sides selected by the President and secretary, the matches being played on handicap. On paper it looked as if the odds were strongly in favour of the President’s side, but once again it was illustrated that in golf, as in other human affairs, the unexpected often happens. The secretary’s team got home by the margin of one match. On the scores made in the matches the Southern Club golf championship was also decided, also on handicap, and resulted in a tie between Messis. E. M. Russell and W. Buchan. By agreement the tie was played off over five holes, and Mr. E. M. Russell won 2 up and 1 to play, 'fhe golf played both for the five holes was very good indeed, and the winner put a nice finish on the contest. It was at the Ridge that the issue was decided. Buchan got a good drive to the ditch but Russell was a dozen yards or more over it with a fine hit from the tee. Buchan played a nice second just through the gree,n, whereas Russell was too strong with his mashie and finished twenty yards past the pin. He pitched up a well-judged mashie niblick shot to within four feet of the pin, and when Buchan was short with his approach and short again with his putt, Russell made< no error and holed for a win in four. As he had previously been one up and only one hole remained to be played, the win put Russell 2 up and 1 to play. Mr. A. E. Wish is donating to the Southern Club a trophy for annual competition in the event and Mr. Russell’s name will be the first to be engraved on it. Mr. Russell also won the sealed hole event. The teams dined together in the Otatara Club House, and then the venue shifted to the Southern Club, where the prizes were presented. The social gatherings, it is understood, were as much enjoyed as the golf, and were quite as successful. At an impromptu gathering at the Club House before the golfers left Otatara, Mr. A. E. Wish asked the Club Captain to convey to the President of the Invercargill Golf Club the thanks of the golfing members of the Southern Club for the use of the course. Mr. Wish said that the kindness of the Golf Club was greatly appreciated and at his instance the toast of the Golf Club was honoured with enthusiasm. In reply, Mr. R. J. Gilmour said he was sure that he could say on behalf of the President and Committee that they were very glad indeed to see the members of the Southern Club playing their first championship at Otatara. He hoped that the championship would be an annual event j and that the golf players in the Southern ! Club would have many more meetings at i Otatara as successful as that which had been held that day. He congratulated the winners of the various events, and especially the champion, wishing them further success in the game. With this exchange of courtesies a novel and very pleasant golfing afternoon was rounded off. Our professional recently returned from a vacation in Glasgow, his home town. “Well,” I asked, “How did the boys treat you back home?” “Very reluctantly,” said he.

Greater love hath no man that this, to give up his golf for his wife. One of the rules of the game in regard to which there is a good deal of confusion is that which applies when a player on the putting green strikes another ball with his own. What penalty does the player at fault incur? What happens to the other player’s ball that was struck and displaced ? “R.S.C.” put this question up to “The American Golfer”:—Please advise what the penalty is where a player’s ball on the putting green, in a stroke competition strikes another ball and knocks it into the cup It seems to me that there is a penalty of two strokes, but I am not sure. Also would the owner of the other ball have to replace his ball, or is he considered to have holed out on his previous stroke ? And this is how Innis Brown answered it in that journal:—“ln a stroke competition, with both balls on the putting green, that is within twenty yards of the hole, except in a hazard, if a player’s ball strikes that of a fellow competitor, the player loses one stroke. The ball of the other player must be replaced and played from where it lay. In all forms of competition, except single matches, if a player’s ball is displaced by that of an opponent or fellow competitor, whether on the putting green or not, the ball so displaced must be replaced. There is no option in the matter. In a .single match, the owner of the ball displaced has the option of either replacing the ball or leaving it where it stops.” Golfers as a rule are genial fellows who arc not too exacting if they happen to be playing behind others whose progress is not so quick as- it might be. But there are - some boors among them. I had an experiI ence of one (writes a correspondent of the Edinburgh Evening News) on a very popular course north of the Tay. This particu-

lar boor was playing behind our foursome, and was evidently quite unaware that the blank hole in front of us had been caused by a couple dropping out at the fifteenth hole. When our boor noticed the gap he became rude, shouted remarks about hurrying up, and about “some people who buy a fortnight’s ticket and think the whole course belongs to them.” We had not been loitering nor keeping him back. But we did not lose our temper with him. We suggested that if he was trying, to go round the course in record time he had better go in front of us. We all gathered round the tee to see the boor drive off, watching him intently. As he departed one of our foursome “got his own back” rather neatly. He called to the boor, “I hope you don’t mind us watching you driving. We wanted to see whether your golf is as bad as your manners—and it is.” No more was said.

PLAY ON THE TEE. RULES TO BE FOLLOWED. In private matches many players make the order of play from the tee a scramble. “First man on the tee hits off” is the only rule that is observed. The order of play off the tee is governed by rules and they should be followed even in private matches as an essential part of good behaviour on the links. The rules are thus explained by “Tame Solicitor” in Golfing:— Although every golfer knows that in match play the side winning the hole takes the honour at the next tee, and that if a hole is halved the side having the honour at the previous tee still retains it, it is obvious from a recent query that some players are not so clear as to the rule in medal competitions. As a matter of fact the rule is the same as in match play. The player taking the fewer number of strokes at any hole ought always to drive first at the next. It should be noted that although there is no penalty for an inadvertent breach of this rule, an agreement to depart from it involves the disqualification of both competitors. In a case where, as a matter of convenience on a congested course, the shorter driver took the honour throughout the round, it was held that both players must be disqualified. In a three-ball match, with each player playing for his own hand, the rule is that if one player wins the hole from both the others, he drives first at the next. If no player wins from both the others the order of striking is the same as on the previous tee. Thus if A, B, and C drive off in that order, and A holes out in 5, B in 4, and C in 4, the former order is retained even though its result is to give the honour to A, who took more strokes than either of the others. In best ball matches, however, the players within the side are entitled to play in whatever order they please. Thus if A and B are playing their best ball against the best ball oj C and D, and the scores at one hole are A 6, B 4, C 5, and D 5, B’s 4 wins the hole for his side and the side 'may arrange for A to drive first and B second if they prefer it, even though A’s score was actually the poorest of the four.

SPORTSMANSHIP. GLENNA COLLETT’S IDEALS. THE “GOOD LOSER.” (By Glenna Collett in “Golfing.”) The following interesting article is from the pen of a brilliant golfer who recently won the ladies’ open championship of America for the third time:— In recent year the “poor loser” has been glorified as a very human sort of person in the eyes of a number of our American critics. They have depicted him as a natural, sympathetic creature honest, unafraid and somehow admirable. The business of pretending to smile and shake hands with a man who defeated you by luck, when you’d like to murder him, is all nonsense, —at least that seems to be the argument among the modern and realistic journalists. “The best sportsman,” comments George Jean Nathan, one of the ablest critics of the American scene, “is the man who plays an honourable game and plays it to the limit. He is out to demonstrate his superior skill and lick his opponent. Any other view is sheer sentimental buncombe.” Very true, indeed. But there is more to sportsmanship than that. Even if I incur the stigma of being hopelessly old-fashioned and sentimental, I must add that there is an ideal which is beyond the goal of mere winning, a high appraisal of oneself. Even in sport there are people who put a valuation on themselves that they are not willing to mark down, no matter what happens. Some of them in arriving at this valuation, stress manners and dress. Others stress playing the game. Others try to be good losers, and when their valuation is challenged they lose national titles without a gesture.

Take Bobby Jones. Many of us, with warm understanding, recall the fiery Atlantan of several years ago who muttered savagely when putts violated the laws of physics. We grinned with unholy delight when Bobby’s temper got the better of him and stubborn mashies caressed convenient trees bordering the fairway. Golfers, still floundering in the human weakness of losing control when, as happened to Bobby, some one yelled “Fore!” at the top of a swing, thus spoiling the shot and losing the hole, will alwaj's like to be reminded of the reckless young Atlantan who had the habit of decorating trees with recalcitrant clubs.

Bobby, in those days, permitted such things as a bee alighting on his ball at the instant he touched it, thus causing him tG miss his putt, to make him unbearably miserable and an unreliable and tempestuous golfer. Once a long inid-iron shot came to rest in an old shoe lying in a wheelbarrow. Bobby played it, shoe and all. The ball filtered out and rolled weakly toward the green.

Fully aware that a decided change of temperament was necessary before he reached the heights, Bobby set about the task of conquering his weakness. The youthful fire that touched our imagination in a young and debonair golfer has died down. He is a quiet, mannerly sportsman now, admired and beloved in the world of golf.

Philip Guedalla has written satirically of the Englishman as an incurable amateur in whatever he, undertakes—in business or politics or art quite as much as in sport. Mr. Guedalla states that no matter how important an occupation may be to the Englishman he adopts toward it the attitude of the polite cricketer-he tries to “play” it. But he always indulges within the limits of a code and never with such abandon that he forgets his main purpose in life, that of being an English gentleman. “In the English idea of sport for sport’s sake,” again comments George Jean Nathan, “I take little stock. If I play a game, I play to win. A man may be a good sportsman if he does not mind losing all the time, but, by the same mark, he is worthless to the sport, and if he had any sense, would abandon it.”

I heartily disagree with him. Has he ever considered the fact that all our admirable qualities are contrary to natural instincts? Babies are full of criminal tendencies that have to be spanked out of them. Every truthful man was born a liar. Every good sportsman was born with a healthy desire to win at any cost, to trip up his adversary, even to cheat about the score if necessary. A good education, to my mind, is the elimination of such natural unregenerate impulses by the introduction of a loftier code of conduct. That is sportsmanship, and of its elements the most difficult to achieve is the art of being a good loser. Such an attitude conquers our fierce determination to win. We learn by degrees to love the game for its own sake. Of course, we’re delighted to win, for it shows that we’re in good form; and we are acutely disappointed when we , lose, not because So-and-So, whom we dislike intensely, has trounced us, but because we’ve fallen below 1 our standard, and there is nothing satisfying in such a condition. It was seven ! years before Bobby Jones won an amateur • title, and yet he seemed to have a rattling good time even when he lost! i In an amateur championship of a few years ago Bobby noticed that his opponent, George Von Elm, was annoyed by the move-

ments of 15,000 fans crowding around the seventeenth green.- Sensing Von Elm’s distraction, Bobby walked over and picked up the ball. “Here, George,” he grinned, “I’ll concede that one to you.” On the next hole it was turn about. Bobby was settling down to a three-and-a-half-foot putt. The swaying human movement around the crowded green disturbed him. Von Elm came rushing across the grass and knocked the ball aside, allowing Bobby to halve the hole. Such incidents have no part in the score, but in the minds of tournament players they linger long after championships are forgotten. Bobby Jones may have thrown away his two-year crown on the seventeenth green, and George Von Elm, on the eighteenth seriously endangered the title he was to win that day. Yet the high appraisal nf t he sportsmanship of both golfers was worth more than the winning of the coveted national title. The attitude of these two golfers exemplified an ideal toward which I have always struggled—something beyond physical prowess, beyond co-ordinated nerves and muscles, beyond the dominant will to win. Rather it is a mental quality that is part grace of spirit, part philosophy and part good manners reduced to the essence of sportsmanship—trying to be a good loser. When Bill Tilden, crippled as he was, lost the world’s tennis championship a few years ago and gamely ran off the courts without limping or offering his wrenched knee as an excuse, he was confronted by a famous New. York columnist, .who greeted him warmly. “Bill,” he said, “let me thank you for running off that court! We are all proud of you!” And who wouldn’t be proud of such sportsmanship? A friend of Tilden’s told me that the tennis star had an injured knee which proved to be a severe handicap in the match. How easy for Tilden to show his injury and get a round of applause! But how magnificent of him to conceal it! He lost with out such a gesture because he rated himself so high that he could do nothing else; he was a good loser. And somehow I must confess a strong admiration for all of his kind in sport.