GOLF NOTES

Southland Times, Issue 22073, 21 July 1933, Page 12

GOLF NOTES

The Rules of Golf Committee recommends that players should not concede putts to their opponents.

Fatal accidents on golf links are more frequent than is generally supposed. Most of them result from blows from clubs or flying clubheads which have become detached during a stroke. A death caused by a ball is more rare, but one was recorded in Brisbane the other day. A player was driving off and pulled his shot. His caddie, who was forward on the left to mark the flight, was struck on the head by the ball and died on the way to hospital. Some peculiar putters have been used by golfers. For instance, an American player of some standing has a putter with such a short shaft that he carries it in a pocket. Another man reached the final stages of the British amateur championship with a club which he purchased in a toy shop. But it is doubtful if a driver had been used for putting in an important tournament until the winner of a tournament at Bournemouth, England, recently, holed his putts with a driver. He had been so disgusted with his putting that he decided he could not do worse with his driver!

Golfers who enjoyed the “How I Play Golf” series will be pleased to hear that Bobby Jones has again marched into the motion picture spotlight and that a series of six short subjects will soon be released under the general title of “How to Break Ninety.” According to report, the “How to Break Ninety” series will be more instructional than its predecessor, and will deal with the use of the various clubs, the mysteries of stance and grip, and the psychological technique of successful play, all of which will be set forth by the retired champion, R. T. Jones, exactly as though the spectator was present taking a personal course of instruction under him.

“I ought never to play golf again,” declared Rex Hartley, an English golfer, recently. Hartley was beaten in the fifth round of the English amateur championship by the title holder, at the twenty-first hole, after a remarkable putting error when he had victory in his grasp. The two men were all square at the eighteenth. At the twentieth Hartley was in the happy position of having two putts from one yard for a win. His opponent’s ball had rested on the lip of the hole. Hartley was stymied, but all he had ter do was to tap his ball towards the pin and hole out with his second putt. To his consternation his ball knocked the other’s into the hole and secured for him a half. He lost the match on the next green.

According to an Australian exchange the prospect of seeing the greatest of golfers, R. T. Jones, in action in Australia is rapidly being transformed into a certainty. Thus the “Australasian”: —“A visit from the superb golfer ‘Bobby’ Jones may now be regarded as almost ensured for centenary year. Arrangements are well in hand for bringing him to Australia in 1934. The visit will be the greatest golfing event in the history of golf in Australia.” Several previous unsuccessful attempts have been made (by J. H. Kirkwood) to induce this remarkable golfer to visit Australia for exhibition matches; his inability to comply with such being largely due perhaps to his contract with Warner Brothers for motion golf pictures. Gene Sarazen is one of the great golfers in whom it is fairly easy to notice the dragging movement by which the club is started back from the ball. The swing starts with a drawing away of both hands to the right, leaving the head of the club to follow. The theory of the old-time stylists was entirely opposed to this: they advocated starting the club back with a turn of the wrist, so as to have the head of the club leading right from the beginning. Deliberately to exaggerate the dragging movement is no doubt as dangerous as to overdo the wrist turn, but the players who start the club back with a wrist turn are always apt to take the club up too quickly. The result is that when they try to swing down again they have not given their hands sufficient space in which to move. At the best they will be bringing the club down on the ball rather than bringing it on to the ball from behind, and so will be losing power. Alternatively, they may create the space for their hands to move in by varying the plane of the swing, hitting outwards from the top ■ and cutting across the ball from right to left, which is one of the reasons why the bad player is so often apt to slice. —From “Golfing.” The following decision by the Rules' of Golf Committee may surprise some regular players: A and B were playing a match: A was one up going to the sixteenth hole; he won the sixteenth and seventeenth, thereby winning 3 and 1. . After reaching the clubhouse a third party, playing in another match, came up to A and said that he had inadvertently played A’s ball and presumably A had played his at the sixteenth hole. B thereupon claimed that he had won the sixteenth hole, and therefore the match was square before the seventeenth and claimed a replay. A, on the other hand, then realized that a mistake had occurred at the sixteenth, but held that the match having already been settled no further action could be taken on the evidence of a third party. Answer: The result of the match must stand. After the players had struck off from the seventeenth teeing, ground it was too late to make a claim in respect of an incident which had occurred during the play of the sixteenth hole.