GOLF COMPETITIONS

Southland Times, Issue 23287, 25 August 1937, Page 14

GOLF COMPETITIONS

H. W. Rogers In Good Form

(By

PAR)

Medal foursomes will be played at j Queen’s Park on Saturday, but there < will be no official match at Otataia. The Roxburgh tournament takes place on Friday and Saturday. The Southland women’s champion- i ship tournament will be held on September 8,9, 10 and 11. The qualifying . rounds will be played on the first day 'and two rounds of match play on the ■ 9th. The semi-finals of the champion- ■ ship and the final of the junior championship are to be played on the morning of the 10th, followed by the final of the championship over 18 holes in the afternoon. The tournament will . conclude on the afternoon of the 11th with mixed foursomes. The handicap events include a ringer competition and a continuous putting competition. The Queen’s Park Ladies’ Club is holding its championships this year on three successive days—September 21, 22 and 23. The Stead Cup tournament, j an annual fixture for women golfers, < will take place early in October. ■ Five members of the Invercargill Ladies’ Club—Mrs F. G. Hall-Jones, . Mrs J. A. Pottinger, Mrs J. D. Speirs, ■ Miss C. Smith and Miss L. Hender- j son—will probably be competitors in tfie New Zealand women’s championship at Napier at the end of next month. The Tasman Cup match between Australia and New Zealand will be played during the tournament, and the members of the Australian, team are expected to be competitors in the women’s championship. Another tournament for women next month is the Northern District championship, to be played at Lumsden on September . 11. The courses last week-end were very wet as a result of the rain that fell on Saturday morning and the heavy dew that night. However, little rain fell during the hours most favoured for golf. MEDAL MATCH AT PARK At Queen’s Park on Saturday the August medal handicap was decided, a smaller field than usual taking part. The radio reports of the Springboks’ matches seem to be proving an irresistible attraction to some golfers. H. Edginton had the satisfaction of winning the A grade trophy with the best gross score as well as the best net score. His 81 was more like the form he showed a year or two ago, when scores in the seventies were not beyond him. The next four places were filled by men near the A grade handicap limit, only a stroke separating the net scores of A. E. McGrath, L. G. Algie, P. J. Alley and N. R. Driver. The best gross score returned by the top players in the club was G. E. Glennie’s 82. J. S. Lindsay, the club champion, was a competitor, but failed to reproduce his good form of last season. In the B grade L. E. Raines won with three strokes to spare, and by returning a net 71 qualified for a reduction of handicap. J. M. Daly and W. J. Morgan tied for second place with net 74’s. H. W. Rogers distinguished himself at the week-end by winning the singles knock-out competition at Otatara, which was begun last summer, on Saturday and the Northern District championship at Lumsden the next dayRogers was playing so well on Saturday afternoon—he was round the full course in 76—that his success at Lumsden came as no surprise. He has always been regarded as a very good medal player; his victory on Saturday revealed an admirable match-play tern-, perament. The only time he had the lead was when he needed it most at the nineteenth hole. His opponent, ■ J. A. Thom, who was in receipt of four strokes put up a gallant fight and the result was as good a match as any man could wish for. Had Rogers and Thom been paired in the Stablefora . four-ball match that afternoon they would have had an easy win. They scored 63 points between them and with their combined handicap of eight added would have had a total .of 71, seven better than that of the winners. ' FOUR-BALL STABLEFORD For the second time in succession ’ W. Strang was, on Saturday, one of the winning pair in a four-ball match. The previous week he and W. R. PatTick won. the four—ball bogey match J • last Saturday he assisted D. F. Lindsay 1 to. win the Stableford four-ball. M. O’Dowda and H. A. Wilkes were only 1 a point away in second place, but they ! had the distinction of scoring more ■ points without handicap than any other s pair in the field. The winning pair had a combined allowance of 20 com--1 pared with O’Dowda and Wilkes’s 12. i Six holes were not played in Saturday’s match, the 18 being completed by I playing the first six a second time. The Northern District championships > provided a pleasant day’s golf for those who went to Lumsden. The day was s fine, the course was in good order t and the arrangements worked without . a hitch. G. S. Thorpe (Invercargill) s struck a purple patch and gave Rogers • a great run for the title. At the end . of the first round Rogers was leading 1 by a stroke, and that was how they finished, each having an excellent i round of 79 in the afternoon. The best 1 score for 18 holes was returned by . L. S. Edmond, of Ohai, who did a 78 r in the afternoon. He had taken 84 in . the morning and would have needed 74 to overtake Rogers. R. Charleson » (Lumsden) had a comfortable lead ln the junior championship after the first round had been played, but after j lunch G. Cunningham, a club mate whose handicap is 24, made. up the ’ leeway with a grand 83 and tied with ‘ Charleson for first place. The tie was decided over five holes, Charleson winning. Cunningham’s 83 less 24 gave him the remarkable net score of J 59 in the afternoon medal match. The golf played by some of the Lumsden

players was surprisingly good and it would seem that a downward revision of handicaps is due. INTERPROVINCIAL GOLF The Otago selectors of the team to represent Otago and Southland against Canterbury and Westland at Shirley on September 5 have announced the team chosen as follows:—Dr K. Ross (captain) B. V. Wright, A. G. Sime, J. A. Scouler, T. B. Ferguson, J. E. Matheson, D. C. Bennie (vice-captain), C. B. Wight, J. R. Laidlaw, A. Gibbs, W. S. Wight, T. G. Tyrrell, A. Lawrence, M. J. Wilson and J. J. McEwan. The majority of these players are present or past champions, either provincial or club, and the team includes two former New Zealand champions in Wright and Sime. Wright, who no doubt will play first for Otago, is the present Otago champion. The highest handicap in the team is three. The Invercargill and Queen’s Park Clubs were invited to forward nominations, but none of the eligible players was available. The Canterbury-West Coast team has been chosen by the district advisory committee as follows:—R. G. Arnould, J. L. Blair, A. R. Blank, L. W. Fleetwood, R. D. Frizzell, J. D. Galloway, P. R. Godby, E. O. Heney, J. W. Jackson, H. W. Macfarlane, J. L. Mackay, J. Millard, E. J. Pumphrey, L. E. Robinson, G. A. Ussher and K. C. Ward. C. J. Ward was unavailable. PIANIST LIKES GOLF Although music is his profession, it is golf about which Mr Benno Moiseiwitsch, the notable Russian pianist, seems to talk with the greatest enjoyment, according to Mr Claude Kingston, concert director for J. and N. Tait and J. C. Williamson, Limited. The pianist, said Mr Kingston at Auckland, liked golf. To use his own words, he found great pleasure in “fooling about a golf course.” “He has no ambitions as a golfer,” said Mi - Kingston, “but I am sure he enjoys the game much better than scratch men can. He says he will never be a first-class golfer, but he finds it great exercise and he claims that he gets a much more satisfactory feeling out of it than the best players, although he says the ball does not get hit many times by him.” Mr Moiseiwitsch found that golf kept him fit, said Mr Kingston, and it had no bad effects on his playing. Sonje exercise was essential, because he did not find it necessary to spend hours every day practising. GOLFERS SHOULD TRAIN “I was not surprised to read in a letter from London a few days ago that the British open golf champion, Henry Cotton, trained for some weeks before the Ryder Cup and the championship. For a time he was in the hands of the Arsenal trainer, Tom Whittaker, who trained Britain’s Davis Cup team,” says Harry Hopman in The Herald, Melbourne. “There is great strain, in a golf match and co-ordination is essential. Most of our leading players are healthy enough; but are they fit? When I say fit, I mean it in the sense of leading tennis players and footballers. The leading money-winners in America may be different, as they are playing all the time, and that alone keeps them, fit Even then, most of them are carefully temperate, and take their game very seriously.” “If the club is picked up, instead of swung back with that flat beginning which I always urge, it is almost certain that the hands will beat the clubhead on the way down. When this happens the club face will be turned outward as it meets the ball. That makes it inevitable that the ball should go away to the right”—Arthur Havers. Henry Cotton, winner of the British open golf championship, is prepared to meet Densmore Shute (U.S.A.) in a return match in America if the Belmont Club puts up an attractive stake. After the British open, Cotton and Shute played a 72-hole match for the unofficial world championship and Cotton won comfortably. Jim Ferrier put up a notable performance in marathon golf on a recent Saturday. He wished to play in the championship of the Australian Club as well as that of the Manly Club. The second qualifying round for the Manly championship was played on the same day as the two qualifying rounds for the Australian Club’s championship. In order to get in all three rounds Ferrier hit off at Manly at 6.45 ajn. and completed the round in one hour thirty-five minutes. He then went on to Kensington and played two rounds of 73 each. He headed the qualifying list for both clubs. H. W. Hattersley also qualified at both courses, but he played the two rounds at Kensington first and then went on to Manly. VON NIDA’S PLANS Norman von Nida’s defeat, 6 and 4, at the hands -of Billy Bolger in a £lOO challenge match in Sydney last month, does not alter the former Queenslander’s plans to tour the United States and Britain at the end of the year (says The Herald, Melbourne). But it might make him get down to practice more seriously, for he is keen to be able to put Australian open golf champion ! after his name while he is abroad. The ’ championship is to be decided in Sydney in September. Von Nida intends doing the rounds of the American “winter circuit” from De- . cember to May, before crossing to England to prepare for the British , open.