"COLONEL BOGEY."

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 65, 23 April 1914, Page 5

"COLONEL BOGEY."

HIS INFLUENCE,

GOLFERS DEEADED GUEST. Golf is peculiar among outdoor sports, inasmuch as its difficulties are to a great extent created by the players themselves. In order that the path from the teeing ground to the green should not be too easy, all kinds of hindrances in the shape of bunkers and Other hazards are contrived. The implements used are, as one caustic critic has observed, singularly ill-adapted for the purpose. Not content with setting up difficulties of this kind, golfers have erected a peculiarly irritating opponent against whom they occasionally play. This is Colonel Bogey, an imaginary old gentleman, who is supposed to play faultless golf year in and year out. It matters nothing to him whether the wind is blowing a gale, whether the course is so sodden that the ball buries itself in the mud„ or the greens are so parched and bare that putting is muchr more a speculation than an art. In ail weathers, and under all conditions, Colonel Bogey is supposed to play a perfect game. His is a macihine-like accuracy which might become rather tiresome in anything except golf, but golfers never give up the hope of beating '-the impeccable old gentleman. If at a hole which requires a drive and.an iron shot to reach the green, the player holes out in 4, he experiences a glow of exultation. He has halved, a hole with ''bogey," and more than\his cannot be expected of any man unless he be among the masters. PREDOMINANT THOUGHT.. For a myth, there is no doubt that the colonel exercises an extraordinary influence among golfers. In many cases it is the ambition of their lives to compass his downfall. There are many men who devote the whole of their golfing career to this task. Even if, they are playing in an ordinary medal competition their first thought is not so much how their score compares with those Of the rest of the field but how it compares with '' bogey.'' The imaginary opponent has contrived to make himself an obsession with any number of people who pursue the elusive rubbercore. To them, the disappointment of losing a hole to the man they are playing is robbed of much of its bitterness if they can claim to have halved it with the' immaterial colonel.

The origin of Colonel Bogey is not lost in antiquity, as, might be supposed. In point of face, he was unknown to the' old Scottish playersj and to this day there are many clubs who will have nothing to do with him. At St. Andrews, for instance, he would find himself a very unwelcome visitor; indeed, he would not be tolerated there. Sunningdale and Walton Heath, among the metropolitan clubs, are of the opinion of St. Andrews, that he is an undesirable, but it cannot be denied that at the majority of golfing centres he is firmly established as a perpetual, if occasionally an unpleasant, guest.

• He came into being many years ago at the s . United Services Club, near Portsmouth. He was the result of a new form of competition devised by the members of the club, in which an approximately perfect score was made for each hole on the course, the object being that the players, either with or without the aid of their handicaps, should compete against the fixed figures. In a club composed of naval and military men it was felt that this imaginary opponent should be given either a naval or a military title, and so he was christened "Colonel Bogey." It was not long before the fame of the incomparable colonel spread practically all over the golfing community. For many years the Royal and Ancient Club would not recognise him, but he at length became a, personage of , such great importance among so many players that the rules committee not long ago consented to give their opinion as to how competitions against him should be decided. It is only in the form of a recommendation that the powers that be refer ,to him, but the colonel undoubtedly scored a big triumph in getting St. Andrews to acknowledge his existence at all.