THE GROWTH OF GOLF

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 53, Issue 3827, 30 October 1936, Page 10

THE GROWTH OF GOLF

WOMEN PLAYERS OF THE 90’s. As in athletics proper, so in golf, records are continually being broken, and the national open championship has given us a new Australian record of 282, writes H.G.P., in the Melbourne Age. The causes of advancement are many. Among them are the vast increase in the number of players, the stimulus of international rivalry and of big money prizes, improvements to the implements of the game, more expert and interesting reporting of golf, and the slowmotion camera. Golf is more: an art —one might say a handicraft—than a science, ami in matters of this kind an early apprenticeship and lifelong training, with, if possible, the advantage of inherited aptitude, are generally held to conduce to the highest skill and knowledge. All these golf has had; in Scotland there were dynasties of fine players father, son, and son again. Now the astonishing fact Emerges that until as recently as forty years ago, what are now deemed to be fundamental principles of the game were not known, or, if known were not regarded as important. It was not until the slow-mo-tion film, came that students of the game could put the swing under a microscope, dissect it, and find out the little wriggly microbes that were causing the patient’s golfing distemper. Vardon could hardly believe his eyes when he saw his own swing on the film, so much did it conflict with what he had imagined it to be. Those great systematises and specialists, the Americans, believe they have pared away all superfluities, and are ready to define a “standard” swing. There is talk of requiring all their professionals to teach this standardised swing. The idea has its merits. In Australia teaching varies widely. If Brown, your first tutor, is not available, and you go to Robinson, he may try to set you off on a different tack, and so destroy what little rhythm and confidence you had in your own swing. This sort of tragedy would be avoided if instruction were standardised.

The Japanese are moving in the direction of standardisation, and have invited Gene Sarazen to their country, so that his swing may be filmed and copied. Sarazen has been chosen because he is short and stocky, and resembles the typical Japanese in build.

From all this talk of standardisation it is amusing to turn back a few decades to see what our grandfathers thought of the swing. The “Badminton Library on Golf,” edited by H. G. Hutchinson, a famous player, was first brought out. in 1890. It was acknowledged as a standard work, and ran through many editions in the next fifteen years. In a chapter’ on style, Hutchinson has this to say:—“ln addition to the more or less recognised styles, there are swings of diverse and wonderful grotesqueness. There is the Pigtail, the Headsman, the Pendulum, the Recoil, the Hammerhurling, the Double-jointed, the Surprise and the Disappointment.” The Headsman was a straight chop, “as though the ball were the/ head of a rebel”; the Hammer-hurling a “morbid exaggeration of the theory that the stroke is all swing and not hit,” and in the Recoil the player jumped back the instant the ball was struck and then ran a pace or two further back.

Hutchinson prints pictures of the correct swing, which to our eyes are of “wonderful grotesqueness.” There is hardly a rabbit in the game; but would blush to finish in the manner of Hutchinson’s paragon, in a pose that indicates a terrific body sway, a locked head and a clubhead out of control. The two pictures of Abe Mitchell, a famous modern player, illustrate the modern practice of winding up the body within its own space (much the same thing as keeping the head still), compactness as against looseness, and the firming up of the muscles in preparation so that when released they will add to the force of the blow.

One of the major controversies of Hutchinson’s day was as to whether the: ball should be played off the right or the left foot. Every good player to-day uses either method to suit his purpose, knowing quite well what result dach gives. Every good player, too, starts the swing with a press in-wai’-d —towards the ball —by the right knee. This is merely the “complementary movement” of the gymnast, the releasing of the muscles and the beginning of a rhythmic, swinging motion. All that was known of it in 1890 was that the Scottish professionals had acquired the habit, when putting, of “giving a curious little knuckle inwards of the right knee.” The stuffy Victorianism of the times comes out in the chapter on women’s golf, written by Lord Moncriaff. The writer says ladies’ links should be laid out on a small scale, the longest holes planned for an 80yard drive, not because he doubts a lady’s power to make a longer drive, but because that necessitates bringing the club above the shoulder to a “posture and gestures not graceful to one clad in female dress.” It may be remarked that the best woman players to-day drive oyer 200 yards. The noble, but cynical lord goes on to say, “but it is to their presence as spectators that the most serious objections must bel taken. They talk while you are playing, their dresses throw shadows on the putting green, and they exercise an unsettling and pernicious influence on the men.” Finally, “they

do not like you if you beat their brother or husband, they resent it if you do not speak to them, and they cheat you if you let them mark the cards.” The mashie had just been invented —by “some bold spirit”—in Hutchinson’s day and the shafts of their clubs were made of hickory, lancewood, grefenheart, orange wood and even malacca canes. Practically all the makers were Scotch. In 1936 shafts, are of tubular steel, giving far more lenglth of shot. The ball of 1890 was made out of gutta percha, with a solid core, but “immense tales” had begun to be told of the Haskell ball, a product of the “inventive Americans.” This Haskell ball, with its core wound with thin elastic at high tension, was the forerunner of the ball of to-day, which is a veritable meteor compared with sluggish old gutty. Everybody understands what the golfing writer means when he says “Smiter was round in 334,465,432 - 34,” &c. See how the local paper went at it when Allen, the champion, went round St. Andrew’s in 79, back in 1858. “We subjoin the holes and strokes” (it preponderously says) “for the information of our readers: 1-4, 2-4, 3-4, 4-5,” and so on for eighteen holes, adding that “in a round immediately previous Allan holed at 87, which is likewise beautiful play.” Crisp, sporting journalism, from the home of golf!

Golf is esehtially a game of figures and the simplest of arithmetic shows clearly how scores have been diminishing for 40 years. In 1892, when play for the British Open was extended to 72 holes for the first time, the event was won with a score of 305, and two years later 326 was good enough to win. The average winning score from 1892 to 1902 was 313, and from 1902 to 1912 it was 302.1, a drop of 11 strokes. In the next decade it came down to 299, and from 1922 until this year inclusive it was 289.3. That is, the present day average winning score is 23.8 strokes better than it was three decades ago, or six strokes a round. Likewise the absolute best put up by Cotton and equalled by Sarazen is 283, which is 24 strokes better than the best to win in the first decade under review. The open championships just completed have seen a riot of low scoring. Rounds of 71 and 72 were commonplace, and 70 was broken many times, a feat acclaimed as wonderful only five years ago. Golfers are asking, “Where will it end?”