PATIENT—BUT FIRM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 55, Issue 3929, 21 July 1937, Page 9

PATIENT—BUT FIRM

ADVICE TO GOLFEW WIVES. . “He would pause in his shotr before retiring to take a couple of final swings before turning out the light.”That was the final stroke which drove Mrs Walter Hagen, the world’s most famous golf widow, to file a divorce suit against her husband, the world’s most famous golfer. “In the first year of our marriage I found that we should never have any private life —that we should have to live golf,” she said. “I didn’t mind that really, and I think I can say that I accepted the situation very sportingly.” Mrs Hagen said that she travelled with Walter to Europe in 1923, 1924, 1925 and 1926. “So far,” she added, “as our home life was concerned I might as well have stayed abroad, but I didn’t mind that because we were living golf. “But then golf got inside the house. Clubs and balls were everywhere. “Before and after dinner Walter practised shots in the drawing room, which was trying. “Then we got it at the dinner table. “It wasn’t only golf stories, though they nearly drove me insane. “In less time than it takes to tell all the guests would be gripping the silverware, knives, forks and spoons, under Walter’s instruction. “Meanwhile the soup and fish went cold, and for me the evenmg was ruined. “It was when Walter, having played • 6 holes on the course, came home to play another 72 holes in the livingroom, that I realised that with Walter golf came first and I came second. “Then he even played imaginary shots just before he stepped into bed. “1 couldn’t stand it any more—he siinply didn’t belong to me. "My heart goes out to golf widowfe. “1 realise as few others do tliie pathos and tragedy of their Ilves, f “To wives whose husbands become, golf addicts after marriage my advice is: ‘Be patient—but be firm.’”