GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 12 June 1928, Page 4

GOLF

NOTES OH THE GAME. CENTRES OF GOLFING ZEAL. (By Harry Vardon.—Copyright.) London, April 12. i It is sometimes in wholly unexpected quarters that one comes upon hotI beds of golf—places where a. great en- ■ thusiasm for the game seems to be part ■of the daily life and to buzz in the j ears all the while ’.ike wireless at- ' mospherics. For instance, a friend was telling nre j the other day of sueh a discovery at the ' little town of Leek, in Staffordshire. ■ Leek has two courses. .One belongs to ! the Leek Golf Club. Its design is j essentially modern. With its big, . boldly marked bunkers, cut out of ! gentle slopes that disclose to view the I full measure of the danger, it has the ! touch of the expert links—architect’s ■ work. I The other course is given over to the partisans. It was provided by the firms i —chiefly silk-manufacturing firms—who constitute "the backbone of Leek’s comI mercial prosperity. I do not know I whether it is because of golf, or in spite jof golf, but it is in any case the fact, iso I am told, that Leek claims to be ! the most prosperous little town in the I country, with virtually n& industrial i trouble and practically nobody on the ' dole. It is in Scotland rather than in England that one expects to find these places where the ardour for golf animates whole towns and cities, and asserts itself as a ruling passion in the scheme of recreation. The game in Scotland is ingrained in the people. To the aspiring player, filled with the hope of spring, and trying to revive that freedom of swing with a sense of control and that confidence 1 ox hitting which are apt to become warped during a wet winter, it is a fine I tonic at this time of the year to visit St. Andrew's.

To the jaded London golfer, the transition and the transformation are alike wonderful. The expectancy as W steps into his sleeper at King’s '-•oss overnight is worth two strokes a round to him; the realisation when, on the last stage of the journey in the morning, his train skirts the old links, where early risers are already at play, is worth at least another two strokes. HOMAGE. So, at least, it seems. I know a man who always raises his hat reverently as the course opens out before him from the train window. It is an act of homage sueh as he might offer to his Queen. The vibration of golf enthusiasm is in every dwelling-place, every street, and every shop; the golfing nomenclature of the thoroughfares; the sharp turn into the road where there comes immediately into view the whole expanse of the links, with its row of houses on one side and the sea on the other side; the Swilcan Burn in the near distance, a.id beyond it the menacing railway sheds that may spell disaster at the seventeenth hole—these are influences that have a magic known only to the golfer who goes periodically to St. Andrew's. Nevertheless, there are equally peaceful corners of England W’here the spirit of golf has been handed down from a previous generation to cultivate among the players of to-day « deep-seated affection for the courses, as well ;.s a connoisseur’s interest in their qualities. One of the number is Hunstanton, in Norfolk, where the Ladies’ Championship is to be decided in the third week of May.

From the moment you arrive, you realise that you are in a place where everybody is proud of the links as an honoured institution of the town. You step from the railway station into the adjoining Sandringham Hotel to know at once that you are in a place where golf is a great freemasonry. If you enter a shop the chances are that the shopkeeper, seeing that you are a visitor, will say to you: “What do you think of our links?” When golf obtains a hold, it is a very wonderful hold. A HERITAGE FROM THE SEA. Championship courses are so few in number, and their names are so familiar wherever golf is played, that a visit to any one of them is always an adventure with z fine element of romance in it. At the same time, tradition and local pride seem to grow and flourish much more readily in some centres than in others. Take, for example, those near neighbours, Sandwich and Deal, which are so close together that two or th ee driver-shots would take the player from the one links to the other. Sandwich is a golfing town. The course is ou land reclaimed from the sea, where centuries ago the British Navy of wooden ships rode at anchor, and, although it is the private property ol the Royal St. George’s Club, the natives are as proud of it as their forbears were of the vessels that they saw always ready for action. They remember all tlie great golfing deeds that have been done at Sandwich. Somehow, Deal as a town seems to be devoid of a golfing soul. It lias been the scene of some famous achievements, but they appear always to have left Deal cold. Why there should be this difference is so nothing of a mystery.