GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 29 May 1929, Page 4

GOLF

INFLUENCE OF CHAMPIONS. THE ORDINARY PLAYER'S PROTEST (By Harry Vardon. —Special to News.) A keen golfer who is a member of several clubs expressed the opinion to me the other day that this game which gives so much physical and mental benefit to thousands of middle-aged people is being spoilt by too many competitions. He was not so much concerned about monthly medals and bogey rounds. He regarded them as a bad influence, but too small to do heavy damage. What he felt was that the big tournaments were creating the serious harm, because they were elevating - successful players to positions in which they become not only gladiators but also dictators whose word had to be accepted as law on every matter pertaining to the pastime. He remarked that in the ordinary affairs of life—political, artistic, musical and a hundred others—anybody of intelligence who expresses a view i<s heard with respect. “In golf,” he said, “the people who win tournaments dominate everybody else even in problems of a purely academic character that have to do wit 1 the game. We are supposed to accept their judgments without demur. “They decide what the course ; are to be like, what we shall regard as our standard of skill and enjoyment, what sort of matches we ought to play, and even when we shall play —for they want the courses to themselves when their tournaments <are due.”

No doubt there is a certain element of justification for this protest. My friend sighed for the days when championships and other much-discussed events were few and far between, when their winners were regarded merely as interesting phenomena seen about as often as a c et, and when the person who went round in 100 strokes was not despised by the individual who could be relied on to beat SO. PR I VAT E RECR E ATION. “If I do a score of 110 on a championship link’s and win my match, I’m satisfied,” declared this philosopher. “Be hanged to the record-brefikers!” He added that the newspapers were the cause of half the trouble, because they glorified people who accomplished low scores, and ne”or bothered about the value of golf as an asset to health and social life.

After all, I suppose the newspapers would be very dull if they were always commenting on the commonplace and extolling obvious virtues. Friendly games of golf in which the standard of skill is mediocre assuredly give a lot of pleasure and healthy recreation. So do country walks. At the sime time, it would become rather monotonous to keep on telling the world that they are all it really needs in the way„ of exercise and diversion. Whatever may >-e the defects and prejudices of golf champions, they are essential to the game as the furnishers of an objective and a means of comparison. I suppose that not more than 25 per cent, of the world’s golf .players take part in competitions —even such modest competitions as those for monthly medals and bogey prizes. The remaining 75 per cent, pursue the* pastime in the form of private matches with friends. Many members of this majority are inclined (like my friend) to deride the importance and publicity given to the leading performers in tournaments, and yet I venture to say that nearly all such captious critics obtain a good deal of inspiration from championship winners. Lives there anywhere a golfer (even a 24-handicap golfer) with soul so dead that he. has never tried' a method of grip, or stance, or swing of which he has read or heard as the system favoured by some player of renown ? EXPERIMENT. Personally, I am quite content with having done my little bit as a public nuisance by working out the principle of the overlapping grip—a task which occupied ab-ut two years of my early life as a professional. Plenty of people may have condemned it'after trying it, but it has at le -t afforded the basis of ii-teresting experiment and it is a solace that nearly nil the best players in every country now favour it. 7 If Mr. Bobby Jones had never strayed on to the links to develop that wonderful turn of the hips from a narrow stance, what a world of emulation would have been lost to the game! It is only by means of tournaments that these inspirations to the average golfer (whatever they may be worth to him) can be brought to light. And they are certainly worth something to some players. Others may spoil the effect by exaggerating the traits of their exemplars. I wonder at times whether Arthur Havers, the only representative of this country who has won the British open championship since the Americans' began their reign of triumph eight years ago, is one of the number. When last I watched Havers, he seemed to have cultivated J. H. Taylor’s way of turning the toe of the club away from the ball in the address to such an excess .that he had the club-face hopelessly slanted.

My friend wbi thinks that tournaments and their winners rule the golfing world lives in a remote and peaceful rural retreat. He ought to play on a popular London course on a Sunday morning. lie would find the 100-strokes-a-round golfers • in almost complete p session, and not at all worried about the fame of champions.

RETURN TO GOLF.

MISS WETHERED'S DECISION.

(From Our Own Correspondents.) London, March 21. St. Andrews, the home of golf, has a wonderful fascination. When the Americans come over to compete for the Walker Cup, they always qsk that the match should take place there, and their preference for the old course is not so much on account of its virtues as because it is hallowed golfing ground, and, like everyone else, they are susceptible to its remarkable influence. Even to players at home, who are more or less familiar with it, St. Andrews always makes a great appeal, and draws them to it as no other place. Because the women’s championship is to be played there, for the first time for twenty-one years, Miss Joyce Wethered is to come out of her retirement. She knows St. Andrews well, and has often played

there, but, of course, only in private matches, and it has always been her ambition to play over the course in competitive golf. It is four years ago since Miss Wethered took part in the championship. The last time she played was at Troon, when she defeated Miss Cecil Leitch in the final at the thirty-seventh hole, and when she was mobbed by ten thousand people. At the finish she collapsed, and had to be assisted from the last green by her friends. She then declared that she would not play in com-. petition golf again, and the only occasions when she has appeared in semipublic have been in foursomes and mixed foursomes. Miss Wethered is the Bobbie Jones of women’s golf. She is the greatest woman player the game has produced, and at the age of twenty-seven there can bo no doubt of her making a successful “come-back.” She has not lost her interest in the game. In fact she has continued to play almost as much as eVer, though she has now become an expert angler, and during the summer has shown enthusiasm for lawn tennis. It is wondered whether Miss Leitch will also reappear at St. Andrews. She dropped out soon after Miss Wethered abandoned competitive golf, and it was believed that this was mainly owing to the fact that she did not think it worth while to play; unless she had the opportunity of challenging her great rival. But St. Andrews has also a big attraction for Miss Leitch. It was at the home of golf that she made her first appearance in the championship. At the time she was in her teens, and wore her hair down her back, but, as it was said, she had the audacity to get into the semi-final. '