GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1929, Page 5

GOLF

(MAKING AN IDEAL Of GAftJE. -

CHAMPIONSHIP PLAYERS’ TRIALS. (By Hairy Varden.—Special to News.) London, May 23. In one respect, golf is becoming uncomfortably popular. Its great events, which have a profound academic interest for the devotee of the game, aro fast developing - into public carnivals, and the truth is that they are not adapted to tho purpose. Everybody who witnessed the final of the recent jadies’ at St. Andrew’s, in which Miss Joyce Wethered gained her famous victory over Miss Glenna Collett by three holes up and one to play after the American champion had stood five up, agrees that the crowd made the match a dreadful ordinal for both contestants. I am informed that sometimes they had to hit their shots wide of the line which they wished to take because the assemblage of 8000 or 10,000 spectators (this is the general estimate of thennumber) could not be coaxed or. forced into a formation that would give, the players a clear course. The. principals really had no choice of direction. If they had taken the line they desired, they would have hit somebody in the crowd. On humanitarian grounds, there was a natural reluctance to do this, and, in any case, it would have resulted in the ball being diverted from its appointed track. It is said that at tho fourteenth hole in tho afternoon, when Miss Wethered took an 8 and her position became precarious, she was virtually compelled to aim her second shot into “Hell ’ bunker (thoimh she doubtless made a desperate effort°to carry it) because there was no other way of keeping clear of the crowd. She took two shots in that hazard.

THE HURLY-BURLY.

It has always been the same in Scotland. No matter how thrilling the occasion, the calm and studious golfer can generally depend upon seeing most of the things that he sets out to see on any course in England. During recent years, his objective has called fur more and more agility and

ingenuity everywhere, but on the whole, it has been attainable south of the Tweed. Ho engages himself to be a member of a house-party (arid houseparties at golf championships are growing in favour every season) with this encouraging prospect before him. But he approaches a championship in Scotland pretty much as I imagine a person approaches those alleged games of football in which whole towns take part to celebrate some ancient custom, anti in which the participant must expect often to lose sight of the ball and the drift of the entire proceedings during its hectic progress up and down the main streets and round to the town hall. He is in the thick of a surging mass of humanity which seems to be content to run with the blind faith of savages in massed charges. It is futile to protest against public excitement about outstanding affairs in sport, even though most of those who create the commotion have only an ephemeral interest in the event of the day. They are entitled to bo interested in it, just as in other matters, and it is conceivable that the influence is for the general good, since it is at least better than that people should have all their time to nurse supposed grievances. But the fact remains that golf as a public entertainment presents . a very different problem from that offered by any other sport or pastime. On an important occasion at racing, football, or cricket, for instance, a comparatively small force of police can do wonders. That is because the spectators do not ordinarily waijt to roam very much, once they have taken up their positions. Tho shepherds can keep an eye on flocks that are in orderly array. But at a golf championship, police are swallowed up in the crowd directly it starts to move. They cannot arrest everybody for running, so what are they to do? And if even they are powerless, what can stewards do when their emblem of authority is no more than a red flag? They may wave it with all the aplomb of a man in front of a steam roller, but the steam roller simply runs them down.

THE PLAYER’S VIEW.

For a lot of the spectators it may be tremendously exciting, but it is worth while considering whether the ordeal is fair" to the players. It is the fact that some of the best amateur golfers have grown sick of these gatherings that merely afford an opportunity for multitudes to run about as mobs. Some have retired prematurely from tho classic events for that reason, and others find no pleasure in competing, which an amateur is surely entitled to do. The professionals are just as concerned about the matter, whidh is natural, seeing that they want their honours to go to the right quarters. J. 11. Taylor has suggested several times, and in all seriousness, that spectators should bo absolutely prohibited at championships. This is rather too drastic, and I imagine that even a player who had been harassed .by onlookers in his time would pine for somebody to watch him if lie found himself winning. Where gate-money is charged it ought to be possible to limit the crowd to certain numbers. After all, a theatre holds only a certain number of. persons, and cannot accommodate more if all are to enjoy themselves. There have been

gatherings of over 20,000 on the Preet* wick links, but it is idle to suppose that anybody found pleasure in the circumstance, unless he went solely to ba in a mob.