ENGLISH GOLF NOTES

Taranaki Daily News, 3 September 1929, Page 4

ENGLISH GOLF NOTES

LADY GOLFERS DRIVE BETTER.

HOW STANDARD HAS IMPROVED.

(By Harry Vardon. —Special to News.)

London, July 25.

I notice that Miss Enid Wilson was the only lady player who won her game in the recent annual eight a side match between teams representing the two sexes on the approach-and-putting course at Kensington, London. She beat J. H. Taylor, jun., son of the former open champion, by one hole. Even Miss Jovce Wethered was defeat-, ed by Mr. C. J. H. Tolley, by 2 and 1, while Miss Cecil Leitch lost to J. H. Taylor, senior, by the big margin .of 6 and 5. ■

This match of 3G holes is contested on level terms on a course where the teeshots consist mostly of half-shots with the mashie or mashie-nibliek, so that there is every opportunity for delicacy of touch to gain its reward. Yet I believe it is the fact that the. ladies have yet to win it. Evidently man’s supremacy is not due entirely to his power in driving. There is a tendency to believe that the standard of ladies’ golf has improved mostly in the short game. Personally, I think that the rise in the all-round quality of feminine ability is to be observed in a far more marked degree in the longer shots. The best lady players of thirty years ago were very nearly a stroke a hole inferior to those of to-day. Everything was against the women of that era: the solid, unresponsive gutta-percha ball, the hitting of which was like the hitting of a hard stone; the wearing of hats and clothes altogether ill-adapted to the golf swing; and a certain prevailing sentiment that it was rather a joke that ladies should attempt to play at all. BEGINNINGS. Miss Wethered came into the game at just the time when circumstances lent themselves to feminine endeavour on the links. And she at once to rise to a plane of excellence the like of which no previous lady player had reached. It is conceivable that Mies Wileon at 19 is as good a player as Miss Wethered was when, at about the same age, she rose from obscurity to renown by beating Miss Cecil Leitch in the final of the English championship. Miss Wilson may well set a standard as high as that achieved by Miss Wethered, for she has physical advantages the like of which very few o-irls have possessed. Her father, who is a doctor at Claycross (Derbyshire), and a man of slender physique, has related how when she was born she weighed exactly four and a half pounds —which must have been disconcerting in the case of a doctor’s only child. When she reached the age of nine, he prescribed golf. It proved so beneficial’that she now weighs twelve stones, and stands nearly six feet in height. She has such strength as well as skill that almost anything seems possible to her at golf. But it is not to be supposed that Miss Wilson has risen to her present position as English champion by privilege of physical attributes. She is as diligent a worker at the game as ever this country has known.

There are people who affect to despiee' the person who practises constantly for perfection, instead, of entering into the gaiety of friendly matches. I believe that Miss Wilson is the subject of a lot of good-huinoured banter because, on her home course at Hollin-well (Nottingham) she goes out of a morning with a line bag packed with seventy balls and a flag-stick at which to aim shots with every club at every range. It is a curious world. We applaud an American when, even with hie victory almost certain in our open championship, he devotes half-an-hour before his last round to practising shots with some club which, earlier in the day, has not given him entire satisfaction. We say in all sincerity that this ie the spirit that wins. We pay -tribute to it in all the American champions. And yet when one of our own players does it, and succeeds by virtue of it, we remark with a shrug of the shoulders: “It must make golf a very dull game to take it so seriously as that.’ ’ OLD CHAMPION’S EXAMPLES. Small wonder that we are so often beaten in international rivalry. I suppose that Miss Wilson is one of those ardent people who believe that what is worth doing is worth doing not only well, but- surpassingly well. I know that the British champions of a former generation had faith in that theory. Mr. John Ball and Mr. Harold Hilton (fortunately located on the edge of the links) would practise by the hour. Personally, I would spend the morning in working on the course (as I had to do by the terms of my contract), the afteinoon in teaching (if anybody wanted a lesson, which few people did in those days, because there were not many golfers) and the rest of the time, in practising. James Braid converted himself from the worst putter, imaginable into the best of his championship-win-ning years by allotting an hour eveiy day to the task of learning how to putt. It is futile to suggest that this application makes the game hardly worth while. We do more than envy it in the Americans; we admire it. ~ , e have .evolved three young golfers latterly who compare very favourably with the best except the wizardly Mr. Jones. They are Mr. T. P. Perkins, 1. H. Cotton, and Miss Wilson. They are testimonials to the value of earnest practice and an early beginning at the game. If only we had as large a proportion as America possesses of playeis similarly disposed and favoured, there would be no need to discuss the question of United States supremacy on the links. I am told, that although Miss Wilson is the best player in her club, she has five times the number of lessons rn the game that any of her rivals deem necessary. Genius really is an infinite capacity for taking pains.