GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 31 January 1930, Page 3

GOLF

LADY GOLFERS AND MEN. A MYSTERY OF TOUCH. (By Harry Vardon.—Special to News.) During recent years one of the most keenly debated questions in golf has concerned the degree of ability which lady players have developed in relation to me. Even have I seen articles in responsible newspapers proclaiming that' “women are now as good as men at golf.” With the greatest desire to be appreciative of the advance which the standard of feminine skill has made on the links, we surely ought not to allow fervour to rise to this height. It is true that, when Miss Joyce Wethered has been playing at the top of her, form, golfers who are ordinarily sedate in their judgment have been heard to declare that she would stand a chance of winning the men’s amateur championship if she were to take part in it. In their calmer moments they must know that it would be like expecting her to achieve a miracle. Certainly she has some very fine performances to her credit in private matches against male players of the front rank. I am told that this year at Longniddry, in East Lothian, she took 4' strokes from her brother, Mr. Roger H. Wethered, and beat him by 5 up an<l_4 to play. She has found an allowance of .4 strokes sufficient to enable her to hold her own, and sometimes to win, in similar matches. But this is very different from asking her to go through about eight rounds of the championship, meeting the best men in the field on level terms during the closing stages, and carrying all before her. She might, however, get very near the semi-final. The truth is that, in spite of the influence of the rubber-cored, ball, golf remains a game in which physical strength counts for a good deal, and man is the recognised exemplar of brute force in the human race. On the eve of matches in the annual mixed foursomes at Worplcsdon, when it has been the appointed lot of Miss Wethered to drive against the male member of the opposing side, usually staid followers of the event have discussed the question as to how far she would outdistance him from the tee.

Miss Wethered is unquestionably the best driver in' ladies’ golf. ‘ Her swing is all that length and rhythm could be for the purpose of attaining distance. It has been shown that she can drive to within twenty yards of a good many men in the front‘rank, and sometimes nearer. That is a remarkably good standard of hitting for a lady player. But to talk of Irfes Wethered. out-dis-tancing players in the front rank of amateur golfers is out of all reason. FINESSE. It is a frequently debated point as to whether ladies are equal to men, inferior to men, or even better than men in those strokes that call- for control and accuracy rather than sheer physical power. There are upholders of masculine dignity who declare, paradoxical though it may seem in the light of the accepted refinement of the feminine touch, that man is actually the more effective in matters that call for delicacy of contact. They contend that in horse-riding, for example, he is superior to woman at controlling the animal because of his finesse in handling the reins, and that ladies are seldom good at billiards for the reason that they lack the necessary touch with the cue. The results of team matches between the sexes support the view that, in golf, men have the better touch as well as the greater strength. I think the truth is that ladies, are never so good in these shots of delicacy and inspiration as in their own championships, when they are playing against one another. liven hardened professionals have been moved to say. when watching the

ladies’ events, “If only men could produce the putting we have seen to*-day!” Nor, so far as mortal man could judge, have the ladies been palpably inferior to men in the playing of chip shots from just off the green. And, indeed, there is no reason why they should be inferior in shots which demand the capacity to judge distances accurately and strike, the ball truly—not the power to apply brute force to the blow. Yet, when the sexes meet, men usually establish supremacy over ladies in these factors of exactitude. The ladies Somehow lose their, nerve. STROKES THAT SAVE STROKES. ■ Golf is a complex game. A great authority once described it as the only game that tests every phase of the human character —physical power, delicacy of touch, nerve, and the capacity to endure in a long drawn-out struggle in which all the other trials are combined. There is no need to pretend that women are the equals of men in matters of strength and endurance. But they ought to K be as good as their brothers on the artistic side of golf—that- side which consist of saving shots in the short game. Close observers of big events have declared for generations that it is here, and not in the driving, that the highest honours are won and lost. American champions have emphasised the point. It is the ladies’ opportunity. There are people who think that Miss Wethered is unrivalled in the emergency of having to lay a chip shot dead from just off the green. And if this reputation is possible to her, it is obviously possible to other lady golfers.