GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1930, Page 5

GOLF

PRIVATE RULES FOR GOLF.

LIBERTIES GOING TOO FAR.

(•By Harry Vardon. —Special To News.)

It seems to me that the freedom with which club committees and. even individuals are making local rules and. temporary rules for golf is at length beginning to exercise, the minds of players in general. Ordinarily the golfing community doos not concern itself in such matters, but I have heard a lot of criticism concerning the action of the captains in the recent Oxford and Cambridge, match, who, finding the bunkers waterlogged, drew up a special list of rules permitting some bunkers to be treated as out of bounds and allowing players to lift out of others without penalty. This certainly was not golf. Another point which lias evidently struck people as being very strange is that so much liberty can be taken with tho rules in private, legislation that in this year’s championships different penalties are presented for so important a situation as a ball out of bounds. At St. Andrews, where the amateur championship is to be decided, the player loses stroke and distance for being out of bounds—in effect, two shots. At Hoylake, the appointed course for the open championship, a local rule prescribes distance only as the penalty. That means one shot. It is very queer that championships should be subjected to local rules in connection with commonplace points. CART-RUT V. BUNKER. The worst Of many of these rules is that they are inconsistent. Not long ago, I heard a man proclaim the moral. He and his opponent were all even going to the last hole, where the rival sliced Ilia tee shot into the rough. Here were cart-ruts created either by vehicles used in connection with the upkeep of the green, or by other traffic which had a right of way from some neighbouring farm—a common enough feature of. many courses.

The local rule was the usual one in such circumstances —that the ball could be lifted and dropped without penalty, so long as the player dropped it in the rough, and not nearer to the 'hole. This means that he could search for the best lie behind his original position, and let the ball fall over his shoulder in the hope that it would come to rest sitting up well for the next shot. Meanwhile, my aggrieved friend had driven tolerably straight down the fairway, but had been caught in an unplayable corner of a bunker which eats into the straight path. It had been a far better 1 shot than the other man’s, and yet the latter could lift from the cart-rut without penalty, and virtually choose his lie, while the person in the bunker had to tackle the situation as he found it. Why, he asks, should there be a concession to the player who gets into a difficulty off the fairway, and none to the one who gets into « bunker on the fairway?

THE MARTYR. I am sure I do not know, but It Is the fact that things frequently work out that way. The reason is that the •St. Andrews code usually holds undisputed sway in the middle of the course. Obstacles that might present inequitable conditions are not often tolerated in that path. They flourish on the flanks, presumably because the club either lacks the right to remove them, or does not consider the expense worth while. Consequently they are governed by local rules, and it happens frequently that wider one of these rules the player who has hit a crooked shot comes off better than the opponent who has steered a reasonably straight course, but landed in a legitimate difficulty which is covered by the ordinary rules of the game. The explanation is simply that the whole tendency of one-course legislation is to make things simple for the bad player; to minimise the punishment which he has earned by hitting a faulty shot. Abe Mitchell, in one of his challenge matches (I think it was that against Walter Hagen) adopted the splendid but not very profitable policy of declining io accept this pampering., Me in a ca it - ru i. in the rough at c.’it- |

worth, and the referee told him in perfect truth that he could lift and drop the ball without penalty. Mitchell eaid. that he would rather play it without lifting it, and he lost the hole. It is to be feared that human nature does not often exhibit this spirit. Hedges and fences are other mediums for the alleviation, by local rule, of the plight of people who play thoroughly bad shots. At some courses, permission is given that when a ball lies within a certain distance—say a club’s length —of a fence or hedge, the player may lift and drop without penalty away from the difficulty, although not nearer to the hole. Presumably the sentiment governing this kind of concession is that, without it, the player might not have room to swing his club properly. But why should he expect such freedom when he has landed himself in the predicament by hitting a very erratic shot? The frequent instances in which a player is allowed to lift in such circumstances under penalty of one stroke are bad enough as affronts to true golfing law; but where no penalty at all exists, the position is absurd. It would be just as rational to permit a person whose ball had finished on the bank of a bunker to lift and drop clear without penalty. No club committee ever thinks of conceding that license,, because bunkers are regarded as features ( 'of the fairway or its immediate environs. The player who often receives help is the one who strays farther from the line.