GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 17 July 1930, Page 16

GOLF

LUCK OF GOLF DRAWS.

REDUCING IT BY ARBITRATION.

(By Harry Vardon.—Special to News.)

Recent events in connection with the golf championships have provoked a good deal of discussion on the subject of “seeding'’ the draw, which is the process of distributing the players of established merit evenly through the list so that they cannot clash in the earlv stages. Among this year's misfortunes of the draw have been tho meeting of Miss Glenna Collett, the United°States champion, and Miss Molly Gourlay, the English champion, in a crowded preliminary round of the contest for the British ladies’ title, and the fact of Mr. Bobby Jones and Mr. C. J. H. Tolley being in such proximity in the British amateur championship at St. Andrew’s that people had ■ to expect them to come to grips in a wrong settintr —the cold dawn of the tournament. The “seeding” of the draw is an interesting feature of the United States amateur championship. It is a typical effort By the new world to promote equity on the links by means of arbitration, as well as playing ability. The conditions stipulate that thirty-two men shall survive the qualifying stroke competition. The committee prepares a schedule showing whom it regards as the best players in their.order of merit. The first eight in this list who qualify for the match stages are then allotted places in the draw so that..each has a section to himself, like a lion among the lambs; and the whole eight can enter the third round and monopolise it. A WIMBLEDON GESTURE. From time to time people in whom the cult of equity is presumably highly developed have suggested that the only remedy for what is known as “the luck of the draw” is to be found in this process of seeding. The scheme has never won favour in British . golfing circles. I believe that it exists in the lawn tennis championships to the extent that, when two or more prominent players enter from any country abroad, they are seeded in the draw so that they shall not be subjected to the necessity of engaging in fratricide in the early rounds.°lt is contended that they might as well meet at New York, Paris, or Sydney, as in the, first, round at Wimbledon.

The principle of seeding may be a pleasant spirit in which to receive and entertain foreign guests, but the British golfing people are a conservative people, and it has never occurred to'them to arrange matters in such a way as to avert ail immediate fight between two players who have travelled together as compatriots for thousands of miles in order to compete in our amateur championship. From time immemorial the feeling has grown up in this country that everybody ought to take his chance as to how he is drawn

It is understood that in the United States it has been the principle for some years to arrange a number of the partnerships in the open championship —a score-play test —so as to counter the possibility of a first-class golfer being hindered by a slow or nervous or otherwise harassing This, perhaps, is rather different from seeding the draw for a match-play tournament. In Britain a great many distinguished golfers have undergone such trials in open championships, and it has been suggested that players who are notoriously slow or incompetent should be sent out at the end of the day. And yet so deep-seated is the feeling against any arranging of the draw that the professionals, who are whole-heartedly for equity as distinct from the luck of the game, are as strongly opposed as the amateurs to the system of seeding. Only once, so far as I know, has it been tried in this country. The occasion was a big qualifying competition in 1913. A large entry had induced the committee of the Professional Golfers’ Association to decide upon holding the event on two courses, one half of* the entrants playing on each. As only twelve places in the final stages had been allotted to the section, it was resolved that six men should qualify on each course. When the draw came to be made, most of the prominent players serving on the committee happened to be away, and these who were present took it upon themselves to seed the list. FAVOURS NOT WANTED. They abstracted the names of fourteen international golfers who were among the candidates. They drew the remainder in the ordinary way, and interspersed seven of the internations to play on each course. Their ideas was that, without thia precaution, all fourteen might be drawn to compete on one course, with only six places to be gained. It may have seemed a very considerate arrangement, and yet the prominent players who had not been able to attend the committee meeting condemned it with all their might. The scheme had to stand in view of the fact that a quorum had adopted it, but it was never repeated. Such is the ingrained objection in Britain to any jockeying with the luck of the draw. All the evidence goes to show that in big-stroke competitions ft is an advantage for two good, players to be coupled, just as it is a disadvantage to each of them when he is paired with a slow or inefficient golfer. Together they stimulate one another to greater endeavour.

The strain of having to contest a personal duel as well as wage warfare against the rest of the field may seem at first blush to be a difficult complication, and yet experience shows that it produces inspiration and brilliancy. J. H. Taylor and I were partners in the last thirty-six holes of the open championship at Prestwick in 1914, and, fighting one another tooth and nail, we finished first and second. Precisely the same thing happened in the case of Mr. Bobby Jones and Albert Watrous on the Lytham and St. Anne’s links in 1926.

It may, therefore, be urged that, as the championships belong morally to the best players, the seeding of the draw should bo practised systematically. The answer is that, so far as- concerns this country, golf remains so essentially a game that the principle is unacceptable. That it is so perhaps'reflects better than any other condition could do the attitude of the Britisher towards his pastimes. He likes them for the very uncertainties and risks tiiat they present.