GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 12 August 1930, Page 4

GOLF

NATIVE GOLF TITLES. VALUABLE STEPPING STONES. (By Harry Vardon. —Special to News.) One of the most interesting developments in golf during recent years has been the promotion of native—as distinct from open —amateur championships. England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland now have such tournaments, and all these countries except England have still to apportion their honours for the present season. The English title was won recently by Mr. T. A. Bourn, a farmer Cambridge player, who reached the last 16 in the United States amateur championship less than a year ago, and who, I am told, intends to compete in it again a few months hence.

Nowadays there are so many aspiring golfers with club handicaps in the region of scratch that a system of step-ping-stones to distinction is an obvious necessity, and a native championship is the natural and proper means by which a player, may proceed from club and county honours to a place among those whose ambition it is to win the British amateur championship. It is all for the good of the game that the native talent of a country should be encouraged and developed; it stimulates interest in golf in the country concerned and can hardly fail to produce an improved standard, of play. That is important. It is easy-to say airily that the people who pursue the pastime for health’s sake, earing not whether they hit the ball well or ill, and gaily indifferent as to whether they win or lose, are as valuable to golf as any other of its community. They are unquestionably useful in the sense that they assist in the upkeeps of clubs and courses by paying their subscriptions,. but if their spirit stood for the true and entire spirit of the game, golf would be about as important a feature of the scheme of national recreation as tiddley-winks or that reckless sport of country fairs which .goes by the name of hoop-la. It can at least be said for most golfers that they are wholly in earnest about the game; their progress or retrogression at it never ceases to be a matter of vital interest to them. Being thus earnest, they find inspiration and a greater interest every time a highe? standard of play manifests itself. Consequently, it may be” claimed that championships—even though the number of men actively engaged in them small—constitute a very big element in the life-blood of the game. FINDING A FATHERLAND. The question of qualification for those close championships has been a difficult one. It doos not follow that, because a person is born in England, he is necessarily an Englishman. If his parents happen to be Scottish, probably he feels as complete a Scot as if he had been born at Bannockburn. There was the case of the late Mr. John Graham, who, although born and bred in England and trained in golf in England, decided without hesitation that if ho played for anybody in international golf, it must be for Scotland, on account of his Scottish parentage. The English Union made a bold endeavour to settle the question of qualification on hard-and-fast lines by deciding that nobody should be eligible for its chain pionshin unless he could claim to be a British subject who was cither himself born in England, or the son oi parents, one of whom was born in England. This was found to exclude Sir Ernest Holderness, for the reason that he and both his parents happened io hr ve been born in British territories overseas—a state of affairs that might ooc .• in any purely English family that happened to be engaged in the diplomatic service or certain other braiicnes of. the Civil Service. So the English Union feit constrained too add a proviso, giving it the “power to accept entry from a British subject, claiming through grandparents born in England, and who had educational and residential qualifications.” Thus Sir Ernest Holderhess and others situated like him became eligible, as everybody meant them to be. That he does not compete is due to inability to spare the time for the meeting.

There is an interesting feature of the conditions for the Scottish cham-

pionship. It ifi that entry ipay be ae: i eepted from anybody who is not a member of a recognised golf club so lono as he sends a declaration that he is an °amateur, and has this declaration signed by a secretory of a recognised I golf club, a delegate of the Scottish Golf Union, a magistrate, a justice of the peace, a solicitor, or other responsible I person. Here, apparently, is a worthy ! endeavour to give opportunity to the ' artisan player. i I know not what truth there may be i in the statement, but I am informed by . responsible individuals that it is by !no means unknown —in England, too—j for artisan amateurs to enter for the ! open championship, when the event ! takes place close to their homes in a ■ rather curious way. It is said that i y ! send the fee of £1 which is charged to ' professionals (it is £2 for amateurs}, and thus gratify a natural desire to i take part in a tournament held virtually on their doorsteps without having any intention of infringing their amateur status by accepting a money ■prize. It is declared that they continue to play in amateur championships. ■•They play solely for the enjoyment o ! the thing, but is this—if true—a state ! of affairs that is intended?