GOLF

Taranaki Daily News, 10 June 1931, Page 12

GOLF

COURSES TOO LONG.

RESULT OF THE DRIVING FEVER

(By Harry Vardon. —Special to News.) It seems to me that there is a steadily growing revulsion of feeling against what the late Mr. W. J. Travis described as the “debauchery of long driving at golf.” It has taken all the time since his day, which was more than a quarter of a century ago, to make golfers realise that it is possible to have too much of a good thing, and I have to confess that they are not objecting now to their own long driving. But they are objecting to the penalty that it entails: the lengthening of courses. I have met several distinguished golfers who would welcome the fitandaidisation of a ball so light that it floats in water, or any other that could be depended upon to clip many yards oil’ the distances achieved with the presentday ammunition. Old and hackneyed though the question may be, they argue about it with a fervour which indicates that they believe in a millennium that will be the era of a lighter ball. It is not much use asking the ordinary mortal if 'ho wants his driving shortened. But lam convinced that the lengthening of courses, which has been deemed necessary as a means of coping with the travelling capacities of the modern ball, and which shows no sign of coming to an end in this country, is a very 'bad thing for the game. THE TIRING 'IRAIL. This constant extension of courses is bad because it is only suitable for a small minority of players—those who are young and athletic or exceptionally vigorous for their years. The armies of middle-aged and elderly golfers, who are the mainstay of the game, since they constitute the overwhelming majority who make courses and championships possible, do not want to walk five miles twice a day in a blazing sun for the purpose of obtaining the normal allowance of tvyo rounds. I think it was shown in a test of pedometer that a player of medium handicap tramps over five miles in accomplishing an average 18 holes. It makes the game too much of a trial of endurance for all save the small minority; an unnecessary trial, seeing that the amusement provided in the playing of shots is no greater than when the courses were considerably shorter. And at is diversion, not exhaustion, that the ordinary golfer seeks. Within reason, the walking does him good, but it is not what he goes out to pursue, and actually he loses some of it under the circumstances that now prevail. In former times, everybody who made up his mind to devote a day to golf played two rounds. Those were the times when the Royal Liverpool course at 'Hoylake measured about 5400 yards for a championship instead of the 6700 yards which it attained in the latest open championship. The golfer of those days not only bad his two rounds of concentrated excitement and pleasure. He often played another nine holes after tea. The exercise was all so natm-aUy regulated that it did not tire him. i

Nowadays, 'thousands of people who give up a day to the game are content with one round. The secretary of a well-known club complained to me that bridge had become the curse of golf; that people deserted the course after their morning round and the comfortable interval for lunch, and settled down in the card-room. DISCIPLINED DRIVES. The fault, however, is not theirs. Unless they are particularly active or enthusiastic, they feel at the end of 18 holes of modern golf that they have done enough to earn a restful afternoon. They are probably right. Natural instincts are usually a good guide. Golfers getting on in years were relatively more numerous in a former generation than they are now, for hardly any of the younger people played especially in England; and yet everybody finished his round of the morning hungering for that of the afternoon. That desire certainly is not so marked to-day. Very long courses are like very many courses at a dinner. They promote a sense of ennui. If people must have & ball scientifically manufactured to travel the maximum distance possible, I suppose the only way to shorten the courses and so modify the endurance test-would be to bespatter the fairway with pot bunkers at about the spot where a good drive would land. Then a shot of exceptional skill would be required to thread its way through the labyrinth of bunkers, and the person who could play it would gain his reward from the rival who went into one of the hazards; or who decided to play short of this constellation of trouble. At any rate, it would shorten the courses while advancing, rather than destroying, the interest of the game.

New modes of links-architecture arise about once evers 20 years. Perhaps the next will be a scheme of peppering the fairway with bunkers for the drive. At present, driving is far too easy in this country; that is why distance has become enchanting to the degree of a craze. There is little to stop it, except retribution on the flanks. It is not the same in America. Many of their courses are studded in the middle with bunkers. This inquisition in driving is regarded as part of the game. One of their best players said to me: ‘‘When a young goiter comes to the front in our country, the first thing we ask is, ‘What sort of putter is he?’ The first thing you ask here is, ‘How far does he drive?’ There seems to be good ground for this criticism.”