GOLF TRADITIONS BROKEN

Taranaki Daily News, 14 April 1932, Page 10

GOLF TRADITIONS BROKEN

SCOTLAND PLAYS ON SABBaTH.

CONSERVATISM OF ST. ANDREW'S.

(From Our Own Correspondent.) London, February 25.

One by one golfing traditions are 'being 'broken in Scotland. Twenty years ago even the suggestion that play should be permitted on the Sabbath would have been regarded with horror, but to-day opinion has changed so remarkably that the clubs, through the voice of their own members, have been compelled to arrange for the game to be played on the first day of the week. The first of the chief clubs to make the break is Prestwick, and no doubt the others will follow its lead, especially in those cases where play is over private property. It may even come to it at St. Andrews, the most austere of golfing centres. iSo far there has been no move to permit play over any of the courses on tho Sabbath, but who would have thought that the townsfolk would ever have”agreed to their historic links being put out of bounds, as it were, for even the week of the championship? The authorities, however, made it a condition, in deciding to hold the championship of 1933 there, that they should have absolute control over the course for the week and be able to charge an admission fee. Unless these terms had been agreed to, the event would have been taken to another centre, and the loss would have been too heavy for St. Andrews to bear. There is no more dreary place than St. Andrews on the 'Sunday before a championship. The o-d town is full of golfers, but all that they are permitted to do is to walk over the course. They may take a club with them, 'but to hit a ball would be a punishable offence. Some relief to the monotony of the day was afforded when the course at Gleneagles, which is 25 miles away, was opened on a Sunday, and now players visit it by car. I am not sure whether first-class 'Sunday golf was first provided at Gleneagles or Turnbery, which is situated lower down the Ayrshire coast from Prestwick. In the meantime, many of the clubs in the Glasgow area have similarly broken away from tradition, and there is no doubt that their influence is having a far-reaching effect. In England there is more golf played on a Sunday than on any other day of the week.