AN UNLUCKY PLAYER

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1935, Page 12

AN UNLUCKY PLAYER

FERRIER’S TURN COMING THREE TIMES BEATEN Jim Ferrier, the great big smiling and —golflngly—terribly serious Cydney lad, is the unluckiest player I know in Australia (writes J, M. Dillon). He has played in four national open championships and has been runner-up in three of them. He is the Bobby Jones of Australia as a golfer. In the matter of the awful luck that dogged Jones in the first seven years of his career, Ferrier is again his Australian counterpart. In other big events besides the- national open he has not had the “breaks” coming bis way. Although Ferrier really did not get going during the 72 holes at Seaton, in the Australian open championship, he should have won the event. Actually it was stupid tactics and an obstinacy that would not let him take notice of his competent caddie, Don Rogers, that eventually at the second last hole caused Ferrier to miss. Really he did his best to throw the title away before that by playing a series of dangerously drawn shots with lofted clubs and then missing putts which the best putter in the land has no right to miss. He was out in 33 in the third round, but three putts on the fourth and a missed four-footer on the second were in that. Then, coming home in 39, he played sojne shots which were puny. At that calamitous 17th of the last round he needed a 5 at the 496 yards hole and took a 7. He was so accustomed to getting fours there that when bunkered nastily he insisted on going for distance. Then when he got to the long grass and’ was not in wood-range of the green, even from a perfect lie, he would take a wood and was 180 yards short. Then he did the most fatal thing that any golfer can do to a shot—he distrusted his club, and half-way down, considering that he should have had in his hand a No. 5 instead of a No. 4, made a shocking hook after the other two rotten shots, with all their possible significance.

Naturally he was a little rattled and that was the very time that he should have relied on the judgment of the lad, who came all the way from Sydney to help him. When he most needed help he would not take it. That is just human, and Ferrier's most intriguing of many great points is his humanity.