The Golf Professor.

Timaru Herald, Volume XIIC, Issue 13979, 14 August 1909, Page 3 (Supplement)

The Golf Professor.

SOME OF lllS METHODS

(By. E." 11. li.it-on Watson.)

J do not know whether you remember the little Frenchman, -Professor Vidal, who so nearly won the Amateur Championship the first year, it was held at Westoriield.. Personally, I knew him very intimately, as well as his charming daughter, who married my friend Prothero the other 'lay. Rut that is another story. Wliat 'concerns' me just at present, is tile Professor as a golfer. A man of .science, ho brought himself right to the front, lie was only lieaton in the semi-final by a remarkable fluke 011 the part of his opponent at the last : hole) by a strict application of scientjlic ''principles-' to "the game. The .more I think over -his methods the more 1 am assured that a moderate degree of. excellence nfc this tantalising pursuit is wit,bin the reach of any man who has the .use of his limbs, aird can learn how to putt. .

Simplicity was his key-note, so to speak. He reduced the game to its 'lowest, terms. . Ho lopped off: from it Jill those excrescences—the growth of centuries—that conspire to terrify, and perplex the beginner. We have made a fetish" of style. Many . men would far sooner play a bad shot prettily than get near the hole with an unorthodox stroke.: My friend Miller (with whom 1 generally play a round on Saturday afternoon') carries this fancy to such a pitch that- he regularly comes iiirough with his drive in two pieces. With the lirst he liits the ball—more or loss; with the second he devotes himself to seeing that the club-head finishes in..the right place. He plays, in short, lor the camera: and if you saw a snhpsliot of his attitude at the end of his swing you would put him down for a scratch player at least, instead of a moderate twelve. Whereas it was hot. until the professor had beaten several of our host players at Westoriield that we could induce the handicap committee to take him seriously.

Gofc," said the professor on one occasion, I remember, •• gofo is a game all. liiecliaiucal." , To play him, it' is nooossarv tli.-it • we' make .of ourselves a", niachine.'?. ,• He. Vveiit on to explain that ; uo others,- who deliberately complienied matters by. imitntihg a whole gallery' of golfers—picking up a'shot here and -a.'shot there, borrowing 'onr . putting "mariner from one expert, our drive-from another, our short apnroacli■ fro'm ■; a third—could only attain excelleiu-e by the accident of Coding 'ourselves at the- top of ;onr. forms in half-a dozen different stylos at one and the same.itime. For his part, lie had hut- one'. style, and stuck-to it'. - ITe took up precisely the same stance for every .stroke, and made it in thrsanu* manner, regulating the • length merely by the weight of the club he selected and the force with which he struck the ball. It is true that ho could seldom bring off a fancy shot; if he. had ever found it necessary to make a short pitch and stop dead In? would probably have failed. Hut then, with him it never was necessary. Like an expert billiard player, lie made each stroke .with, an eye to the next; he was careful never to leave himself anything difficult. He made always for the line (on modern courses there usually is one) that gave him a clear run up to the hole, scuffled the ball along with a heavy iron, and lay, almost invariably, within likely putting distance'. The number of times he got down in two from his iron shot was most disheartening to his adversaries.

The Professor was not. a long driver. 1 doubt ■if he ever. wont, further th:m ISO yards from the tee, even witli a following wind. But his straightness and accuracy were such that this disability handicapped him less than might have been expected. He knew exactly how far lie could go with safety. He would carry a bunker by inches, or bring his ball to rest, as though .by a miracle, a few feet from tJie edge of a yawning hazard. To the unfortunate who was was playing against bin) for the lirsi time the monotonous re(>etitiou <)• these ghastly tlukes (as he deemed them) became* at length intolerable. They weighed him down In vain he turnetd appealing eyes to the heavens. Surely Providence could not permit this "kind of thing to go on indefinitely! Here was he, so obviously the better player, unable apparently to .win a single hole. Thirty or forty yards in front from the drive, well on to the green with his second (perhaps a .little too far) while Yidal was still fifty yards short, though, of course, with his usual luck, there hanpened to be nothinc between him and the hole. Then the Professor would play that scuffling iron shot: the ball would run. and hop and kick off ai all sorts of angles, and probably hrin fr no at last stone dead. Tt was much after that if the other could summon nerve enough to lav his approach putt within liolint. distance. Slashing drives di;l not worry (.he Professor in the least. .He rither liked to be pitted aganst one of these, for be knew from experience the deadly effect produced upon them by his superhuman accuracy. Thev wou'd be certain to bit harder and harder as time went on, until at length came the inevitable .breakdown. o'>l\- a seasoned feu;, of the coveted phlegmatic temperament, had the selfc<"iimand necessary to restrain themselves and keep clear of disaster. With most, the strain of seeing hole after hole lilcbed away from them by a series of miracles was more than they could stand. I can still see the little man (he was not more than Sit. Gin. in height) limping rapidly round the links at. Westertield 011 the famous occasion when lie played I'Ycddy Chapman, the prince of sniitcrs, who held the record for the old course. There was a good deal of money on the match, but it was all over at the sixteenth hole. Freddy began to crack aL the thirteenth, when he found himself one down after playing a game that ought, apparently, to have lelti him seven up. From that moment he hardly made a decent shot. & I. had some hope that the name ol M. Yidal would have boeu among the entries for this year's open championship. There were rumours, at one time, that a distinguished French amateur was coming over, but 1 cannot find the name of my old friend in the list of those who have qualified. Me was never ol those who take the game too seriously. He came, saw, conquered —and returned soberly to tlie business oi lile. No doubt now lie is back in Paris, lecturing to his pupils at the 1 nstitnt Metallurgique. l'eaee be with him! 1 wonder-some-times if L ever did veritably behold him. Or was he merely a figment of the imagination;- 1 At Westerfield. I expect, some memory of him still lingers.