ON THE LINKS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18629, 26 July 1930, Page 16

ON THE LINKS

Dy “DRIVER.”

(“Driver” will be phased to receive notes of interest, local or otherwise, from the golfers of South Canterbury). Timaru play Ashburton at High field ; and Gleniti at Gleniti in foreign j matches to-day. Northern critics predict great things j for the young Wanganui golfer B. M. Silk. He appears to possess every at- j tribute of a champion and already, while still in his teens, has played first man for Wanganui in a recent match against Napier. The scores returned in last Saturday’s bogey match were somewhat disappointing. the senior winners being 1 ! down. B. V. Wright (scr) and G. R. : Kingston (5) headed the list. F. M. Ward, winner in the junior grade, was j the only member of the club who was . up on bogey for the day.

The final of the Perry Cup was played last Saturday in conjunction with the bogey matches and resulted in a win for Robt. Wilson (6), 2 down. J. E. Hamilton (15) was runner-up, 3 down. In this event L. S. Abernethy, who was playing on his old handicap, was thought to have a great chance but must have struck an off day.

Bobby Jones says—The thing that troubles the average golfer most seems to be to make use of the weight and power of his body at the same time preserving a perfect balance upon his feet. The most general tendency in this respect is to allow the entire body to fall backward upon the right foot while the club is approaching the ball in the act of hitting. In this way the player’s body, instead of being a source of power, is actually a hostile factor which must be overcome. The dates of the New Zealand golf championship meeting at Palmerston North have had to be altered, owing to lack of accommodation. The tournament as rearranged commences on October 24, and extends to November 1. Match play commences on October 27. and foursomes will be played on October 30. All matches in the amateur championships will be of 36 holes. A golfing enthusiast has written asking when boy and girl championship competitions are going to be instituted in the Dominion. He states that such competitions have been held for some years in New South Wales, and do a world of good in the way of encouraging and developing young players, who otherwise might be weaned away to other games. The man most likely to succeed Bobby Jones as the best amateur golfer in America is George Voight. Voigt has a brilliant record in the United States. In the Walker Cup competition in England recently he beat Sir E. Holderness (an ex-champion of England), 10 and 9. Although H. R. Johnston is amateur champion of America, Voigt is generally regarded as the best player next to Jones. If the latter does not play in big golf after this season, Voigt will probably step into his shoes as the leading amateur of America.

America continues to be the happy hunting ground of the gold-digging professional golfer. The game flourishes all the year round in one part or another of the country, and all the player has to do is to follow the circuit of tournaments from New York round to San Francisco and back. Gene Sarazen told an English interviewer in London recently that during the three months before he left America to play in the British championships he had netted £3OOO, and Gene is only one of a dozen top-notchers in the States.

In the past 10 years only one English player has won the British open championship, A. G. Havers in 1923. The other nine matches have been won by Americans, four by Walter Hagen and three by Bobby Jones, who may not be seen in these international contests after this season. For about a quarter of a century the great players, Harry Vardon, James Braid, J. H. Taylor, and “Sandy” Herd won in turn. Vardon won six times, and Braid and Taylor five times each. Taylor last won in 1913, and Vardon in 1914. From that until 1920 no open championship

was played on account of the war. The championship has been played on many | different courses—St. Andrew's (one of i the most difficult), Hoylake, Prestwick, 1 Sandwich, Deal, Troon. Muirfield. A Frenchman, Arnaud Massey, won in 1907, but in recent year France has not had an outstanding champion. One of the most remarkable shots ever played in golf occurred during a match in the third round of the London interclub foursome tournament at Sunningdale. At the short eighth hole the Army and Navy ball landed in a bunker to the left of the green, and J. E. Mellor, playing for the Royal Thames Yacht Club, sent his tee shot into the same bunker. To the amazement of the players and spectators, Mellor’s ball was seen to pitch immediately on top of his opponent's in the bunker and rebound on to the green, so that he was able to get a three by this extraordinary “rub of the green.” In winter, when the greens are soft, j we often find holes made by a ball j landing, and if our luck is out we sometimes find one directly in the line j of the putt. Players have been known j to put a foot on to the offending mark ■ before putting, and have probably done so out of ignorance. It could be argued that the damage was done by some previous player, and that he should have flattened it out himself. I It is hardly necessary to say that such marks must not be touched. This applies not only to marks on the line of putt, but to any marks on the green. With the best intentions, a player may flatten out several such marks and not assist himself in any way, though he does a friendly service to those who follow, but it must not be done. The Rules of Golf Committee has ruled that players must play out the hole with the turf on the green in the state in which they find it on reaching the green. The committee recommends that, after the player has holed out, he should see that any damage caused by his ball has been repaired. It is surprising how easy it is to forget to do this, but it is as good golf citizenship as replacing divots or smoothing holes made in a bunker. The most common mistake made with the brassie is to “dig for it.” Long i handicap golfers, fearing that they j will top the ball because it is lying I closer than is the case on the tee, overdo things and consequently cut a big yards (writes George Duncan in the

‘Athletic News”). The idea of the brassie shot is to cut the grass away beneath the ball, not to dig a trench in the fairway. Stand firmly and remain well balanced. A little wider stance than that adopted for driving is advisable, and don't let that right j shoulder drop. Do not dig the toe of | the club into the ground in an effort •to get the ball up. It is wrong to take a brassie just because the ball is on | the fairway. It not only has to be a i good lie, but you have to be confident of your ability to hit it with wood. Remember that the brassie is not a “lofting” club. You are aiming for distance, and if the way is impeded by a hazard, well, you probably would be better off with an iron, or perhaps, a spoon. If the green is beyond the compass of the brassie, why take it? Eetter to be safe with an iron and a short j chip than press for an impossible shot, j Don’t play a brassie flat-footed, and I don't do a ballet dance. A little movement. yes; but do not overswing or lose your balance. On the bleak and inhospitable eastern shore of Scotland, stretching along the coast from the old University town of St. Andrew's, is a sandy waste of many hundreds of acres. Hopeless as an agricultural proposition, its value for golf has been recognised for centuries. There are to-day three courses there, the Old Course, the Jubilee and the Even. We are here concerned only with the famous Old Course. The turf is the natural seaside grass which thrives on the salt air from the sea. and it owes little to cultivation. The bunkers have been formed by nature herself. There are no fairways as generally understood, and the holes can be played from several positions. When Bobby Jones went there first, he condemned the course heartily. It did not conform to any of the ideas he had been brought up on in America. There the penal school was in power, and anyone who strayed from the straight and narrow path was infallibly in a bunker or worse. At St. Andrew’s one could wander at will, the only penalty being an extremely interesting—perhaps impossible—shot for the green. After a visit or two the subtlety of the place caught Jones’ fancy, and he soon became an enthusiastic admirer of the course. So well did he master its subtle difficulties that he won the open there in 1927 with the wonderful score of 283. and has just reached the summit of his ambition by winning the amateur championship there. No New Zealand golfer on a trip Home should fail to make a pilgrimage to St. Andrew's.