LUCIFER GOLFING SOCIETY.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18651, 21 August 1930, Page 12

LUCIFER GOLFING SOCIETY.

PRINCE’S WITTY SPEECH. Each year the Lucifer Golfing Society runs a golf tournament for overseas players in England. The Society afterwards entertains the players at dinner. The following account is taken from the “Daily Mail” of July 10. Tlie Play. In the British Empire overseas, the ‘ rabbits” of golf—as the legions of handicap players are pleasantly called—seem to be developing the instincts of tigers. They made the old course at Walton Heath, with its tribulations among the heather, look strangely and wonderfully easy in the tournament whicn ended yesterday. I do not think there has ever been such scoring by the multitudes from the rank and file of club members in this country who have tried their fortunes at Walton Heath. On this occasion, there were 148 competitors from clubs throughout the Empire. One man with a handicap of 18 ir. the Miramar Club. Wellington, New Zealand, actually finished his round 7 up on bogey. He was H .E. Napier. He leached the turn in a scratch score of 39 (one better than bogey), and the only holes he played indifferently and lost were the 12th and 13th. Napier picked up at the short 12th, after having sliced his tee shot and taken three to reach the green, but allowing him a 5 there, he had a scratch total of 85. If we deduct his handicap of 18 far the purpose of obtaining a net medal score, we find that he was achieving ihe equivalent of 67 net. That on such a tiger’s course as Walton Heath, en--sties him to be regarded as King Rabbit. •en so, Napier did not win. As he had been one down on Tuesday, his aggregate was 6 up. This was equalled by C. Champion dc Vere Wright, of the Eldoret Club, Kenya Colony ,who finished 5 up on Tuesday and 1 up yesterday. They therefore tied. The conditions prescribed that, in the event of a tie, the player leading on the first day should secure the trophy, which there- " fell to Wright. Alan H. Lendon ,of Royal Adelaide, Australia, was third with 5 up and 2 down equals 3 up. The Dinner. The Prince of Wales made one of his happiest speech last night at a dinner at the Savoy Hotel when the Lucifer Golfing Society entertained over-seas golfers who had been competing in the British Empire Tournament at Walton Heath. “You all know,” he said, “that I have had a crack at most forms of sport—generally very unsuccessfully—but they have helped me very much during my long trips round this great Empire during the last ten years. I have lateneen concentrating on a great game which is really the reason for our being gathered together this evening, and I can claim acquaintance with a great many golf courses throughout this great Empire.

“There are so many. I had a little list, but I gave it up in the end. When I thought of the different courses I had played on and the different adventures I had had, I decided not to go on with the list. “We are all agreed that it is a very fine game, We get older. We have ail played more strenuous games, but golf is a game you can go on playing for ever, and I once made so bold as to sav that when you are too old to play golf you had better die.” The Prince said he had heard that when one was making a speech about golf it was very important to give a golf story. “I know some very good ones, but I do not think I can tell them here,” he said, amid loud laughter.

“With Lord Lonsdale’s permission, however, I will tell you these:

We have a good many motor accidents in this country. I do not know whether they are due to bad motors or to bad drivers, but anyway a small boy witnessed an accident during a weekend and was put into the witness-box. The Judge asked him, “Do you know the nature of an oath?” “Yes, my lord,” said the boy, don’t I caddy for you?” “Then to illustrate the great concentration necessary in golf there was a very rare occasion when an enthusiastic golfer arrived home in time for dinner. He sat down to dinner with his wife and his boy, and his wife said: ‘Willie tells me he caddied for you this afternoon.’ ‘Dear me,’ said the golfer, ‘I thought I had seen that boy somewhere before.’

Then there is another which I think is one of the funniest. It is about the golfer and the man who was not a golfer who was very bored as he walked across the course. Suddenly there was a shout of ‘Fore’ and then there was a hum in the distance which resolved itself into ‘for he was a iollv good fellow.”