ATHLETIC PLAY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17352, 17 May 1924, Page 9

ATHLETIC PLAY.

WHICH IS THE MOST SKILFUL GAMEP Which ol our athletic games admits of the highest degree of skill? asks A. E. Crawley in the “ Daily Mail.” On consideration, the question seems very difficult to answer. It is simplified by omitting team-work, which properly does not wme under the definition. Again, the subject may be divided—some games may have a greater number of skilled strokes; others may have ono or two far above .the average quality, and deserving to rank as miracles of man in action. The skill of a football player is in the control and variety of "his locomotion ; accurate kicking does not imply high skill. Hockey is about on the same level as football. Cricket is below both- Batting, bowling, and fielding include fine movements, but these are of an ordinary physical type. Lawn tennis is on a higher plane than batting at cricket; there is the same still in placing the ball, but the player is not confined to a crease, and therefore may develop skill in locomotion. Figure-skating calls for perfection of balance and body movement round a central axis of action ; but it becomes quite mechanical, though the skill required is of a higher order than in games with a l ’ natural ” surface for the work of the feet. There remains—-golf. The skill required in driving is the same as in hitting a cricket ball with full strength, with a little more sense of direction and trajectory. Here the skill is of a low order. It develops in the approach shots and declines in putting. But holing out when stymied is a feat of skill. So, and more so, is holing in one, cases of which, occur weekly. If the green is cup-sliaped the ball is assisted into the bole, but the calculation of “strength” required, the niceties of direction and elevation, seem to point out this stroke, as the acme of skill in games. Of course, players who never hole out in one call it a fluke. So is the occasional miracle a. fluke, but the height if skill is in it.