HOW MINIATURE GOLF IS PLAYED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19255, 17 December 1930, Page 15 (Supplement)

HOW MINIATURE GOLF IS PLAYED.

(By H.T.) THERE is a dearth of text books on miniature golf. Thousands have written on golf. Wodehouse on golf is immortal, and Peter Trolove is another golfing writer that comes to mind. None of these tell you how to drive down a drain pipe or how to go through the back door of a dog kennel without touching it; therefore this article. Few know how to stand. The correct method is to stand sideways to the hole with the right shoulder pointing to it. It is best to have the right foot also nearest the hole. Some people put their right shoulder to the hole and their left foot, but they are wasting their time and should be in a circus. Most people hold their putter by the handle, but Brown, who plays a lot of billiards, plays a good game of miniature golf by holding it like a cue. He gets down on his knees and pokes the ball—wears knee-pads, you know. I remember a four we had one night. Mrs Jones, who weighs eighteen stone, was one of the party, and when she saw Brown go down on his knees to play, she thought he was challenging her to play leap-frog. In spite of her weight Mrs Brown is kittenish, and she landed on his back just as he was making the stroke. When Brown came to, he would have it that the roof had fallen on him. He still plays, but only with thin people. Talking of thin people—have you seen Blank play? He is so thin that you cannot tell the difference between him and his putter except that the putter does not wear a hat. He follows his ball through the drain pipes. Old Bumpers was feeling down one end of a drain pipe for his ball and stroked Blank’s nose, and Blank got annoyed and bit Bumper’s finger. You should have seen old Bumper’s face when he hauled his hand out and found Blank hanging to it. Smithy went with me one night. lie did not know anything about this new game. Had never read a text book, and when we got to the first tee his putter was wrong. Smithy is a left-hander and his putter faced backwards. Here was a problem. What was he to do? lie could not play right hand and he could not play forward with the wrong face of the club. I solved the problem with a flash of genius. “Play backwards,” I said. “How?” he asked. “Go from this hole back to number eighteen and from eighteen to seven and so on. I will go frontwards, and we will meet half-way at number nine.” “But those people coming on may object ” he said.

“Just show them your putter and they will understand,” I told him. We met as I had prophesied at Number Nine. I was four up as to strokes, but he had two black eyes and a swollen lip. He wanted to give up, but I told him to persevere. At the finish he was quite dejected, but whether it was envy of my 65 or because he had lost three teeth, and his hat, and torn his trousers, I do not know. The biggest curse of the game is the deliberate putter. Take Johns, for instance. He shuffles his feet, waggles his club, eyes the hole, the ball, the sun, the wind, makes allowance for the rotation of the earth, the humidity of the atmosphere, the curvature of the earth, and then raises his club, waggles it thoughtfully, adjusts his feet anew, then hesitates, shifts the ball half an inch, and starts all over again. Women are quite bad offenders at this. I met young Bill Lovem one night. It was at those links where a streamlet wends its way among the holes. He was accompanied by a pretty girl and a mother. The girl was a peach, but the mother was a ltmon. And slow—well, she was only at the fourth hole after half an hour’s play, and Bill was grunting and swearing under his breath when I came along. I watched her waggle for five minutes, and then she got her daughter to shift the ball. I said to Bill: “ I’ll bet a bob I know what you are thinking.’* “ Go ahead,” he said. “ You were thinking that if you accidentally bumped the old lady into the creek, you could send her home in a taxi and take the girl somewhere for supper.” Bill put his hand in his pocket and handed me a shilling. “Then I was right?” I asked. ** „ “No,” he replied, “but the idea is a good one. A little while after I heard a splash, but whether it was Bill’s girl’s mother or not, I do not know.