GOLF

Waipa Post, Volume XII, Issue 943, 18 May 1920, Page 6

GOLF

OPENING OF SEASON.

MIXED FOURSOMES COMPETITION.

The golf season in Te -Awamutu was opened on Saturday, when a mixed foursomes competition was played. There was a very large attendance of members and their friends, and members of other clubs also attended. The links was in excellent condition.

The president (Mr H. Y. Collins) welcomed the visitors on behalf of the club, and expressed the hope that the game would attract many devotees this year. There was every prospect of a good season. The club was deeply grateful to Mr A. S. Wallace for his generosity in allowing the use of his property by the club for a links. Mr Collins said he had pleasure in presenting Mrs Wallace with a cake stand, which she accepted amid the applause of the onlookers. The winners of the competition were Mrs S. W. Teasdale and Mr W. J. North, gross score 64, handicap 14, net score 15. The next best cards sent in were: Miss Mathews and Mr McCarter, 63—11—52 ; Mrs Youngand Mr Mclnnes, 68—14—54 ; Mrs Coutts and Mr Oliphant, 76—15—55. The following Te Kuiti players attended: Mesdames Howarth and Lamb, Misses I. Graham, V. Ellison, and Coutts, and Messrs Kennedy, Davenport Cooper, Hardy, and Hitchens.

* MIXED MUSINGS

Discouragement is the one thing which every golfer has to battle against, whether he is a star or a duffer —and this is particularly true in tournament play. More golfers have failed to qualify through discouragement after one or two bad •holes than through any other factoi. They get a 7 or an 8 or possibly a 9 on some hole, and immediately make up their minds they are not to qualify at medal play. And. from that point on they fade out. And a trifle later on they suddenly discover they could still have qualified, despite the 8 or 9, if they had merely kept on trying.

The average golfer is a queer, quaint, bizarre, mysterious, and weird institution. He doesn't like to practise. So he is willing to go along and suffer the slings and arrows of an outrageous game—all the poignant anguish of flubbed drives and topped mashies and missed putts, from month to month and from year to 'year, rather than take the time to improve. We sometimes wonder if the average player—or the duffer—or even the low handicap man has ever taken time to note the differenece between practice and play ? Take the case of a man playing around 90. In one round he will approximate- the average of 15 drives, 5 brassie or spoon shots, 6 full iron shots, 7 niblick shots, 23 mashie or jigger shots, and 40 putts. This will be the distribution he gets for his 21 hours of effort.

A formerly solid man who took up golf to reduce his weight finds that it reduced nothing so much as his reputation for truthfulness.

California is to try golf at night hy electric light. The scheme has been tried with other -sports with doubtful success.' Some games are made for night time some for sunlight. Those which have best survived night usage are billiards, pugilism, atbletics and poker.