GOLF

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19448, 6 November 1925, Page 4

GOLF

THE MOST IMPORTANT SHOT (By Abe Afitchell). Tf is easy enough to evade the issue when players ask “Which is the most important shot in the game?” An attempt to be amusing sometimes suffices —“The one that wins the match for .you,” or something of that sort one answers, but lo rush into cold and unsympathetic print upon such a subject is to court trouble. But since it is insisted that this must be the . übject of this article, 1, servant of the golfer, have no choice but to obey. 1 will ask you to come back a year or two with me to Deal of painful memories. If you had asked the question on that day I should have said, “they were all as important as one another.” How many holeable putts I missed on that occasion I cannot tell or I do not wish to remember very clearly, but if ever the importance of the putt was brought home to me it was then and there.

The good putter must always hold an advantage over the indifferent putter, and in some respects the shots played boldly into the hole are the most important. Hole Too Small. As every player knows, however, there are days when the hole appears to be so small and so inaccessible that Air Alaskeb>< himself could not conjure the ball into it. On other days it smiles broadly at you, and then no matter how carelessly you may seem to putt, the magnetism of that smile embraces the ball and down it goes. If there were more players in this country like the Americans, who appear to have learnt to putt at the same time as they learnt to walk, perhaps the putt could be said to have the greatest bearing upon the game. But in the United States, no matter to what part of the country you may go, the greens seem to be of a standard degree so far as the run of the ball is concerned. There are no fast greens and slow greens and there they are maintained. Putting under such conditions is comparatively easy; 1 should be surprised that the American golfers when they come to this country putt so well did I not know that the greens they have always putted upon have given them a confidence that players in this country seldom enjoy. To go on from Deal though, 1 won one or two tournaments after this. If I read aright I won some of them because I hit my drives further than anybody, and I hit my second shots as far as necessary. Therefore, it would seem that being a long driver helps one to a large share of the good things of a golfer’s life. The long drive gives the player a chance to play an easier second shot provided that long drive has been -well placed and, therefore, it is of great importance, but 1 can not believe that to be able to play a very long drive is the aim of the average golfer -who knows that this is not the most destructive weapon in his armoury. Easy Game Secret. Recently I have discovered how to make the game easy, and by that discovery have found out to my own satis faction what the most imp- rtant golf shot really is.

As I have said, putting has cost me many a pri: j and at one time, and not so very long ago either, I felt that I should have to give up playing the game, such was the great nervous strain of putting. I knew I was not really a bad putter, but there was always the strain of attempting to lay that long one dead, and the natural occasion failure and its effect in the aggregate was a strain which seemed likely to destroy my confidence. I practised putting assiduously, but it made no great difference. It was all very well in practice, but still there was the difficulty of getting dead. Simple Solution. The solution was such a simple one that I almost blush to mention that I had not discovered it before —my great discovery consisted of putting the ball so near to the hole with the shot, to the green that I could not fail to get down in two putts and frequently did so in one.

There is the most important shot in the game of golf. No matter whether the shot be played with a brassie, an iron, a masliie or a niblick, the shot up to the hole from off the green is the shot which will bring the greatest harvest of good scores. The difference, between live and ten yards from the pin in the long shots up to the green is inestimable. ?