GOLF

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19990, 5 November 1927, Page 5

GOLF

GOLF DISCOURSE THE GAME THAT PROMOTES. OTHER POINTS OF VIEW. (Specially written by Harry Vardon, six times Open Champion, for the ‘ ( Chronicle, ’ ’ Golf may be a game to play with a thinking head and a still tongue, but its capacity for stimulating debate in the intervals between the rounds is inexhaustible. During crowded week-ends, every table in the club-house luncheon-room, and every cosy corner of the smoking lounge is alive at the appropriate houi with groups of players discussing vari ous aspects of the game. Jones, who has been off his mashie the whole morning is told by the other three participants in the four-ball match exactly why he fails. The next little party is arguing about the merits of certain courses. Nearby, a man with an obvious grievance is stating his carefully considered opinion that the small bunker in front of the green at the fourteenth hole is grossly unfair. Three times lately his ball has just trickled into it and stopped so close to the near edge as to compel him to stand with one foot out of the hazard in order to play an almost impossible recovery shot. Thus the whirligig of golf talk maintains its vigour.

But of all the matter of discussion that arise in the club-house, none is so certain of spreading rapidly and arousing a lively contentiousness as a problem concerning the rules. Here is the strong wine of debate.

It .is astonishing how quickly a whole roomful of players will become emboiled in friendly argument. The game is pursued under almost every possible variety of conditions that Nature can provide instead of, like other pastimes, in an area of prescribed measurements and characteristics. The most wonderful thing of all is that there seems to be a satisfactory solution to all the problems that can arise under the rules.

Certainly this is the conviction with which one finishes an examination of the communiques published from time to time by the Royal and Ancient Club giving the answers to questions that have been submitted to its Rules Committee.

Handicaps in Finals. I heard an interesting discussion the other day. It concerned handicaps in the finals of match-play tournaments.

Nearly every club holds such tournaments, and it is a rule commonly governing these events that the final shall be over thirty-six holes, although the earlier rounds are decided over eighteen holes. In a competition under handicap, it is customary for the finalists, who play thirtyholes, to give and take the same number of strokes, and at the same holes, in the morning as in the afternoon; to treat each round of the final as a separate entity so far as concerns the handicap allowances. I have never heard of any club adopting a different procedure. But it is sometimes wrong. Take the case I heard discussed, of a thirty-six holes final in which the players had respective handicaps of 5 and 7. On the usual basis of giving and receiving three-quarters of the difference, the shorter handicap competitor would be called upon to concede two strokes in each round. To be sure, three-quarters of the difference, two, works out at 1J; but, as every golfer knows, half a stroke is counted as a full one for the benefit of the recipieilThe Rules Committee has decided, however, that when a match is over thirty-six holes, each player must reckon his total handicap for the two rounds before tho business of fixing upon three-quarters of the difference comes under consideration. Thus in this case 5-handicap counts as 10, and 7-handicap as 14. Three-Quarters of the difference is 3, and the giver of odds has to concede only this number instead of 4. It is further stated that, in such circumstances, the club must draw up a special table showing at which holes the strokes are to be taken in a match of thirty-six holes. Facts and. Figures. It is a perfectly logical arrangement, but it is not the common practice. I have never heard of it being put into operation, for example, in connection with Parliamentary Tournament final, which is invariably over two rounds. It might have an important bearing on the result of any match-play handicap I final, and it can work out rather curiously. For instance, in a contest between a scratch man and a three man, the former would have to give two strokes in each eighteen holes. But extend the match, to thirty-six holes, and he has to give five strokes, this being throefourths of six, which is the receiver’s single-round handicap doubled. Why the back-niamcr should have to concede an extra stroke is not quite clear—especially as, in the case previously stated, he gives a stroke less by the arrangement. Presumably he has to find satisfaction in the reflection that figures are elusive things—so clear and indisputable, and yet so puzzling; One condition not generally understood is the spirit of that rule which begins: ‘‘When a ball lies in or touches a hazard nothing shall be done which can in any way improve its lie; the club shall not touch the ground, nor shall anything be touched or moved before the player strikes at the ball.” The majority of golfers are still o*bscssed with the belief that it is a penal offence to do more than touch the hazard by walking into it before striking at the ball. Picking up anything in a bunker prior to the shot is usually viewed as a mortal sin.

As a matter of fact, it is improving the lie of the ball, or testing the character of the soil in the hazard —nothing else —that involves punishment. There is the case of a golfer who takes a mashie and a niblick into a bunker, throws the mashie into the sand on deciding to play the shot with his niblick, and then, changing his mind, picks up the mashie and uses that club. As, admittedly, he has not improved his lie, nor gained any knowledge of the bunker, his act docs not involve the loss of the hole.