SOME ODD PROBLEMS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 20100, 20 March 1928, Page 5

SOME ODD PROBLEMS

A DISCONCERTING TEE SHOT (Specially written for the “ Chronicle” by Harry Vardon, six times Open Champion). LONDON, Jan. 16. I heard the other day of an unusual and, in some ways, rather amusing incident that occurred recently in a stroke competition at golf. A player was preparing to drive to a certain hole; his bah stood nicely poised on the tee and he was beginning the preliminary waggles of the clubhead. At that moment, another competitor about 200 yards away was hitting a shot to the putting green which the first-mentioned player had just left. Precisely as the player on the teeing ground was bringing down his driver for the blow, his ball was struck plump in the back by the second competitor’s ball and knocked a yard or so forward Consequently, the player who was swinging had the disconcertment of suddenly seeing two balls moving at his feet and of hitting nothing. Tho odds against a stray bail stealing up from behind, and creating a situation of this kind may be so great as not to justify the existence of a special rule on the subject. But the fact remains that it did occur, and tho point arose as to whether a stroke ought to be counted against the player who had missed the globe—reasonable though it was to miss it, seeing that, at the. vital instant, it had been removed with all the adroitness of a piece of jugglery.

Perplexing Problem. The problem presented itself because it is especially stipulated in definitions that “a stroke is the forward movement of the club made with the intention of striking the ball.” Tho circumstance of a person failing to hit the ball through somebody inadvertently removing it while he is in the act of striking at it does not do away with the fact that he intended to hit it. And the word “intention’’ is the very essence of this regulation. It was introduced many years ago because a certain foursome couple—shrewd accomplices, consisting of a scratch player and a man with a very big allowance who was useful for bargaining purposes when handicap terms came to be arranged —found that it paid at times for the weaker partner to miss the globe entirely and leave tho shot to his confederate. To stop this, the Rules Committee resolved that, if the player did not intend to strike tho ball, he had not legally made a stroke, and would have o play again instead of leaving it to his colleague. Consequently, “intention” to hit the ball became the spirit as well as the letter of the law defining a stroke, in the case described vbove, the player did intend to hit it, but missed it through no fault of his own. Truly are there many diverting little perplexities in golf, Co-iceded Putts.

Another interesting point arose recently in a private match on a London course. The question at : sue is as to whether a player is obliged to accent a putt which is conceded to him.

tn this match, a man who stood doriuy three said, when his opponent was left with a putt of a y..rd to w : n the next hole, “I’ll g i ve yOu that.” which meant that the leader would be brought down to dormy two. But *-he rival protested that he did not wish the putt to be conceded to him. So played it—and missed it. thus, according to his own reckoning, .be had lost the match. But the other man would not take it that wav. Ho had given the putt, and the game was still alive; he counted himself dormy two. The piquancy of the story is that the players concerned have as big a stake on the bye as on the match. llicy went on looking at the situa tion in their different lights. The putt-conceder lost the seventeenth hole (incidentally, through striking his opponent’s caddie—what complications!) an halved the eighteenth, so he considered himself one up on the round nnd the winner of the money. The other man declared that he had been beaten at the sixteenth as the result of missing a putt which he would not allow to be given to him, but had won tho Dye.

AV hen a rival says: “I’ll give you that putt,” must a player accept? It is a point which has never previously entered into the gamut of golf jurisprudence. The average individual is satisfied to take any putt that io offered to him. But there are stubborn people in the world, and this particular player has set tne authorities to reflect upon their own clause: “The Rules of Golf Committee recoinmenus that players should not concede putts to their opponents.” Except as an act of courtesy, is anybody compelled to accept in the whole world any voluntary gift which he docs not want? So far as I know, there is nothing in the rules of the game which makes it obligatory for a ©layer to accept a proffered putt. A Harvest. Here is anothecr golfing perplexity of r'Mil life. In a competition at Walton Heath, a player sliced into the heather. Everybody who has been to Walton Heath knows its heather as a magnificently expansive and picturesque hiding place for golf balls. This man found his possession immediately; he whirled his mashicniblick through the heather so as to make sure of getting the ball well on tho fairway, and up came three balls, two having boon lying unseen immediately under the flora on which his own was resting. They scattered in various directions on tho course, and when he made In vestigation ho found that they were all of the same make and that they ull bore tho number 8. Ho did not know which was his, so what was he to do? I believe he chose the middle one. No doubt everybody ought to have his ball distinctly marked. Human nature being what it is, nobody expects ever to have serious confusion about, the one that he is steering round the course. Tn an open championship at Prestwick. two players proceeding in opposite directions found themselves in tho same bunker, and neither knew which ball was his. They docideid the question by tossing for tho better lie. One of these players was my brother Tom.