BRILLIANT DISPLAY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 314, 11 July 1930, Page 12

BRILLIANT DISPLAY

GREATEST ROUND IN GOLF WONDERFUL CHANCES WITH THE: MODERN BALL i . i (Specially written for the “ Chronicle ” i by Harry Vardon, Six Times Open ] Champion). A correspondent asks me to nominate i what I regard as the most brilliant] round of golf ever played in competj-'i tion. Performances of outstanding in-j spiration, even by golfers of genius, i are not so numerous as to fill this l question with perplexities, but I think] we ought to limit to the era of. the] rubber cored ball. Many wonderful, rounds were accomplished with the ■ gutta-percha ball, which was in universal use until 1902, and a good many I people who, like myself, were trained] on it believe that it called for a j higher measure of scientific control j than is needed to-day. Anyhow, it was! totally different, and so this discussion must be restricted to rounds played with the modern ball.

I give the palm, without any hesitation, to the score of 61 achieved by Aubrey Boomer in the International Championship on the Saint Cloud course, near Paris, last year. It throws a new light on the possibilities of the game with the up-to-date ball. Saint Cloud is a course distinctly above the average of inland greens. It may not b 0 exactly a Sunningdale or a Walton Heath; but it can be compared very. favourably with Stoke Poges and courses of that type. Indeed, it is more difficult than the majority, for almost everywhere there arc woods on either side of the fairway, so that , the player who departs from the ; straight path is assured of tionsits precise length is 6507 yards. Horton Smith, the youthful American from Missouri, was deemed to have done something amazing when, on the first day, he returned two scores of 66 each. Gene Sarazen said he was playing as well as he knew how to play when, early on the second day, he went round in 67. Such men as Hagen, Duncan, and Cotton were in the seventies all the time. Too Good—But True

When people heard that Boomer was playing to the last hole “made” for such a score as 61 they flatly and positively declined to believe it. They dismissed it as impossible. The homeward half in 28 strokes, and with only two short holes included in it! It could not be done- It was a silly story. But it most surely’ was done, and I doubt whether anybody will ever achieve the like of it.

What made it the more remarkable was that it developed methodically. There were no flukes, no instances of holing out in one. There are four short holes on the course. Only at the last of them did Boomer save a stroke. There he got down the putt with which his tee shot had presented him. I suppose the greatest tribute that can be paid to his score as a world’s competition record on a full-length green is that, although he had played hundreds of private rounds at Saint Cloud as the local professional, he had never done anything like it. In summer the courses round Paris offer a pleasant relief for the player who is suffering from that sensitiveness—that almost panicky touch — which comes of trying to approach and putt on turf as slippery as glass. They

are the nearest approach in Europe to the American courses in the sense that, while the ball gallops gaily on the sunbaked fairways, it can be pitched up to the hole with the confident feeling that it will stop on the liberally watered greens. Similarly, the putts can be struck firmly instead of tremulously. I have always said that it is because of such conditions as these that the Americans excel in pitching and putting; the art of converting three strokes into two. The assurance which they cultivate at home in playing these delicate shots does not desert them abroad because they are never away long enough to lose it- Nowadays, the man who does not like wasting days in travelling can reach the Parisian courses as expeditiously as he travels by sleeping-car from London overnight, and appears on the first tee on some famous Scottish course the next morning. I found that I could leave St. Pancras Station just after ren o’clock at night and be at Saint Cloudi before eleven o’clock in the naming. 1 And the golf is wondrously like golf on the American courses.

Sharing the Next Best These conditions of tractable putting greens helped to make possible the score accomplished by Boomer. Equally certain is it that nothing of the sort could be done unless the present-day ball rendered golf a game of gay simplicity to a first-class player under circumstances that suit him. All the same, it is a round so astounding that the mind boggles at it- Ten threes and a two on a course where holes of something like four hundred yards each predominates! I do not know which to set down as the second best round of golf. In the period of the rubber-cored ball, perhaps it ought to be shared among Mr Jones and Duncan, with their 63 each at St. Andrews; and Hagen with his 67 at Muirficld. But 61!

UNDER CONDUCT of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of New Zealand at Wanganui, acting at request of the Mortgagee, On FRIDAY, the 25th day of JULY, 1930, at 12 o ’clock noon. JJESSRS C. L. DUIGAN & CO. will sell by Public Auction, at their Auction Rooms, No. 75 Ridgway Street, Wanganui— All that piece of freehold land situated in the Land Registration District of Wellington, containir 35.6 perches be the same a littic more or less, being part of Section 10, Right Bank of Wanganui River and being also the land comprised in Certificate of Title, Volume 317, Folio 140, Subject, however, to Fencing covenant contained in Transfer No. 163278. The Application of the Mortgagee and his estimate of value may be’ seen without fee at the office of the Registrar aforesaid during office hours, and in the Auction Room at the time of sale. Particulars and Conditions of Sale may be inspected at the offees of the Auctioneers, Messrs C. L. Duigan & Co., or of. Mr G. G. Thorpe, Solicytoi, Victoria Court. Auctioneers’ Note. —This property comprises an attractive end convenient bungalow (No. 18 Caius Avenue), 6 rooms, kitchenette, e. 1., and all conveniences, large motor shed, etc. Nice situation. nearly opposite the Gonville Bowling Green.