HOW CONVENTION RULES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 74, Issue 149, 26 June 1931, Page 4

HOW CONVENTION RULES

PLAYERS AND THEIR ATTIRE HOW TO SUIT THE WEATHER The English arc the most improvident of people in the matter of dress, writes Leo Munro in a London paper. I. absolve the Scots, the Irish, and the inhabitants of South Wales and Man <-he,stcr, he continues, because they always have their waterproofs within reach. But the English, in their ;hild like faith that ours is a temperate clime, are usually caught wearing the wrong clothes when the weather breaks the pledge. Golfers hold the record for failuie to suit their attire to abnormal circumstances, and this fact may be taken ns further proof of the obvious—that, they would rather risk death than depart from severely respectable convention. Even the greatest of them uro not great, enough to dare defiance of sartorial standards. Twenty-four of our best professionals took part in a tournament at Si. Albans recently uu a day of /omothir;’ well over so n the shade. Scores .>!'

naked small boys splashed joyously in a little river which fringed part of the course. Most of the men who wa’etied the golf were unsuitably attired in tweeds and scornful but secretly envious of the one bold fellow, us in tropical costume, complete from helmet to shorts. Seven out of twenty-four flouted convention to tho extent of preferring “slacks” to “plus fours.” The others stuck to and were stuck to by tweed knickers and woaiiy stockings.. Some wore jackets, others were attired in pullovers, sleeved jr unsleeved. Hollars could be counted on twenty three necks. Two or three players had the courage to strip to the shirt, but in all that field only one man dared the throat freedom ensured by the wearing of a cricket shirt. They order these matters better ia America. United StiUes goiters overthrew the tyranny of dress many years ago. “Chick” Evans horrified the Prestwick crowd away back in 1911 by playing in shirt sleeves, and ten years later the sight of Bobby Jones’ fluttering white silk shirt scandalised Bt. , Andrews. Tt is true that our own Cvril lollcx stood out ns a picture of coolness in complete cricket garb in th? '92J. heat wave championship at Hoylak', but. generally speaking, our Britisn golfi’is learn slowly, and have htth idea of i comfort, even on their home courses. Not so many years ago a London , golfer, who had‘the pluck to discard his coilar in the middle <d a round, was 1 told severely that he “looked like a. navvy.” and only this spring I be>y. i| ti <lre;vlful story about an ttarrlinv! .L’llow “defiling” a. fashionable .-oiirte l yl plaving with his jacket off to d his I waistcoat on. Tito “crime,’ I gtithi --| ed, might have been condon'd hid the I rebel shed waistcoat as well as eon’.] but. even so the r'' would not! have escaped stigma. Reverting to the rece.i t urnam'.it I tit St. Albans, it mol be tolmitt 'd that the two men who tied for list place played good golf in “ttnsummery” clothes—Abe .Mitchell in his usual neat grey jacket and plus fours, and AY. IL Davies in pullover and knickers. But that, 1 think, was tribute to their] genius rather than their attire. I ft is high time that the generstty ol , golfers, the men of little fume, rose if i revolt. They sera; e up sufficient emir-1 'age ulim they go ttwar on holt'l t I

Cricket shirts and flannel trousers ar*i common objects of the seaside courses. Dot convention still rules nt home. Only the braxest men display their shirts on suburban pastures, where, in blazing weather, the usual compromise is a jacket of linen or some such cool material. The cricketer does not field in his blazer. What, then, is to bar the golfer from shedding his coat and roil ing up his sleeves?