AMAZING GOLF

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 139, 15 June 1932, Page 8

AMAZING GOLF

CHAMPION OF MALAY STATES. SURPRISjE IN ENGLAND. A first-class sensation was sprung at tho Sandwich golf course, Kent, England, during play in the English amateur championship when one of Lancashire’s best golfers, Cyril Hardman, runner-up for tho English title in 1930, went down in the third round by the crushing margin of nine and seven to an unknown rival, W. 11. Elkins, of Singapore. Elkins let loose on Hardman what was probably the most amazing golf ever played in the championship. Ho reached the turn eight up, and had the marvellous score of 31 for the first nine holes, made up as follows:—4, 4,3, 4,4, 2, 4. 3, 3. He followed with a 4 at the tenth and a 3 at the eleventh for the match. The bogey total for these eleven holes is 46. Hardman had no possible chance against an opponent who was down in one putt on the first, third, sixth, ninth, and eleventh greens; who hit the flag stick with his Approach to the ninth hole, and was within a foot of getting another 3 at the tenth. Elkins’ outward score of 31 was equalled at Sandwich, back in 1914, by C. B. MacFarlane, when boating Chick Evans, of America, in the British amateur championship, but MacFarlane did not polish off his man quite so delusively. Elkins did everything well, keeping a good line from the tee, and ruling all his approaches on tho pin, while the deadly accuracy of his putting has already been indicated. T’lvery one at startled Sandwich was asking, “Who is Elkins!” Well, Elkins is tho golf champion of the Malay States, a sturdily built man of forty six years of agp. Ho is a civil servant at Singapore, whore he holds a managerial appointment with the State Railways, and is now home on leave He is a west country man, born in Gloucester, and played some of his early golf at Cirencester.