GOLF NOTES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 156, 4 July 1934, Page 4

GOLF NOTES

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"SEA VIEW.")

Some years ago a comprehensive scheme for the bunkering of the Belmont course was drawn up and agreed on, and in view of the approaching national championships on this course it is interesting to note that Mr. C. 11. Bedhead, who submitted the scheme, is supervising the re-bunkering cf Belmont. The course should be in great order when the October dates come ; round. ' At Belmont, next Saturday a medal 1 match will be played, and it is suggested that this will provide an opportunity for players to get their Imlay Cup and Consolation Handicap games played. The third round of the former and the first round of the Consolation I Handicap must bo played by nex:. | week-end, as the draw will be up by . July 8. Soafield links wore accorded a considerable amount of praise from visiting players over the week-end. Both greens and fairways were considered to be second to none on the coast. Next week-end a team from Pa tea will visit Seafield to play the annual inter-club match. In common with most clubs. JSealield is producing a number of young golfers who show considerable promise. The handicapper has been kept very busy right from the commencement of the season with nearly all classes of players. Is it that the golf instinct is awakening in the younger gcneiation or is it that there arc better steelshafter golf clubs, or that the Jinks are in so much better order, or perhaps it is a combination of all three? Be that as it may, there is no getting away from the fact that there are, on an average, a better lot of cards com- ' ing in than in past years. Young golfers (and old ones, too, for the matter of that) would do well to remember that there arc rules for all games in golf, and that many would do well to study them before playing particular game. All clubs have a chart of the rules. Owing to the unpleasant weather conditions prevailing on Saturday afternoon the four-ball bogey match at Cast led iff was cancelled. \ medal match was played but. the majority of the players failed to complete the round. On Saturday next the President versus Vice-president match will be played. This match will be match play on handicap, stymies being omitted. A bogey match will be played in conjunction with this match. Members who have not played their matches in the first round of the Power Cup are requested to do so not later than this week-end. An opportunity will be given players to play their matches in conjunction with the President v. Vice-president match. The full course will be open for play next. Saturday and this should obviate congestion. The beautification committee have been busy planting trees and shrubs. If these get a good start, in a few years’ time members will notice a wonderful difference in the appearance of Hie course. * * * - Much satisfaction will be felt, even in these distant parts, at the success of Henry Cotton in the British open golf championship at the Sandwich course. An English professional al the Waterloo Club in Belgium, Cotton had the honour of breaking a long run of United States’ successes in the event. Ar a matter of fact, none of the American players were in the picture at the finish. Next to Cotton came the South African, Brews, whose aggregate of 288 was five strokes more than the winner had taken. That the British open will bo done under 280 one of these days is an opinion held by many competent critics, am] Cotton’s display shows that, this hs well within the realms of possibility. His opening rounds were sensational, 67 and 65 respectively, and a repetiton of such form in the next two rounds would have made his aggregate 264. His third round, however, was done in even 4’s, and he neede but 75 to shatter the 280. The strain must have told, however, for ho could only struggle round in an indifferent 70 in the fourth round, making his aggregate | 283. This was equal to Gene Saiazcn’s record of 283 made in 1932. In view of the approaching visit of a team of New Zealand professionals to Melbourne, it is interesting to note the form of one of the leading professionals. A. J. Shaw, professional champion of the. Dominion, did a brilliant round of 67 on the Shandon links last week-end in the exhibition match be tween professionals ami amateur. Shaw was partnered by J. D. Mclntosh against the two famous Mastc'ton amateurs, T. H. Horton and J. I'. Hornabrook, and the professionals this time avenged their defeat at Masterton a few weeks back by beating the a nia tours by 3 up and 2 to go over 36 holes. Shaw, in the morning, went out in even 4’s. ami returned in 31. having a 2 and six 3’s on Ins card. Horton, who this season is buck to his very best form, did a brilliant round of 70, 35 each way. Mclntosh took 72 for the morning round and Hornabrook 74. The professionals were 5 up on the morning round, but the amateurs played well in the afternoon to got two holes back. The object of these exhibition matches is to endeavour to raise sufficient funds to send a team of New Zealand professionals to take part in the Melbourne Centenary golf tournament this year. That golfers arc in sympathy with the proposal was proved by the gallery of 300 who followed the players at Shandon. It would be a pity if Shaw could not compete against the world s best at Melbourne. as he is without question a groat player. Besides having won the New Zealand open championship five times and the professional title a similar number of times, he is the only player who has broken 70 in the open championship, having recorded 68 at. Palmerston North in 1930, and 67 at Christchurch in 1931. With the. British open championship disposed of there remains only one of the four great, national titles for 1934 to bo contested. The American amateur championship, of which G. T. Dunlap is the holder, will not bo played until September. How 10 do it in one. Arthur Powell. Musketry. Cork, sliced his drive m the ninth hole out of bounds. The ball hit

the roof of a cottage, bounced back to the fairway and ran to the green and holed out. The distance, tee to green, was 265 yards. An indication that golf in the United States is not financially what it was a while ago. is the fact that the men who this year went to Britain to represent America in the international amateur Walker Cup mat th received only £l2O as expense moncj The least expended on each man in Hl .er years was £3OO. And this year they did not travel by one of the “floating palaces.” It has been officially stated that golf revenue in the shape of membership fees has since 1929 dropped 35 per cent, in U.S.A. ♦ # ♦ • I: is reported that Miss O. Kay and Miss B. Gaisford intend to leave England this week. They will travel via Suez to Australia in order to attend the Australian women’s championship at Sydney in August, before arriving in the Dominion for the New' Zealand championship meeting at Titirangi iu Septembe r. *’Once again America has won the Walker Cup match, and by a margin that, in its character, is unmistakable.” (writes “A Hoving Player” in tho London Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News). “Our picked players, the flower of amateur golf of Great Britain, managed to win two games out of 12—one in the foursomes and another in the singles—on a course which it is supposed does not favour the American type of play. The truth of the matter is that the lirst-class American golfer is infinitely superior to his supposed counterplart in this country; he can, as has been shown at St. Andrews, adapt himself to any course, and to any particular set of circumstances. He conies hero and boats us; we go to America, and again he beats us. He will continue the process, I am afraid, until we put our house in order, drop the nonsense about ‘the game’s the thing/ and ‘we can take a licking as well as the next man.’ That is a lot of rubbish, ami deceives no one.” Criticising the tactics adopted in regard to the last-miirtitu choosing and lack of adequate team training of the British Walker Cup team. E. J. c. l’ignon,.in the (Daily Mail, says:— “The abiding and bitter reflection T the futility of gathering together at the last minute a side unprepared and almost untrained, to oppose a team of goiters who have trained properly and who do not treat international* golf matches as we apparently do, as ‘only a game.’ “On Saturday morning, when pitiless rain, driven by a bitterly cold wind, swept the course, the British chances looked bright because of the old fallacy that Americans cannot play in bad weather, but at the end of the first round they had laid a solid foundation for success, led on live games, were 1 down on two of them, and all square on the other. \et only one player ou their side, Lawson Little, the Californian student, had equalled the par score of 73. His score was sufficiently good tor a lead of four holes on Cyril Toiler, The other Americans had scores of nearer to 89 than 70. That is the most eloquent proof of the kind of golf tho British players produced. But for three stymies Michael Scott, tne oti-years-old captain, might have started the second round 1 up. “Cyril Tolley was expected to bold another long drive, Lawson Little, but the American outdrove and outplayed him “George Dunlap, the amateur champion of America, produced some of the best golf of the day. to beat McLean, by 4 and 3. His score for the whole match was an average of 4’s, but he took 76 shots for the lirst round, which bo finished only 1 up. In the afternoon he had the brilliant score of three under 4’s. J his was too good for McLean. Leonard Crawley was the big disappointment. His reputation as a great. liglHyr .-uffered severely when be went, dov.. Francis Ouimet, the American captain, who took 80 strokes for t’ho lirst round and was six holes up mainly because Crawley could not putt. Eric Eiddiaiq against Johnny Eischer, the youngest member of the American team, led one hole at lunch time, but lost the lirst lour holes of the second round by bad putting. Torrance, who beat Marston, played just well enough to win when Mcßuvie, 2 down with 2 to p»ay, bravely won the last two holes to square. McKinlay and Gus Moreland were level at tho ninth, eighteenth, and twenty-seventh holes, ami then the young Scot faded away at the linish to be beaten at the seventeenth The ban placed on Miss Enid Wilson before tho British women’s golf championship is, according to an English eiitic, likely to be removed. When Miss Wilson asks for reinstatement “providing she undertakes not to repent tho alleged error, there will, 1 believe, be no difficulty in putting her position right again.” The rule forbidding the touching of the line ot the putt is often referred to in actual play. A recent incident in which a player inadvertently stepped on the line of his putt was commented on by a writer in London. Golfing. “The suggestion appears to be that touching the line of the putt docs not cover walking on it. I had no hesitation in saying that a player who treads on the line of his nutt thereby loses the hole under rule 28 (3). It seems to me that treading on the line of the putt, ’ which might have the effect of smoothing out any irregularities of surface, is precisely one of the things that the rule was framed to prevent.” Captain AV. Norman's marathon effort of 10 consecutive round.- in 16£ hours, as reported in last week’s cable news, recalls instances of feats on the links which have demanded great physical exertion. A glance at the Golfers’ Handbook H93t) shows that several marathon feats have been recorded in recent years. Bruce Suther* land, on the Craighlock'hart links, Edinburgh, started at 8.15 p.rn. on June 21, 1927, and played almost continuously until 7.30 p.m. on June 22. During the night fore-caddies with acetvlone lamps lit the way, and lost balls were reduced to a minimum. Ho completed 14 rounds. An extremely hilly course and a large number of steps made the test exacting, aud in the later rounds there was heavy rain. The 14 rounds represented 252 holes, tho greatest number of holes ever played within 24 hours. Sutherland walked 40 miles in achieving his record.