GOLF

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 222, 19 September 1936, Page 7

GOLF

THE STYMIE’S FATE CERTAIN TO GO? ST. ANDREWS ATTITUDE. Debates for and against the retention of the stymie in golf have been long and heated; there are probably few aspects of the game that have received so much attention from players and officials alike. The Royal and Ancient Golt Club is strongly against its elimination, as is also the United States Golf Association, but the general opinion of golfers is lending more and more towards favouring its abolition. The question of its abolition was brought before the annual meeting of the United States Association last year, but the proposal to oust it from the rules of the game met with little support and it was dropped. But the Western Golf Association came to the rescue by announcing that all tournaments played under its jurisdiction would be played without the stymie. Then came the announcement that the Professional Golfers’ Association favoured its elimination, and that it received support from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, who eliminated it from their tournaments. This is but a small percentage of United States golfers, but it shows that opinion there at least is turning against the stymie. It seems reasonable to argue that when a player has reached the green by good steady golf he should not find his path to the hole blocked by his opponent’s ball, which more often than not has landed there by pure accident. On the other hand, those who uphold the stymie say that it is a natural part of the game, just as in billiards a ball may block a perfectly good shot. They maintain that by eliminating the stymie there would be taken from the game an element of play which belongs essentially to the game, and that if a player is not sufficiently clever to circumvent the stymie he should suffer the consequences.