GOLF

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 281, 27 November 1936, Page 4

GOLF

SEAFIELD CLUB ANNUAL MEETING HELD ELECTION OF OFFICERS A good attendance of members was recorded last night at the annual meeting of the Sealield Golf Club, Mr R. E. Cuthbertson presiding. The annual report (previously published) and the balance-sheet were presented and approved. The election of officers resulted: President, Mr R. E. Cuthbertson; vice-president, Mr R. D. Smart; club captain. Mr A. D. Kitto; vice-captain, Mr N. Delves; ground superintendent, Mr A. G. Mac Kay; committee, Messrs S. T. Pritchard, J. R. Wilkinson and E. Goldsbury; treasurer, Mr S. Irwin; secretary (left to incoming committee). Votes of thanks were accorded the Press and the retiring committee. BRITAIN’S GIRL MARVEL MISS PAM BARTON’S STORY. PRODIGY STILL UNSPOILT. “Chubby little British socialite’’ was the way the Radio City, New York, announcer described Pam Barton after she had won the American national women’s golf championship at Summit, New Jersey. There’s a better word than chubby for Pam Barton, a better word than r little, and it’s difficult to imagine her a approving of the tag “socialite,’’ says c John Grime in the London Daily Ex- t press. But maybe word-values got a r bit exaggerated in America by the a surprise they all felt over there when she beat Mrs. Maureen Orcutt Crews r by four and throe. Pam is anything but little. There j hasn’t been what they call in championship golf a “distance" player of ? small stature yet. And that’s what C Pam is. She stays the distance. The longer it is the better she likes it, the b stronger she goes. ii Invariable Smile. Of course, she isn’t big, not more, o perhaps, than live feet five or six. But ti there is strength in that body and in g those rather short legs. You ought to see her striding along the fairways. Enormous strides they are, ' too, comparatively speaking. Her body is set slightly at an angle, leaning forward, her auburn hair is probably blowing in the wind (she seldom wears a hat), and the almost invariable -J smile is on her good-natured, freckled J, face. N She starts off like that and she M finishes like that. You get the impression she is tireless, could go on for S 1 ever. T As for that word “socialite," it’s altogether wrong—-for use in England, v anyway. She’s not a stay-at-home IZ| girl—as she has travelled 50,000 miles abroad, golfing, no one could call he: that—and she likes her parties and her bit of high-life. But she is probably never happier fi’ than when she is at her Barnes home with her father and mother and her sister Mervyn and the two dogs, the u black spaniel and the Airedale. q. But even that is not quite typical of Pi her, somehow. 1 ' If you can imagine her, still in the family circle, golfing at the Royal Mid-Surrey Club on a Sunday morn- l? ing, that is the truest picture of Pa.n B Barton. F She is happiest then. Despite her 1 enthusiasm and her ambition, she gets a little tired of championship golf. I couldn't bear to think I should have to go on like this for ever.” sh? said after she had won the British women's championship this year. Si “J'j'tre’s nothing like a nice chatty fc round on a Sunday morning." znd with the Barton family (father handicap 8, mother handicap 18 and 3 sister Mervyn handicap 3) Sunday j mornings at. Royal Mid-Surrey are J something like a ritual. Here’s Pam's history; She began when she was 12 years old, with one o'-’ her father’s cut-down clubs. With p hor sister Mervyn she used to caddie for her parents at Coombe Wood, found opportunities for “borrowing" their balls. E S ) the foundation was laid. In 1934 Pam should have gone to finishing school in Paris. Instead, because it was hot and Mrs. Barton thought, it undesirable for her to travel, she went, to Porthcawl, where P the women’s championship was being S' played. . 1( She entered, and reached the final. And she did go to Paris, after all, but not to finishing school. She went with the British Curtis Cup team. Her Only Mascot. It's giving away no secrets to refer to the old green skirt that hangs in •he Barton wardrobe. It’s her only mascot. It made its first appearance in 1934, when Pam astonished everyone by w turning up in the final at Porthcawl. cc It appeared again a few weeks later, when she won the French women’s a championship. Nineteen thirty-five saw it and so at has this year. She wore it when at ™ last she won the British women’s open, P* and it was packed in the traps she took with her across the Atlantic. No wonder the Americans gasped when she arrived on the first tee for the final with Mrs. Orcutt Crews wearing the old green skirt and a white satin blouse, shivering but still smiling in the keen “fall” wind. Success has not turned this 19-year-old girl’s head. She is as modest as if she had accomplished nothing. The only difference between her and other girls at her age is that she is more mature. You would take her for 23 or 24 rather than 19. n That's what travelling, being al- ir lowed to go about on her own, has ii done for her. c: Her parents have never been abroad with her. No one went with her to E America. But when she told her parents that an English girl hadn't A brought back the American title since 1909 they said, “Well, why don’t you?” h And so she went—and will. All this experience—she was play- C ing for Surrey County when she was 14 —has put a very shrewd head oh h her shoulders.