GOLF.

Waikato Times, Volume 102, Issue 17220, 1 October 1927, Page 20 (Supplement)

GOLF.

THE GAME IN GENERAL. HERE AND THERE ITEMS. (By “Niblick.") The cup attached to the British open championship was not taken across to the United States this year by the winner. Bobby Jones is an honorary member of the Royal and Ancient, and at the presentation announced that he would like to leave the cup in the custody of the club. Since James Braid won the British open twice in succession in 1905 and 1906 no other player has succeeded in accomplishing a similar feat until Bobby Jones this year registered his second successive win. No other amateur player has ever held both the British and American open titles." A golf match at Ilamstead, Long Island, recently was interrupted by the appearance on the 11th green of a mad dog, which bit two players seriously.

A retired business man of Liverpool has just taken up golf at the age of 91.

An appreciation of the Old Course at St. Andrews which Bobby Jones confided to an interviewer after the open championship had been played and won was published in a recent copy of the Field. Jones said: “I thought I might never again play in an open championship at St. Andrew's after my experience in 1921, when I seemed unable to make one good shot. I thought the course was wrong, but this old difficult course grows on you. I have come to love it and think it the greatest course in the whole world. It always keeps me guessing.” Jones is taking back a bit of the links with him. Going to the last hole his drive left his ball on the cross road, which had been tarred. A bit of the tar stuck to the ball and some blades of cut grass clung to the tar when it dropped into the tin. Ball, tar and grass are his memento of his St. Andrews championship—and of that last rather ticklish approach, with with 10,000 spectators to watch it. During the play of the open tournament at Home it was noticed that there was an extraordinary readiness on the part of the players and their markers to lift the ball nearer to the hole on the putting green while the other w r as played. This perfectly legitimate action was often taken when it was unnecessary. Admittedly, in medal play two fundamental principles of the match game- can, and do, come into

opposition. It is not always possible that the ball further from the hole should be played without hindrance unless the nearer ball be lifted by hand. An authority on golf at Home suggests that the present stroke play rule governing play on the green is not the best which the wit of man can devise. lie maintains that possibly it would be better to ordain that when both balls are on the putting green the nearer should be played first and should continue to be played until it has been holed.

MY AMAZING LUCK.

The August number of “Golfing” now to hand contains an article by Mr Bobby Jones under the above heading, in which he writes: “I am easily the happiest boy in the world and also the luckiest. I would rather win a championship on the grand old course at St. Andrews than do anything else I ever have done, or ever can do, in this world. It seems too good to be true.

“It was terrific. 1 had never been so much in the lead before, and setting the pace is a killing business. It is the first lime I ever started in front, but I managed to scrape through.

“The score was somewhat bewildering because it beats par at St. Andrews. They tell me it is the lowest score of any British or United States national open championship. Well, I would rather have done it at St. Andrews than anywhere else. I managed to get four lucky threes in succession in the last round, and that saved the bacon for me.

“My first round in the championship proper was most unusual for me, and it left me wondering what would happen to me in the rounds that were to come. I have played now in 11 national open championships, and this was the first time I had ever broken seventy. The Old Course seemed determined to be kind to me.

“That golf is a queer game was demonstrated. to me conclusively in that round. In the qualifying rounds I was exceptionally well pleased with my play from tee to green, but I could not score well. In that first round of the championship proper I always felt uncomfortable when driving or playing an iron shot, but my lucky putting saved me. At the second hole I drove into a bunker and failed to get out on the first shot, but finally holed a tenyard putt for five. “A long one that went in on the fifth was the longest putt I have ever holed. I should really have been very thankful

to get down in two from where I was. When it went in there was nothing I could do about it, but it was lucky. On the thirteenth I played a miserable second shot, and a ten-yarder found the cup for four when I might have been much worse. It seems that on some days mistakes do not involve penalties, and on others the least error will be ruinous.

“The second round of the championship, in a general way, was the hardest I have ever played in a major competition. I missed so many shots, and missed them so badly, that I became absolutely embarrassed, and found myself wondering why the large gallery stuck by me so loyally.

“At the conclusion of that round I had only my luck to thank that I was still in front of the field. It was certainly nothing to be happy about, going out in 37, though, with such a disreputable effort as my second shot at No. 2, which properly found a bunker, I was very lucky indeed to be no worse.

“The scoring conditions were said to be the most favourable under (which an important competition has ever been played on the Old Course, and the cards reflected the beautiful conditions. St. Andrews admits of considerable laxity in the driving department without inflicting actual and immediate punishment, although the next shots may be made extremely difficult. “I never cease to wonder how this course, so little changed since the days of the old guttie ball, can stand up so well through the years. I am certain that all through the championship, even when I was quite well pleased with my shots, I did not spend one really comfortable moment. There was always something in the way, some dreaded place on every hole which I felt I must avoid. The grand old course still needs a lot of playing, and no one realises this better than I do. It is the finest golf course in the world.” The rounds which went to make up Jones’ record aggregate of 285 were 68, 72, 73, 72.

A DANGER TO HEALTH. Taking your wife with you on the golf course is a positive danger to your health (declares an American writer). The partner of your usual joys and sorrows must not watch your golf game, if a normal blood-pressure and an efficient heart action have any interest for you at all. It is better that your dearest enemy should grin when you peel the turf than that your wife should watch you duff your approaches. This warning comes from no less a scientific authority than Dr. Eugene Lyman Fisk, Medical Director of the Life Extension Institute of New York. “ A wife is the worst mental hazard in the game,” says Dr. Fisk. “ Her presence multiplies the strain of playing, encourages outbursts of temper, and prevents that mild and beneficent mood which is golf’s greatest boon for the man of middle age. Even the best of wives are bad on the golf course. Those who cannot play have to be taught, and any man who has ever taught his wife to drive a car or play bridge knows what nerveracking pupils wives can he. The wives that can play are still more devilish. They stand and criticise, either aloud or, worse still, in silence.” As proof that an amused wife, a bad shot, or a fierce eagerness to win can really have a lasting physical effect on the player, Dr. Fisk quotes results of an actual test made by Dr. Clarence Lieb, of New York, by measuring the blood-pressure of a golfer as he went round the links.

Well, one has often heard that matrimony is a risky business.