GOLF BETTER THAN CRICKET

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 4, Issue 3, 1 September 1925, Page 62

GOLF BETTER THAN CRICKET

DEVELOPING LEADERS OF TOMMOROW AMONG SCHOOLBOYS OF TO-DAY

IS golf superior to cricket? The answer is in the affirmative, according to Mr. Edward Cecil in the London Daily Graphic of recent date. However, adds the writer, “It is very bitter to all men and women who hold the sacro-sanct old-fash-ioned views about cricket. The controversy has arisen in respect of boys at secondary schools. Every boy at a secondary school who is worth his salt wants to play the game his father plays. That boy is right. No boy can have a better ideal in life than his own father if his father is the sort of man who has the sense to realise that it is worth while being the father of his son. As most fathers of secondary school boys play golf it is natural, satisfactory, and healthy. that any boy who has individuality should like to play the game his father plays and, if possible, play it with him. The Personal Equation in'VERY college master is seriously concerned with the problem of licking young cubs into shape. But it must always be the main glory of the college that it encourages the boy who is not second-rate material to be made into a passable imitation of first-class material, but is really first-class material itself. There is far too much tendency nowadays to discipline the first-rate till it comes down to the level of the second-rate. We suffer from a plethora of second-rate nonentities in all walks of life. It would be much better for us all if we had more first-rate entities in the body politic. Mr. Cecil avers that the Victorian system, bad as it was, because it was based on snobbery, hypocrisy, and one moral law for men and another for woman, did somehow produce leaders. There is a distinct danger that our present system will produce only a mass of estimable mediocrity. One real leader is worth more to a nation than a dozen competent figureheads. Cricket is belauded sky-high because of what is called its team work. In the days when the upper classes were firmly established in their superior position this sort of education for boys was useful. In modern days, when the upper classes must stand not on the security of

their position, but on their merits, it is highly necessary to inculcate individual qualities of excellence. That is why our colleges ought to turn their attention to golf more than they do. The day of cricket is past. That game was good enough in the spacious days which have vanished. It is not now. This is recognised in the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where the undergraduates themselves have brought golf to the fore. It is a better game to test individual excellence than cricket. The decline of cricket, which so seriously perturbs the old-fashioned mind, need not be taken too much to heart. To play games is all-import-ant, but with so fine an individualistic game as golf to play instead of cricket the national character is not in danger. The plain truth about cricket is that it is a grossly over-rated game. It has its excellent qualities, but they are not the gospel of life, as some would have us believe. Golf, on the other hand, is a game as yet little understood by the majority of the people; but men —and women—are coming to understand its great character-forming virtues. It teaches self-reliance far more than cricket does. Cjfathers and £ons Fj'Oß these reasons, golf is superior A to cricket. Selfishness is a fault, but selfdevelopment is a virtue. Team-work is good, but the strengthening of the individual character is better. When it comes to the question whether boys should play the game their fathers play, or that which their headmasters think best for the school, I would say that the choice should be left with the boy. Cricket can be played as well as golf time permits; and, with moderation of homework and daylight saving, time should permit. But no boy who wants to play golf should be discouraged. It will develop his individuality and spur him to be in the first flight in his form, and not one of the rank and file. And it will also have this not inconsiderable advantage it will enable him to be a companion

with his father, the best thing for father and son. Mr. Brown then goes on to say: “I am aware, of course, that there are people to whom cricket, either as a game or as a spectacle, makes no appeal, just as there are those who do not like oysters, Felix the Cat, tobacco or musical comedy; these are matters of personal preference, and if we cannot understand them, we must at least treat them with respect, for this is a free country, and it takes all sorts to make a world. But to assert that golf— golf! —is superior to cricket, and that the modern secondary school boy would need no persuasion to exchange his bat for a golf-mallet, or whatever it is called —this, if I may say so, is simply asking for it. !Demoralising Cjolf / ~T'HIS spirited advocacy of the -*■ merits of golf and the condemnation of cricket aroused a facetious rejoinder from Mr. K. R. G. Brown. “I have normally the greatest respect for the opinions of Mr. Cecil, but of certain observations of his concerning cricket I feel impelled to register a gentlemanly but emphatic protest.” Personally, I cannot see that golf has any right to be included in the category of games. From my own admittedly limited experience, I would classify it as a life-work, or a selfimposed penance rather than as a form of amusement. Cricket is exercise, but golf is an obsession wherefrom the obsessed derives only overdeveloped calves, a demoralising knowledge of invective, a tendency to trifle with the truth, and the cor-

dial dislike of his non-golfing acquaintances. Golf (says this authority, whose singular attitude towards the only real game has cost me a night’s sleep) is a game little understood by the majority of the people. Now on this point, if he will substitute “habit” for “game” I am wholly at one with him; for I am a perfect specimen of the man-in-the-street, and golf is as utterly beyond my comprehension as are Sanskrit, crossword puzzles and the ideals of the Communist Party. To walk aimlessly across several square miles of landscape, at intervals frenziedly smacking an inadequate ball with a stick totally unsuited for the purpose, is not my conception of enjoyment. zAn Immortal Cjame '"I 'HE most damning argument A against golf is that, if practised to excess, in time it utterly destroys the addict’s moral sense. The cricketer must tell the truth about his score or his bag of wickets, for he performs always before at least fourteen witnesses; but the golfer can—and usually does —give his imagination a free rein, for his oppon- , ent will be too deeply engaged in the same occupuation to have either the time or the inclination to correct him. As for the spectacular qualities of golf—where are they? The cricketwatcher may confidently rely, at the very least, upon a grateful opportunity for slumber, but the golfspectator must tramp weary miles for the privilege of watching two men whom he does not know perform childish antics with a small ball which he cannot see.