TOO MANY CLUBS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 221, 17 September 1940, Page 10

TOO MANY CLUBS.

GOLF RULE BROKEN. PLAYER DISQUALIFIED. ■ t OTAHUHU CHAMPIONSHIP BREACH. The necessity for complying with the rules of golf was emphasised at Otahnhu on Saturday when ,T. C. Mitchell was disqualified for a breach of the 14-club rule when playing in the first round of the senior championship. When the R. and A. announced last season that this restriction on the number of clubs a player might carry had come into force few aniateui's in .New Zealand were concerned, for a set of woods and irons comprises only a dozen clubs. Jhe happening at Otahuhu is probably without precedent in championship play at least in the Dominion'. Unfortunate as it was for the offender it will serve to draw players' attention to one of the rules to which little thought is given and the breaking of which it is difficult to detect. It was the observation of a committeeman at Otahuhu that led to Mitchell s clubs being counted by the secretary when playing the fifth hole of his match with A. K. Jones. It was found that there were 15 clubs in the bag and there was 110 alternative to disqualification. The pair completed the round and it is understood that Jones played the better.

In the other senior championship games there were no surprises, the Eustace brothers holding their place*. W. B. Eustace played well against C. Reader, haying a round of 73, the same figure which in the second round of the qualifying play put hi in at the top of the list. Reader lost the second hole, where he was stymied and knocked his opponent in and became 2 down at the fifth. He held his opponent to the ninth, but then Eustace had a winning sequence of five holes.

The finalists in the junior championship to be played at Pupuke next Sunday were in good form la6t week-end. Y. C. Oborn won the Stableford with a score of 38 and a medal round of 79 —15—64, while next day hia opponent, D. Ingham, scored one less in both Stableford and medal. Oborn was reduced three strokes and Ingham, too, paid the penalty. H. Randrup, who meets C. Howdcn in the senior championship had a satisfactory trial with a round of 74, scoring 35 Stableford points. • • • •

The 36-hole final for the Howey Walker trophies at Akarana produced a keen contest evidenced by the fact that it went 35 holes beiore S. R. Harrison (13) and A. W. Baker (19) beat J. E. Cashmore (6) and C. F. Macpherson (19), 2 and 1. A morning round of 84 by Baker (net 65) meant that not a great deal of help was wanted from his partner, who, however, was responsible for a stroke round of 84 (net 71). In view of these cards the opposition did well ta be only 3 down. ]\lacpherson started off the afternoon by winning the nineteenth, and when Cashmore took the twentysecond there was only one between the two .pairs. At the twenty-eighth Cashmore squared the match. Four holes later Baker got a net 3 at the difficult par 4 hole, and when he again made use of his stroke at the next with a net 4 his 6ide was 2 up again. A half in 3at the short thirty-1 fourth and the game then finished on the j next green. j

[ The Akarana championships will commence on September 29 when the two qualifying rounds will be played and the finalists) will be found with three rounds o 4 match play the following week-end. Pax Smith will attempt to win his fifth championship, one more than his brother Basil won when he was a member of Akarana. Incidentally their father, Basil, sen., won the Balmacewan championship four years on end.

A high standard of golf is being maintained at Maungakiekie this season and the club's lowest markers in J. Pelham, J. Stedman, H. Roy and J. D. Shanly are playing consistently to their marks. Over the week-end Shanly had four rounds between 71 and an approximate 74. On Saturday, in the Stableford competition, he was beaten on the count back by C. S. Craig, but had the decision rested on the first nine holes, and not the last, it would have gone the other way. Shanly had a brilliant first "half of 34. in which he scored 20 points, and had one to add for his handicap. He missed bogey at the first two holes coming home and then holed a 30-footer for a 2. Birdies at the fifteenth and sixteenth, and then he failed to score at the seventeenth, losing his ball from the tee. In one of his rounds on Sunday Shanly wanted a 3 for a 69 and then threeputted. Craig, the Stableford winner, had a round of 79, five strokes better than his handicap, and he, too, missed scoring at j the seventeenth. J. Stedman, who has had a remarkable Series of rounds this season, with an average in the low seventies, contributed a 70 antra 71; although he scored 39 points in a scramble he was only runner-up.

E. S. ("Bowser") Tootrood, who won the Hawke's Bay championship on Saturday at Waiohibi led the field in the qualifying play with a total of 147. K. Glendinning, the only scratch player in the field, set the pace with a 75 in the first round, but Toogood played a brilliant 70 in the afternoon to Glendinning'a 78. Contesting .the concurrent bogey on Friday, in the first round of the championship, Glendinning waa the winner with a card of 2 up and a stroke round of 71. It was a count-back decision with Toogood, who from a 2 handicap was also 2 up.