GOLF.

Press, Volume LXII, Issue 18888, 31 December 1926, Page 7

GOLF.

NOTES OF THE DAY

(By "Jigger. '»

The Christmas tournament of the Chmtchurch Golf Club will be concluded at Shirley to-morrow, when a bogey handicap is to be played in the morning and a Canadian foursocae bogey handicap is the event schedule! for the afternoon. Last year the bogey handicap resulted in a tie between LSeitert. jun., and A W. Morgan with cards of 1 up. E AY. Hasel! and G. W. Ward won the Canadian tourtome with 3 up

If he did the. 18 holes in 120 he considered himself a lucky golfer. Stepping up to the tee, ho swung a careless drive, do imagine his surprise when the ball sailed down tho fairway, leaped on to the green, and dived into the hole. He began to dance. At la&t he had something to brag to the fellows about. None of them had ever holed in one.

''What have you suddenly gone crazy about.'" asked his wife, who was trying to learn something about the game. "Why, I've done it—done the hole in one," he cried. "Did you? 1 ' came the sweet rejoinder. "Please do it again, dear. I didn't see vou ''

It was only a few months ago that Tom Howard, the Australian _ professional, was saying that courses in Australia were not sufficiently bunkered, and now eome3 the eminent authority, Dr. Alister Mackenzie, undoubtedly the world's most notable golf architect, who says there are far too many bunkers on the golf courses in Australia. He says he counted eleven bunkers around the last hole, either at Rose Bay or Kensington, I am not sure which, where one would have been ample, at most two. We are led to wonder how many of the nine bunkers about the sixth hole at Shirley Dr. Mackenzie would say could be dispensed with.

Golf has this advantage over law: You are your own judge, jury, and advocate. You write your own instructions, furnish your own witness in the person of a purchaseable caddy, assess the damage yourself, and if you want a new trial all you have to do is begin at No. 1 and try it all over againGolf is a freeman's game. You can have nothing on your mind, and less on your feet. You can play it fast or slow, ill or well. Your mood is the game's mood. Whatever may be said in the heat of the contest on the links is immediately expunged by tho recording angel.

The post season has been an especially successful one for the Shirley Club. On the whole the weather has been fay. ourable, and the course has been in better condition throughout the year than ever before.

The Match Committee is to be congratulated on the manner in which the programme events have been conducted, and on the number of team matches which have been played with other clubs. There were not enough of these this year, but there was an improvement over previous years.

The carrying of the resolution to build a new club-huueo and other new buildings to house properly the employees and the property of the club, is by far the biggest undertaking assumed by the club since the purchase of the original property. The time for submitting tenders for the orection of the new club-house expires to-day, and the work will be started at once and pushed to early completion.

All the authorities are agreed that the origin of the word stymie is obscure. tStimie, stimy, steimy, and 6teimmy are also variations of the word. It may be connected with stynie, an old Scottish word which means: (1) In the phrase "not to see a stymie"—to be unable to see at all (2) A glimpse or glance; the least bit or quantity (of anything); a glimmer (or light). (3) The awkward motion of ope who docs not see well. Hence, a person of this description is vulgarly called a blind stymie.

Or it (stimy) (steimmy) may be a corruption of the English word stem, to check, stop, block, which has come from the Anglo-Saxon, steefn, stefn, stemm, the stem of a tree: "From the throwing of a tree trunk into a river, which checks the current."

The abolition of the stymie, which has often been a vital factor in deciding the issue of many a match throughout a countless number of years, would bring joy to the heart of many a modern golfer, who cares neither for io traditions nor for one of the most glorious uncertainties of the game that the stymie provides. As far back as the 'eighties, some golfers, possessed of anarchical tendencies, seriously discussed the question of the abolition of the stymie, but all their arguments came to nought; and it would be quite safe to assume that were such a suggestion to be promulgated to-dav it would not for one moment be entertained seriously by the powers that be.

The scores in the Christchurch Amateur Championship, played last Tuesday at Shirley, in connexion with the Christmas tournament, were very good under the conditions. Last year, outside of the scores of E. M. Macfariane, who was 148 for the two rounds and 12 strokes better than the next best score, there was a _ decided improvement. The championship was tied for this year by C. .A. Seymour and R. A. Wilson with scores of 154. L. H. Campbell, who was runner-up last year with 160, is in that position again this year, but with a score five strokes better than last year. C. A. Sevmour last vear had a total of 166 and' R, A. Wilson took 167.

H. W. Tidmarsh, the 3 handicap player from Auckland, did not get going in his best form, although he was always well up. He has a good style and a good temperament and should improve with experience. His brother, H. Tidmarsh, won the bogey handicap on the first day of the tournament; and his scores were such that his handicap was graduallv, reduced from 7 to 4.

Eana Wagg, of Wellington, was also not seen at his best. He was inclined to be rather wild. His achievement was to get a 2 at the fourth hole, the length of which ia 315 yards Many of the local players bad great hopes of E. Prince, of the Avondale Club, after he returned a 77 in the morning round. He was not going any too well in the afternoon, however, and when he disqualified himself by playing the wiong ball at the 16th he was then three or four strokes over bogey, so that he would probably not have been in the money.

L. H. Campbell had the best chance after nine holes had been played. He had done a 78 in the morning round, while Seymour and Wilson both took 79. Wilson did the first nine in the afternoon in 40; Seymour got out in 39, svhile Campbell reached the turn for home in 33. But both Seymour and Wilson got home in 35, whereas Campbell pushed several of his tee shots into the edge of the rough, and these cost him extra strokes. He reached the 18th tee needing a 4 to tie with the leaders, but again his tee shot found the rough and was lying so that he could not reach the green ■with his second, and he finished ths homeward journey in 39.

E. M Macfariane, the undoubted peer of all Christchurch golfers, was not playing his usual game at this meeting. He was missing shots he usually plays with confidence, and the putting-greens were totally strange to him. After taking 82 in the morning some expected him to come in in the afternoon with a 70 or "1, but he said himself he did well to get a 77. M. H. Godby did the best gross score of the morning and had four strokes lead of both Wilson and Seymour, but he could not avoid trouble in the seSond round and was six over bogey at the eighth hole, and he did not improve _ his position from there on and finished with an 86, eleven strokes more than the morning round. The other two who did 79's in the morning, T. H. A. Richards and H. Tidmarsh, both got over 80 in the afternoon, and their chances were spoiled.