THE LIVELY BALL

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19139, 24 October 1927, Page 10

THE LIVELY BALL

CHANGED OUTLOOK IN GOLF. LONG DRIVING INSTEAD OF SCIENCE. (SPBCUIXT WMTTBK TO* TS* »■•»■> (Bv Harry Vardon, Six Times Open Champion-) I have just been reading the yearbook, which is published annually by the United States Golf Association. If is a most comprehensive volume of official records, and it includes the reports of the numerous special committees of the association, each of which has charge of a certain department of legislative affairs in American golf. One of these reports makes it clear that our friends across the Atlantic are still working hard to find a solution to the problem of limiting the driving power of the ball. All their activities are now directed towards perfecting a machine devised by Professor H. A. Thomas, of the Carnegie Institute of Technology, Pittsburg, ior measuring the resilience of the ball. They feel that, if this resilience can be measured and restricted, then a definite limitation can be placed on the carrying and running powers of the ball—a theory to which our own Eules Committee has subscribed. At first blush, the scheme may seem to have some of the eccentricity of a Heath Robinson idea. ■ ■>. The construction of the apparatus is puch that it discharges ball after ball with the consistency, of a -gun firing shells. At a distance of a few feet, the ball impinges on a pendulum, which ; communicates the power of the blow to j another pendulum. On the latter, the , measure of the ball's resiliency is reg- ! istered. ;

It all sounds desperately fresh, but if -we accept the promise 'that driving is 60 excessively long under certain conditions—particularly the hard ground of summer-time —as to make the other shots of disproportionate length, then we have to confess that the resiliency of the.ball is the cause of all the trouble. For this it is that produces the run that makes the normal hitter flatter himself about his driving capacity. Deep down in the souls of most players is an abiding satisfaction with the situation. If, as a result of it, the game is going to ruin as a test of skill, it is at least going to ruin in a very exciting way. Whether the multitude are living in a fool's paradise in the sense that all this liveliness in the ball is making it difficult for the purposes of approaching and putting, is the form of propaganda which the authorities need to launch before they can hope to convert their subjects to the cause of diminished driving power.

More Length to Come. Mr "W. C. Fownes, the moving spirit in the American scheme, has said that in the absence of restrictive legislation, we may expect to see the shots go farther and farther as the ball-mak-ers discover new methods of manufacture.

The American scientsits have tested every well-known brand of ball on their machine, and discovered that the most resilient on the market shows no more than 62 per cent, of the resiliency" that is possible in an article of its size and weight. At the present time first-class players —given favourable. conditions . ,of ground—aim and expect to reach the green from the tee at a hole of, say, 260 yards. They often drive a great deal farther. In the last open chanii>ionsbip at Troon, for instance, there was Mr Cyril Tolley driving on to the green at the first hole, which measures 330 yards, and getting down his putt for a two. • At least two or three players have driven oh to the green at the eighteenth hole at St. Andrews—a distance of. 364 yards. These are exceptional shots, but, granted ,the developments which the American scientists declare to be possible,, it seems reasonable to suggest that holes of 400 yards will one day be reached from the tee without anybody getting very excited about it. Tnis may make golf more amusing than ever in a purely sensual way, but whether it will make for the ultimate good of the game is certain that the leading American players are not nearly as keen as our most prominent golfers on hitting their 'drives tremendous distances. Walter Hagen once told us that we devote too much, attention to this department at the sacrifice of .proficiency in the art of saving strokes round and on the putting green, and probably he was right. In point of fact, Hagen himself is capable of driving a good deal farther than he does in the ordinary way. He let himself go to the full in the international team match at Wentworth with which the American professionals opened their tour here last year, and everybody who had seen him during his previous visits to this country remarked upon the increased length of his hitting.

A Lost Ambition. I mentioned the matter to him. "Yes," he said, "I was loosening myself out and hitting a bit harder than usual to-day; but long driving doesn't c&unt for anything. It's getting on to the green and hqjing ouf; that wins." That was six weeks before he delivered himself of his views as to why. the Americans beat u* at golf. It at least indicated that, he came over with his sentiments ' already established,' and that, although he only gave voice to them at the finish, they were not formed during his stay. Far and away the most notable change that has come over the attitude of this country towards golf since 1914 is that the study of methods, which was once the ruling passion of. the game, has become almost a lost art. For proof of this one has only to analyse golf club talk.

At one time < the conversation in the club-house during the luncheon interval and after the day's play turned rapidly and ineivitably to discussions as to how this, that, or the other well-known golfer executed his shots. Now it is generally about how far somebody drives.