BIZARRE SPORTS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22521, 1 October 1938, Page 21

BIZARRE SPORTS

Bqw-and-Arrow Golf And

Soda E Bottle Tennis

[By DUNCAN FROM time to time bizarre variations have been introduced into popular sports, chiefly for a wager. Most such contests have been amusing, but'none has had any permanent effect. One particular form of this corruption consisted in the use in a golf match of a bow and arrow against the normal set of clubs and a ball. The superior driving power of the archer usually won the round. As a putter it was a decidedly ineffectual instrument; but again it supplanted the mashie in the ease with which it could send the arrow soaring over the most troublesome bunker. Tennis, too, has frequently lent itself to temporary adaptation. Years ago, a celebrated Irish player, matched against a man whom he had previously beaten many times, undertook to play on this occasion with a soda-water bottle instead of a racket! The match was duly played, and the expert beat his opponent, as easily as he had done before, in spite of the unwieldy and odd racket he used. Ah even odder sporting contest took place at Brighton in the early days of tennis. In this match one

r KEDINGTON.] • of the players rode a pony, which [ was shod with leather shoes to pre- . vent undue slipping on the court. His opponent, a lifeguardsman, was 1 clad in the full dress uniform, in- ’ eluding the heavy steel cuirass of that famous regiment! They played . the best of five sets, and the mounted i player won by three sets to two. . His heavily accoutred adversary was so completely exhausted that he col--5 lapsed over the net! Billiards has not escaped the i attentions of the searcher for sport’ > with a difference. A match was ; once arranged between a notable ! exponent of the cue of years ago, I who played with an umbrella! He s lost; but on another occasion, while having a game with an inferior t player, he threw down his cue and . finished his big “break” with his , nose! 5 Bicycle races between one-armed , and one-legged men are not uncomi mon. But a much more spectacular E arrangement of this sport was staged r only a few years ago between a ■ well-known rider and a professional ■ runner. The distance of the race I was one mile, and the conditions of the contest were that the cyclist t should ride backwards, while his r opponent was to walk. The race j resulted in a win for the cyclist,