GOLF

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 101, 23 January 1935, Page 13

GOLF

New Stars Arising ENGLISH WOMEN’S TEAM Visit Later in Year (Notes By Niblick.) 'l'he president of the American Professional Golfers’ Association, Mr. Jacobus, recently predicted that members of the team that visited Australia last year would be among the leaders of the game in the near future. Laffoon, Shute, Craig Wood, and Runyan come in for special mention. Hagen he regards as ‘■burnt out.” Surprising to Australians and New Zealanders is a scathing indictment of Sarazen, who is referred to as suffering a sharp decline in his golfing stock. •‘Sarazen lost his competitive hardness through haphazard exhibition matches in England, South America, and Australia,” declares Mr. Jacobus. 'His type of game, with its untrustworthy interlocking grip, requires constant practice to keep it up to the highest standard. With its low factor of safety, his swing is more likely to get out of groove than the swings of other notable players.

Australian Women’s Cliainpionship. The Australian women’s golf championship will be played in Melbourne this year. Interest in the meeting will be heightened by the presence of a team of English players, who, with a managercaptain, will arrive at Perth .early in August. Royal Melbourne will be the course for the championships. The English team will leave for New Zealand about the end of September. After a month’s tour of the Dominion, the visitors will sail for home via Panama. It is to be hoped that some ox. New Zealand’s leading women players will be able to take part in the Australian championship tournament, and. to regain the title which Miss Oliver Kay lost at Sydney last year to Mrs. Clive Robinson, of Sydney. A New Zealand team composed of such able players. as Miss Bessie Gaisford (the Dominion champion), Miss Kay, Miss Winnie Barns-Graham, and' Miss J. Hornabrook should give a good account of itself in Melbourne.

In the meantime New Zealand women players should get down t'o steady practice in oujer to be at the top of their form when the English players arrive, as the standard of women’s golf in Britain is high. No Australian or New Zealand player has yet been able to annex the proud title of champion of England, though several have made the crusade. Let us hope that the team will include such noted players as Mrs. A. Holm, English Oipen champion; Miss Pamela Barton, the girl who was runner-up last year; Miss Diana Fishwick, who took the title in 1932; Miss D. Pearson, who won in 1933; and Miss Molly Gourlay, who annexed the honour in 1926 and 1929. Evervone would like to see that great player, (Miss Joyce Wethered, who was supreme from 1921 until 1924, in which years she carried off the English championship five times in succession, come out with the team, but that is too much to expect. As a result of progressive management by the New’ Zealand Ladies’ Golf Union, the standard; of play among women golfers in the IDominion is high, and the visit of the English team this year should further improve its quality.

Is a Bye a Match? ■Manly club’s Killara Shield golf representatives, J. Ferrier and 11. W. Hatlersley, who were to have played in the second round of the event on the Concord course, Sydney, last season, were out of the contest without having played a stroke in the fixture.

Ferrier, with the late R. K. Lee Brown, won the shield last year for the Australian club.

The pair received a bye in the first round, and in the interim Ferrier contracted influenza and could not take the field. W. Morrell was selected to partner Hattersley, and duly turned up at Concorrj.

The secretary of the Suburban District Association, however, iniformed the pair that they would have to forfeit, contending that a bye was a match. The Lakes pair, A. V. Miller and R. Wilson, also had to forfeit through Miller cutting his hand badly. They, too, received a bye in the first round. No doubt the association’s ruling is technically correct, and bears out its ruling last year that until a match has been played, clubs can make a change in their representation, states a critic. But it seems very much open to question as to whether a bye is a match played.

Golfing Risks. A decision of interest to all golfers was given in the Supreme Court at New York when a caddy was granted £2OOO damages as a result of serious injury from a golf ball.

Judge Edgar Lauer contended that ths failure of a golfer to give timelj’ and adequate warning to those in the general direction of his play constitutes negligence. At the time of the accident the defendant, Mr. Marion Powers, was playing round a course at Pittsburgh. He was a member of a “sevensome,” which was attempting to finish a second nine holes before it was too dark to play, when a brassie shot from the rough struck the seventeen-year-old caddy on the head. As a result he was stated to suffer from severe headaches, dizziness, loss of memory and other ailments.

The judge, who is himself an ardent golfer, delivered a pertinent homily from the bench on golf ethics. He rejected the claim of the plaintiff that the choice of the club used from the rough constituted negligence, or that the act of playing a “sevensome” was in itself, dangerous to others. It was true, however, that the greater the number of players the greater the risk to their caddies, consequently a greater degree of care was necessary.

Both players and their' caddies, the judge continued, were entitled to receive timely warning, at the time the ball was being hit, and this warning, the judge held, the defendant had failed to give. The defendant had stated in evidence that he was not an expert—in fact he hail admitted that he was a “dud.” He should therefore have looked about before striking the ball.

Too Erratic. Jim Ferrier, who won the Manly .Summer Cup on December 15 from a field of 250, might be Australia's Bobby Jones (remarks a Sydney writer). In addition to tremendous length he can play all the shots round the green—sometimes. A boyish amiability prevents him from concentrating like a true champion, so he remains Australia’s Tolley; one who does amazingly, bad as well as good holes. He went round the tricky Manly course in 72 (par), after piling up six at the ninth. He had reached the edge of the green in two.

Ferrier was no match for Jack McLean, the Scots champion beating him decisively each time they met in Australia. “Iron of f ile North.”

The men of Ulster are proverbially a hard lot, and those of Belfast rank as the hardest. For years the Belfast Golf Club has refused to permit female members to enter the club-house by the front door—there is a side entrance for them, as there is in many of the English cricket grounds for professionals. The associates, of course, have tried every trick in the bag to break down the ban, and recently wangled a club plebiscite. This time they almost got a foot into the halfopened door of paradise. Only 63 members voted, and 30 of these were on the side of those aspiring to be angels. A Missing Trophy.

The mystery of the lost trophy, tip' Rivermead Cup. which Joe Kirkwood, the Asneriean professional, won in L’ c Canadian open championship last year, but did not receive, lias been solved. After Kirkwood had been asked to re-

turn the cup for competition this year, and had replied that he had never had it, consternation reigned. Eventually the trophy was found reposing at the Customs office, Block Rock, New York. Brilliant Rounds. Some brilliant golf was seen at Nassau in the Bahamas in December last. Joe Turnesa led in the opening round of the British Colonial open championship w:rh 62, one of the lowest scores ever recorded in a competition, but he could only manage 72 in the second round. Jack Thompson. of Youngstown, Ohio, won first place with 132 for the two rounds, an average of 66 a round.