GOLF DISCOURSE

Evening Star, Issue 19665, 19 September 1927, Page 15

GOLF DISCOURSE

GAME THAI PROMOTES OTHER FOISTS OF VIEW [Written by Il.vnuv Vardon, for the ‘ Sports Special.’] Golf may bo a game to play with a thinking head and a still tongue, but its capacity for stimulating debate in the intervals between the rounds is inexhaustible.

During crowded week-ends every table in the clubhouse luncheon room, and every cosy corner of the smoking loungo is alivo at the appropriate hour with groups of players discussing various aspects of the game. Jones, who has been off his mashio the whole morning, is told by the other three participants in the four-hall match exactly why he fails. . The next little party is arguing about tho merits of certain courses. Nearby, a man with an obvioim grievance is stating His carefully considered opinion that the small bunker in front of the green at the fourteenth hole is grossly unfair. Three times lately his ball has just trickled into it and stopped so close to tho near edge as to compel him to stand with one foot out of the hazard in order to play an almost impossible recovery shot. Thus the whirligig of golf talk maintains its vigor. But of all the matters of discussion that arise in tho clubhouse., none is so certain of spreading _ rapidly and arousing a lively contentiousness as a problem concerning the rules. Hero is the strong wine of debate. It is astonishing how quickly a whole roomful of players will become embroiled in friendly argument. The game is pursued under almost every possible variety of conditions that Nature can provide instead of, like other pastimes, m an area of prescribed measurements and characteristics. The most wonderful thing of all is that there seems to he a satisfactory solution to all the problems that can arise under tho rules. Certainly this is the conviction with which one finishes an examination oi the communiques published from time to time by tho Royal and Ancient Club giving the answers to questions that have been submitted to its Rules Committee. HANDICAPS IN FINALS. I heard an interesting discussion tho other day. It concerned handicaps in the finals of match-play tournaments. Nearly every club holds such tournaments, and it is a rule commonly governing these events that tho final shall be over thirty-six holes,’ although the earlier rounds are decided over eighteen holes. In a competition under handicap it is customary for tho finalists, who play thirty-six holes, to give and take tho same number of strokes, and at the same holes, in the morning as in tho afternoon; to treat caeli round of tho final as a separate entity so far as concerns the handicap allowances. I Have never Heard of any club adopting a different procedure. But it is sometimes wrong. Take tbo case I beard discussed, of a thirty-six Holes final in which the players' had’ respective handicaps of five and seven. On tho usual basis of giving and receiving three-quarters of the difference, ihe shorter handicap competitor would be called upon to concede two strokes in each rqund. To bo sure, three-quarters of the difference two works out at one avid a-half, hut ns every golfer knows, half a stroke is counted as a lull ono lor the, benefit of the recipient. _ Tho Rules Committee has decided, however, that, when a match is over thirty-six boles, each player must reckon bis total handicap for the two rounds before the business of fixing upon three-quarters of the difference conics under consideration. Thus, in this case five-handicap counts as ten, and seven-handicap as fourteen. Three-quarters of the dillorencc is three, and the giver of odds lias to concede only this number instead of four. It is further stated that, in such circumstances, the club must draw up a special table showing at which holes the strokes are to be taken in a match of thirty-six holes. FACTS AND FIGURES.

It is a perfectly logical arrangement, but it is not the common practice. 1 have never heard of it being put into operation, for example, in connect tiou with the Parliamentary Tournament final, which is invariably over two rounds. It might have an important bearing on the result of any mutch-play handicap final, and it can work out rather curiously. For instance, in a contest between a scratch man and a three man, the former would have to give two strokes in each eighteen holes. But extend the match to thirty-six holes and ho has to give five strokes, this being three-fourths of six, which is the receiver’s single-round handicap donbleo. Why the back-marker should have to concede an extra stroke is not quite clear—especially as, in the ease provionisly stilted, lie gives <i stroke loss by the Presumably he has in find satisfaction in the reflection that figures arc elusive things—so clear ami indisputable, and yet so puzzling. _ . One condition not generally understood is the spirit of that rule which begins: “When a ball lies in or touches a hazard nothing .shall he done which can in any way improve its lie; the club shall “not touch the ground, nor shall anything bo touched or moved before the player strikes at the hall.’ The majority ol golfers are still obsessed with the belief that it is a penal offence to do more than touch the hazard hv walking into it before striking at ilie ball. Picking up anything in a bunker prior to the shot is usually viewed as a mortal sin.

As a matter of fact, it is improving the lie of the ball, or testing the character of iho soil in the hazard—nothing fdso—that involves punishment There is the case of a golfer who takes a mashio and a niblick into a bunker, throws the mashio into the sand on deriding to play the shot with his niblick, and then, changing his mind, picks up the mashio ami uses that club. As, admittedly, ho lias not improved his lie, nor gained any knowledge of tlio hunker, his act docs not involve the loss of the hole.