PUTTING PROBLEM

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 43, 13 November 1937, Page 12

PUTTING PROBLEM

DIFFICULTY IN MEDAL PLAY DECISION IN ENGLAND

There is no golden rule in the wide ramifications of the laws of golf to deal with the position when the players jn a medal contest have reached the green, comments the Auckland Star. In mateh play, pf course, the player farther from the pin putts first, and there is no.chance of complicatioi|s. In medal play it is a diEerent matter. Sometfines the player nearest the pin pptts out first, sometimes his partner. The order is not laid down by the rules. Who putts first is a matter for mutual errangement. But there is a provision for the lifting of the ball nearest the hole or it being putted out at the optipn of its owner (stroke rule 13, section 3), And this provision must be held resppnsible for the .very prevalent habit pf lifting and marking a ball on the green, a habit which opens the door to all sorts of irregularities and objections. Possibly, there is a change coming. A recent letter from the Auckland Star's London eorresppndent stated that the professionals had reached a decision that in ali their competitions next year a player in stroke event will not be permitted to lift his ball on the green." The ball nearest tp the hole must be putted first.

Were that a rule of golf to-day Alec Murray would not have provided the world with the classic example of the traps that may befall a player who lifts his ball for his opponent. Before J. P. Hornabrook played that qhip shot from just over the back of the green at Hamilton in the recent Open, Murray' would have holed out. The principle of the game is that a ball is placed on the teeing ground and not picked ujd until it has come to rest in the cup. Many may be surprised to know that there is no provision in the rules for wlping a ball on the green. That is a Jocal rule. * And, like the lifting on the green, it is abused. Both have become a fetish. And what of the attendant irregu-

larities? Consider in how many ways the spot on the green * is marked. From tees driyen into the green, a scrape with the putter or a dent with its blunt end, to coiiis and wisps pf grass, abviou§ly they are all objeetjonable. How msmy players can say without a twinge of their conscience that they have infallibly repiaced tfie bali inexactly the same spot, particularly when it had come to rest in one of the marking spots left by another player. And is there not a classic story told of a player who, while cleanjng marked the position of his ball with the toe of the putter extended .shaftwise to? ward? the hole and then repiaced the ball at the head of the shaft? Purely a mental lapse, pf course! There is everything to recommend the reported decision of the English professionals. Some day — and" the sooner the better— it may become a

A RUGBY CLEAN UP