ROBBED OF CHAMPIONSHIP

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 78, 24 December 1937, Page 13

ROBBED OF CHAMPIONSHIP

THAT STROKE BY ALEX MURRAY COMMENT IN ENGLAND Alex. Murray's striking of his ball along the gdge of the putting green while J. P. Hornabrook was holing out, and before Murray himself had holed out — a happening which robbed Murray of the last New Zealand open golf championship — is referred to in the November issue of Golfing. The Links Lawyer comments as follows:— "In one sense, of course, Murray's decision was very hard lines, for there is no suggestion that he had anything to gain from his practice putt or that the playing of it was due to anything else but pure restlessness anu absence of mind. But the question is one of principle. It is quite easy to imagine circumstances in which a player might use a practice stroke to test, let us say, the pace of a green soaked by a sudden thunder shower, and therefore practice strokes are quite properly forbidden. "It should be noted that there is no penalty for a player practising putts over again after he has holed out, and indeed this is quite a common procedure among first-class players. But the time to try these practice putts is after both players have holed out. Not First Disqualification "As a matter of historical interest It is perhaps worth recalling that this is not the first occasion when a championship has been lost through disqualification. Although it does not so appear in the Year Books, the open championship of 1876 at St. Andrews

resulted in a tie of 176 between Bob Martin and Davie Strath. But a protest was lodged against Strath on the ground that he had played his approach to the seventeenth green before the couple in front had holed out. "It seems to be admitted that Strath's approach to the seventeenth green, though beautifully played, gained some advantage from striking a spectator. The same thing has happened to other champions since, and nobody has made a song about it, but in those comparatively early days St. Andrews had not yet learned to grasp the nettle flrmly, and by a miracle of ineptitude they ordered the tie to be played off on the following Monday, 'under protest.' Strath, quite logically, refused to play the tie unless the protest was first decided, and so the championship was awarded to Martin, and then the authorities set the crown on a muddle-headed performance by awarding Strath the second prize."