The Game of Golf.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 13 April 1911, Page 4

The Game of Golf.

(By Mark Allerton, in a London Exchange.) There must be very few people now \vho cling to the delusion that golf is an old man's game, meaning that it is no sort of a game for young people. It is indeed pre-eminently a game for those who are not as young as they need to be, and it is difficult to think how elderly gentlemen managed to get any fun out of life before golf became popular. But the increased length of our courses, and the ruthless manner in which their architects plan all sorts of difficulties, make it .necessary' for the golfer to attain some degree of athletic ability. GOLF AT PUBLIC SCHOOLS. We do not hear people reproaching golf for being an old man's game; but now and again it is complained that golf ought not to be a young man's game. These critics would prefer to see vigrous youth playing football or other form of strenuous sport. They doubtless regard with alarm the tendency to introduce golf into the rota of public school games. About a couple of months ago we read of a team of Winchester College boy.s meeting at Woking a team of Wokingitcs. Winchester can put a very hot team of youthful golfers on the fickl. and this is due to the fact that Winchester golf is one of the recognised school games. There is an 18holes course in connection with the school, and' almost half of the hoys play over it. Golf is permitted only during the winter months. Eton, also has its course. VALUE OF GOLF. Those who do not altogether approve of golf as a game for boye urge that it does not foster those great qualities of self-reliance awl couragewhidi arc supposed to be the product of the football field. It is not (juite fair to suggest that the courage necessary to attack a short putt for the hole i.s of no mean order, that a big game hunter has declared tb'at he would rather face a tiger about to spring than such a stroke. It is not fair, because the youthful player, does not experience the terrors of the game that come with a wa hirer knowledge of it. The thought never occurs to him that he may fail to get the 'ball into the tin. And so he seldom fails. There are very few elderly and experienced' golfers who are not secretly aware of the fact that their youngest offspring could beat them easily on the putting green, GOLFING SOCIETIES. ft cannot be urged that golf is an unsociable gany?, for all evidence is against this. There are proofs without number of the fact that, whenever a group of men find themselves bound together by any common interest, they straightway ti<cli. en the bond by forming themselves into a golfing society. Some time ago a few people raised their voices against the increase in the num'ber of the.se societies, but they have evidently bowed to the inevitable, for their complaints are silent. .Scotland is the birthplace of the golfing society. There are butchers and bakers and candlestick makers have all their societies, their tournaments their coveted trophies. I read that in Edinburgh there are societies for the tramway companies, for the ga.s employees, for the licensed 1 grovers, for the telegraph messengers, and so on. Also many of the big 'business houses have their clubs, where principal and office boy meet on the links. THE CADDIE. The, majority of golfers evince a strange readiness to take the advice of their caddies, even if the carrier of clubs is of tender years and his knowledge of the game is suspect. This may be due to the subtle intention of blaming the caddie if. for one reason or another, the hole should he lost. The old-fashioned caddie, of course, one never presumed to argue with. His was the right of advising encouraging and admonishing his employer. One reads that in the United States the caddie is a beast of burden and no more. He is never consulted, with the result that his interest in the game is of the slightest. The American golfer is never able to blame his caddie for his wrong doing; but, on the ther hand, he has, after playing a hole well, the independent feeling of a man who has won "all on his own." WHY FAT GOLFERS SLICE. Mr A. E. M. Croome has made a remarkable, discovery -- remarkable because nobody seems to have made it 'before—that stout men slice morethan tli'in. If one golfer, he writes, speaking to another of a third, says he is a "typical slicer" Iris auditor sees a picture of a man, fat and well liking, gifted with rather heavy shoulders to balance the weight which is covered by his waistcoat. This is startlingly true. Mr Croome states that there are exceptions, that spare men are not immune from this disease: and it is as well tibat the does so, or I would have offered myself to him as a sacrifice and an example. What is more interesting is Mr Croome's explanation of this phenomenon. Nature in liberally endowing a man with all that makes for bulk has made it difficult for .him to do_ anything but slice. "Hi.s left arm is checked and prevented froin taking the club round what is by courtesy called his waist. Consequently, his swing is unduly upright." These fat men, finding themselves "unable to drag the clu'b through by free action of the left arm, stand well behind the ball and reach round it, so to speak, with the toe of the clubhead." The result is that they hit the ball to the right of the centre of gravity, and this, according to this authority, is just the way to effect a slice.