THE GOLFER’S LAMENT.

Otaki Mail, Volume 26, 6 October 1919, Page 4

THE GOLFER’S LAMENT.

(By HENN HESS.) The Curse of golf is cheap advice. To cure your ball of hook or slice, each friend evolves a theory. “Your stance is wrong! ” “Your swing’s too flat!” ‘/Don’t use your brassie like a bat!” They talk until you’re weary. “Your wrist should.be right under—so!’’—one demonstrates to let you know; you watch-his wild contortion. “I find I get a straighter ball —just watch my knee the movement’s small my drive grows in proportion! ” “I tension here —the lower thigh, it gives you length, you have a try! ” Your head is fairly swimming. ‘‘You move your | head— look up too soon. Play to the hole, man, not the moon!” you try with sad eyes brimming. “Look here, old hap, just take my tip, tho trouble is that rottcu grip, your power is all restricted!” Just keep that shoulder in reserve till you’ve swung through, ’twill fix that swerve!” —he plays the shot predicted. You wallow in this cheap advice, you persevere in hook and slice, you try each kind suggestion. You awake all eager in tho night, and Hurriedly, you strike a light—no, it’s not indigestion! You dreamt you’d got the knaclAat- last, that all your worries now were past, you seized tho old umbrella. You hit the teed up match a smite. Crash! tinkle! falls tho lamp "lobe bright, it raises Cain—and Bella. It also wakes the neighbour’s pup. You soothe him with a fierce “shut tip.” Then someone calls out “fire!” You humbly crawl back into bed; your theory’s wrong, your heart is lead; life holds but one desire—to hit that blasted ball a blow, to see it go—and S o and go, a-singing o’er the fairway, instead of creeping into holes, in bunkers burrowing liko moles, or trickjing down steep stairways. . . .< No longer no \v you’ll hear me bleat, I just staud firmly on mv feet —golf’s simply concentration. Eve glued to ball, head kept right still, slow up swing through, the effort’s nil. What 1 No! No demonstration!