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Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 27, 24 September 1931, Page 4

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GOLF IS A GAME FOR YOUTH. EXPERIENCE HAMPERED BY AGE At the age of 21, Miss Odette Lefebvre, has won the women's golf championship of New South Wales. What, then, is the best asset in golf, .m ■ o

youm or expenence : Youth. "I hav° been playing only a year," said Miss Lefebvre, when the problem was placed before her. "Before that I hated the very idea of golf. It seemed snch a dull game. Then I decided to take it up, and played every day during the year, finishing ur> bv winning the championship, and by finding that golf was great fun. 'To is very hard for me to tell how "TiUch cx eiveri.ee counts. I know perMv v. ell V'- T ' V-i S-1 .-n .«• Pvt.l ?i:pe"''ience, and that I really do not :iev.r r-u h about golf yet. "No, I never worry about a match, and I sleep soundly the night before. The crowds that followed me round did not distress me a hit. I don't ■T ink I bave anv nerves — at any rate the golf that I have played so far has not proved a strain. I think experience will help me to improve my game, but I am not sure yet." Experience. "You must remember that experi-

ence works two ways," said Mr. C. H. Fawcett, who first won a State championship (the Tasmanian championship in 1911) at the age of 29, after four or five years' golfing experience. "Its advantages are that it teaches you what you can do; its disadvantages that it remindg you of the mistakes you have made, and can make again. Thus, in the course of a match, experience tell3 me that an important putt is possible; but it reminds me that I missed an almost identical shot in some previous match, with fatal results. Of course, one tries to blot out the disadvantageous side of experience, hut it operates subeonsciously all the same, and shakes one's nerves and one's confidence. "The advantage is all on the side of youth. After 37 the response of the muscles to the demands of the } brain is not so good. The eye i3 no longer so sure. Young people go on the golf course with minds absolutely free from all iworries. As one gets older, and one's responsibilities increase, that hecomes impossible."