A SEASON'S GOLF.

Shannon News, 17 February 1925, Page 4

A SEASON'S GOLF.

Some Features of 1924 (By Harry Vardon, Six Times Open Champion) .

With the end of November, we may consider the golf season definitely sealed so far as concerns important events. There lies ahead the more secluded life of winter recreation on the links—a busy life, as you may see during any fine week-end; a life crowded with the determination to beat a favourite rival, for this is the period when the same little company of people are apt to meet every Saturday or Sunday in singles or fourball matches. Still, all the big history that ll« 24 had in store in its infancy hns now matured. j What have been its features? II think it may be said in all sincerity that there has been a certain improvement in the standard of amateur golf. A professional has comparatively few opportunities of seeing the leading amateurs because it happens so seldom that the two sections of the community meet in competition, but my observations during this year's open championship and other events compel the conclusion that those people who play solely for amusement are playing better than for a long while past. The simple fact that Sir Ernest Holderness has again won amateur championship proclaims him as the foremost amateur of the season. It is his second sucecss in three yeai-a. More, perhaps, than any of his rivals does Sir Ernest Holderness resemble in this methods of play the giants of a former generation, such as Mr John Ball, Mr Harold Hilton, Mr John Graham, Mr Robert Maxwell, and Mr J. E. Laidlay.

They never tried to force unnecessarily; they strove for length but they always placed accuracy first. They were content to lose ten yards in a drive to anybody who set such great store on gaining that bit of ground as to risk direction in displaying power. They would play an easy, wellcontrolled shot with a spoon rather than a neck-or-nothing swipe with a mashie-iron —the latter attempted by many people with the object of enabling them to say at the end of the day: "I was on the fifth green with a drive and a mashie." More often the stalwarts of this school would be able to declare if they always announced their doings: "I was nowhere near the fifth green with a drive and a mashie." However, they do not chronicle their failures. A Totuch of Restraint.

The reigning amateur champion is like the best of the past winners of that title in the sense that he plays so well within himself —and withal so accurately. It is one of the indications of a great golfer that, although he is obviously trying his hardest and even playing brilliantly, he always looks to have something up his sleeve that might be brought out if the occasion demanded. Most of the leading amateurs of recent times have looked as though "they were trying to make hard work of the game and produce the bit of something extra when it has not been needed. Here it is that a certain development of discretion has been apparent among amaturs during 1924. I was very much impressed, for instance, with the change in Mr Cyril Tolley when watching him at Hoylake. He was swinging the club with far greater control than formerly; there was a more clearly betokened indication of what he was trying to do and where the ball was likely to finish. Mr Tolley is a splendid natural golfer. So, too, with Mr R. H. Wetheied. His cultivation of more definite control over the shots may be said, indeed, to have begun in the preceding season, for everybody agrees that, when he won the amateur championship in 1922, his dash and hard-hit-ting were tampered with a touch of restraint not previously associated with his golf and productive of the accuracy that had so often been lacking as an adjunct to length. Mr E. F .Storey, the runner-up in the amateur championship; Major C. O. Hezlct, ?!i- W. A. Murray, and the latest of llic Irish cracks, Dr. J. D. MucConnack occur to one on the spur of the moment as being amateurs who have enhanced their reputations. Mr Murray, particularly, is a model in sr.ruightness in the placing of shots, tho'.gh he is not a very long driver.

Leading Professionals. I foar it cannot be said that the present standard of British professional golf is satisfactory. For the thir-3 time in four yaars. a:i American holds the open championship, and I can well beli€ve that Walter Hagen was asU nished at his own success this season, for no winner of thi world's premier event on the links ever made so many mistakes W securing his title as Hagen perpetuated on the occasion of his latest triumph. 3o far as I taw, the moat accurate and finished golf of the year was played by li;e veteran, J. H. Taylor, but, at the fge of 53, he was beaten for staying power, as surely anybody over fifty must be in the sl'cnuous and unremitting characcor of modern competition. Charles Whitcombe accomplished a very brilliant performance in the spring, when he Avon the £I,OOO tournament at Deal with a score of 289—an average of 721 strokes for four rounds of a difficult championship links —but his brother, Ernest Whitcombe, perhaps finished with the best record among British professionals inasmuch as he gained second place to Hagen at Hoylake and secured the £750 match-play tournament in the autumn. Ernest Whitcombe is unquestionably a very fine golfer. It is not easy to understand how he remained more or less in the background until reaching the age of about 35. Few people realise how near he was to beating Hagen in the open .championshipnear in the sense that he was only prevented by acident from doing it.

At the ninth hole in his last round, when the situation was critical, his drive finished in a crack) in the ground made by the sun. Two turves, apparently not long laid down, had become separated, and Whitcombe's ball rested in the gap. There was some question as to whether this constituted ground under repair, but as his chief rival was Hagen and he knew that several Americans were following his round, Whitcombe decided not to raise the point. He could knock the ball only a yard or two, and the hole cost him 70. Even so, he was beaten by no more than one stroke. It was rather hard luck."