FANTASTIC GOLF

Shannon News, 1 December 1925, Page 4

FANTASTIC GOLF

FASHIONS IN PUTTING GUKI3NS (By Harry Vardon, Six Times Open Champion.) Most golfers agree that flat, feat, ure less putting greens are the dullest things in the game. The. majority are equally . satisfied that fantastic greens, with ridges and hollows running in every conceivable direction and, n humps here and there to divert many a truly-struck ball from the line, hav e no oqualls as irritants. It is not easy | I to describe the exact stage at which! sporting reasonableness ends and ec. ! centricity begins, tout most of us know I it when we see it. I True it is that there are fashions in golf.green architecture just as there are in many affairs of life. In this connection, I have in my scrap-book some illuminating comments made by Mr H. S. Colt concerning the St. George's Hill course, Weybriclge, of which he was the designer.

At the time of its opening, St. George's Hill—a course \of natural charms,, far above the ordinary—was roundly comdemmxl because of the puzzling slopes on and around its putting greens. Indeed, opinion was so strongly against these features that changes had to be made so as to render the short game Ice 3 distracting.

i riainly this outcry came as a great surprise to Mr. Colt, in spite of all his experience of links.architecture, for, writing seven years aCter he had do. signed the course —a period long enough to ensure na'.ural reflections he said: — "I was extremely proud of iny share of the work, and thought that this paxticular club probably would do me more good by way of an advertisement than any other scheme that I had been connected with, but ao frequently happens, the unexpected j turned up. Although the course was j I favourably criticised in all the leading, [papers Of the day, there was an outcry about the difficulties of some of; the greens. I had—no doubt, fool-' ishly—left natural sitos to alter the ; easy lines which nature had provided.

j admitted it and altered a few of the | No doubt a mistake was made and I greens during the folllowing- two ' or •three months at very slight expense, but until more or less recently 'this course, I suppose, did me more harm than good, and I passed through bit. ter experience. I knew full well that ultimately the beauties of the sur. roundings and the quality of the golf would appeal lo the public, and am glad to say that now this is so. *, "It is extraordinary how opinions change from lime to time on the subject of pulling greens. For a . few years you will see in the Press nothing but criticism of dull, flat greens, and then someone will come froward and make undulating greens which will be highly approved of for a period. Then there-will be an outcry against the difficulties in coursc.construction work there are fashions, and the club possessing the latest creation is as proud.of it as tne lady who possesses the most recent Parisian frock."

ltalkneing Acts. I It Is very interesting 1 to have this : frank deciaiation by Mr. Colt., I do > not think that it was he who started the craze Cor putting greens of whimsical design. It he d asserted itself ; at Coombe Hill, for instance," a full ■ year earlier. In die course it gave way theiv to rational ideas, and if St. George's Ilill still has some dips and rises that give even a good putter Very furiously to think, I am not sure , that a well-played putt would even fail to finish dead through th e char- " acler of the green. It-might be fair to say of it—as one ' <' can say of many another course—that the runs up to some of the holes are | Well worth knowing, and that local I players therefore enjoy an advantage ' when they oppose visitors. Still, the j only ; way in which perfect equity could be secured for strangers in their matches with people possessed of local knowledge would be for putting greens and the ground immediately ; in front of them to be*-virtually level. ' And that would introduce an intolerable degree of dulness for everybody Nobody objects to the well-ordered £

not avert, a properly struck ball from its line in the hole Then the player has succession of rises and dips which will take the slopes without being distractto think hard as to how the ball will ed by the fear that it never will take the lot properly because, of the-inter-ference of. a perplexing hillock or a narrow "hog's back" somewhere in the straight path" to the hole, The fin. est putter in the world would not care to- back himself to urge the ball along a "hog's" back" in the middle of the' putt and make-it drop off to take a slopee or two before arriving' at the hole_si.de. guttting- is interesting enough when only the waves of.the green have to-be considered. When it becomes also a balancing act, it is a-torment. Yet this is the test to which there has been at times a tendency to submit golfers. There is mother'form of terror. It is the putting green which may, bestow two utter'y different fates, upon approaches of almost identical merit. A hole which I have in mind illustrates it. >

A small but none the less "definite j valley running at ri; lit angles to the line, begins about seven yards from the pin. A difference of an inch or two in the places at which two,shots pitch may. mean th.t while-one- fin. . ■'shos close to th 0 ho;.-; the other trails I off down the valley and trickles, into a bunker. We all i.now that perfect lustico would be th-3 greatest bore Imaginable, even if it could be intro. duced into golf. I- fc the fines! golfer is so much of a j -ggler that he can "tell to within'two inches where his /ball is going to pitc'i, and when the 'player knfcws that h -vhas hit the shot well, it is very tryi:.» to see the ball turned aside by a malformation. \ ' Importance cT Position. I As regards putting pure and simple I ---and we do not. wort it to be too simple—a great deal depends upon the j positions in which thw holes are cut. I | fancy that some r f the criticism which was heaped upon St. George's J Hill at its inception arose from the fact that the holes wre cut on fairly ;teep gradients that r. ade a down.

I hill putt a horror. The desire to perch the hole on a ridge, where you putt uphill with. t the knowledge > that th e ball will run downhill if it gets to the top and misses the tin, is still strong in some places. So is the penchant for cutting the hole on.a,slope; where in dry weather th e most tenderly trickled . ball runs out of holding distance when it misses the hole. This occurs to one as being an artificial way of making the game exciting—for onlookers. The real art of putting is to lay the long'putt dead—not to hole it although that is very nice if it can be done. There are .people who,say that good golfers ought to be able to overcome any < 'difficulty, that they must learn new shots in order to grapple with new problems. But that sentiment * might be continued indefinitely until the good players went down upon their knees and prayed for tins millennium. >