PROFESSIONAL GOLF.

Shannon News, 5 March 1926, Page 4

PROFESSIONAL GOLF.

4 MATCHES CANCELLED. What had promised to be very in- . teresting money matches at golf are likely to be cancelled owing to the decision of Archie Compston to stay in America and the impending departure of Percy Allis to take up a post as professional at Berlin. ' Compston and Arthur Havers were to have met any two British golfers preferably Abe Mitchell and George Duncan —for £250 a side, while Mitchell had agreed to oppose Allis in a single for £IOO a side. It is a pity that these battles for “blood and iron” > —as I heard somebody describe the struggles for staked sums —-should be checked by the insistent call from abroad. for so much that is good in home golf. The money match is splendid training for a young and ambtious professional. I shall never cease to regard as the most important event of my career the 72 holes match for £IOO a side which I contested with Willie Park, junior, over the "North Berwick and Ganton courses in 1889, I had beateh Park by a stroke in the open championship of the previous season at Prestwick (he had missed a putt of four feet on the last green to tie with me) and he was soon out with a challenge. It took us the best part of a year to agree upon terms; we were both aching for a match, but Park wanted part of it to be played at Musselburgh, the home of his famous family, and I did not relish the idea. - * > I had always been treated in a sporting way by the Musselburgh crowd, but its 'reputation in connection .with money matches in which a local golfer engaged was such that one could not take the ris£ that seemed to me to be involved. .When old Tom Morris met Willie Park, senior, there in 1855 ; the spectators interfered so frequently, with Morris’s bail that the referee. had to stop the match. v

The many miners and others in the neighbourhood are intensely enhtusiastic golfers, but they are partisans to the backbone, and the visiting golfer who opposes a local favourite in a big match stands a very considerable chance of being worried completely off his game. A Lucky Hrose-Shoe. Well, we agreed at last to play-at North Berwick —a links which Park knew well —and Ganton. I shall never forget the condition of pent-up hope and expectancy in which I approached that, contest. For days before it began people seemed to be talking of nothing but the golf match, and the limit of embarrassment was reached when, on the evening preceding the start, I went for a walk with ray brother, Tom. “Big” Crawford, one of the best known of North Berwick caddies and a rare character in his way, suddenly appeared round c corner and hurled a big horse-shoe at me. I dodged and just missed it; ii it had hit my head, as it looked like doing, I am not sure that there would have been any match at all. He explained excitedly that he had put all his money on me, and wanted to bring me iubk. That at any rate, was a consolation which subdued wrath. For long-drawn-out tension, I remember nothing quite like the first hour and aquarter of that contest. We began by halving- ten holes in succession; each of us was on tenterhooks all the while, wondering who would be the first to take the lead. At the eleventh hole, where the spell was broken, a curious thing happened. Park had the honour, and when I drove, my ball pitched plumb on top of his and knocked it forward. We did not see the incident from the tee, but the fore-caddies witnessed it and reported it directly we arrived on the scene. I had the next shot and missed it. Then he replaced his ball in the spot that it had originally occupied and played the like. Park won the hole, but after a terrific struggle, I was two up at the end -of 3 6 holes. At Ganton, in the second half of the match, I had a kind of joy-day. I could not fail at a putt, nor do anything badly. It was just one of those happy periods which every golfer strikes occasionally. I won by 11 and 10; a far more easy victory than ever I had expected to gain. A Fine Foursome. For caapcity to stir the emotions, the second greatest match in which 1 ever engaged was the foursofne in which Taylor and I met James Braid and Alexander Herd over four greens —St. Andrews, Troon, Lytham and Deal —in 1905. That event also aroused endless discussion, and the crowd at St. Andrews, where we started, was almost awe-inspiring. There must have been 10,000 people present. That, at any rate, was the popular estimate. What I remember chiefly about that contest concerns the desperateness of the struggle in the first 36 holes, and the . strength of the partisan spirit that prevailed. At one point, when the English ball began to roll down a slope towards a bunker, there were cheers from the Scottish supporters in the crowd, followed by groans when the ball stopped two feet short of the hazard. Taylor and I were two down at the end of that day, but at Troon we were in such mood to hit the ball divinely that we finished this stage of the contest 12 up—having gained 14 holes on the day. After that the rest was not difficult. Cannot there be more matches such as those?