Golf.

Southland Times, Issue 18822, 15 May 1920, Page 9

Golf.

(By “Cleek.”)

Tho annual meeting of the Otatara Ladies’ Club was held on Monday, when the annual report and balance-sheet were presented and adopted. The balance-sheet showed the Club to bo in a very satisuictory financial position, and perhaps the feature of the report was the extraordinary bad luck in the matter of weather that pursued the ladies. No less than eleven of tho Thursdays fixed for matches last season were so bad as regards weather that the matches were either postponed or abandoned. The weather was frequently quite good on the Wednesday and tho t riduy, but quite impossibie on the Thursday in between, and nature was so persistently unkind that enthusiasm for ihc matches could not be maintained. This year better luck is hoped for. A number of new members have joined, and there is a good prospect of getting ail players who wish to compete over to the course m members’ cars. The fuliowuig otiicers were elected: —President, Mrs G. Cruickshank; \ ice-Preaideuts, Mrs R. J. Gilmour and Miss Brodrick; Captain, Mrs W. Handyside; Dep.-Captain, Mrs J. D. Mitchell; Hon. Treasurer, Mrs A. B. Haggitt; Hun. Secretary, Miss Henderson; Committee: Mesdames G. Henderson. W. Hodges and T. Brooke, and Misses W. Tucker, Croft.-; and L. Henderson. The first country fixture of the season will take place on the 26th hast., when a team of five ladies and five men from the Park Club will go to Riverton. The first part of the Invercargill Golf Club’s first monthly medal of the current season was played on Wednesday, when sixteen competitors returned cards. The Saturday players play their rounds to-day. Following is the draw :--K. J. Gilmour plays T. Brook; H. 13. Far nail plays E, Ru.-soll; F. A. Barclay plays J. D. Mitchell; G. Cruickshank plays C. A. Masters; A. B. Kcggitt plays A. E. Smith; E. A. Jones plays VV. J. Hodgkins; J. F. Lillicrap plays L. W. Douglas; D. R. Campbell plays C. iff Yates; F. G. Haii-Joncs, a bye. It will be remembered that during the Easter Tournament M. Macbeth (St. Clair,! signalised his appearance- on the Otatara course by driving on to the second green (The Outlook) from the te’e—fftio yard On Wednesday lust R, A. Wilson drove Dunn's Road (250 yards i from the lev. In both cases there was a strong following wind, but in neither case had the feat been done previously.

Cn Wednesday, 12th inst., the Park flub held its first match of the season, a st competition. The best card was handed in by J. L. Brown with a score of tOl-liU--81. The next four lowest nett scores handed in were close, viz., S3, S4, 80, S7. It is anticipated that in a few weeks when a number of iho new members take pari in the competitions there will be a great deal of enthusiasm shown. The Club has increased its membership considerably this year, as quite a number of young people have taken up the game. Dr Ross has been dealing very remorselessly with his opponents in the championship of the Otago Club. Last Saturday W. 11. Young gave the Cl ago and Cant ' rbury (and ex-Southland) champion tits closest game ho has yet had hut Ross won o up and -I. Ross soon gained the ascendancy, and at the fifth hole was 3 up. but Young won the next three holes with 3, 4, 4, making the game all square. Ross won “The Glen" in four, being thus 1 up at the turn, and doing the first, half in 3b. He won the next thiee holes, halved trie Kith and won the 14th. In an earlier round Ross did the first six holes going out in 22. He now meets 11. Brasch in the final over 30 boles and the match will be commenced to-day. Speaking of Mr J. 11. Kirkwood, the professional golf champion of Australia, who may be induced to visit New Zealand shortly, Mr John Tail said that if ever there was a born goiter it- was this man. “He is only a youngster,” said Mr Tail, “but his all-round skill in driving, approach shots and putting are at once the envy and despair of other players. He is out on his own, and those who know predict that he will be a world’s champion. An effort was made some time ago to get Vardon to come out to Australia to meet Kirkwood, out the veteran Englishman could not be induced to make the long voyage. There are some fine players in Victoria and New South Wales, but Kirkwood is something apart—-he commands the crowd when he is on the links.” Although golf is booming in England its progress in America has been said to bo ten times more vigorous. Golf is going ahead in England at a pace quite fast enough to tax the accommodation in a land of limited dimensions. Never before have so many clubs hud waiting lists. It is not easy to find suitable grounds for new courses in accessible places. Increases in membership are remarkable. At one club, since May 1918, the membership had risen from 420 to 700. Much the same condition of affairs prevails in many parts, and if America is suffering from ten times that measure of golfing prosperity she must be sorely disturbed to know where to put the players. It is probably true, however, that there are more golfers in America than in England. For one thing, there is a bigger population upon which to draw. There is also a lot of money in what one American enthusiast was so modest as to describe as “God's Own Country.” And there is a maintenance of the belief that the best that money can buy from the rest of the world is good enough. At a natural sequel to this combination of happy circumstances there is a recurrence of the quest for prominent British professionals. The Edge-

water Club, of Chicago, is the latest in the field. It is believed to be offering a guarantee of £IOOO a year to a good British professional who will honour it by becoming its guide, philosopher, and friend. Fred Robson had the first refusal. He did not like the idea of leaving home. Since that James Sherlock has been approached. It is not known whether he favours cutting himself adrift from the tranquillity of Stoke Poges. What some of the champions have been offered if only they would settle in America might have tempted even a popular singer of popular comic songs. Vardon, Taylor, Braid, Mitchell, Duncan, Herd, Ray and others have maintained through it all warm corners in their hearts for their native country. Most of them visited the States to take part in the championship and exhibition matches, but they have been proof against invitations to settle there. Early this summer (writes Francis Ouimet in the New York World) Walter Hagen, Jim Barnes, Tom McNamara and possibly Jock Hutchinson and J. Douglas Edgar will sail for England in quest of we British open title in golf, now held by Hairy Vardon. This invasion, coupled with the counter attack somewhat later of various British stars on our own coveted open trophy, has caused more than the usual amount, of enthusiasm. As to predictions, one guess is as good as another. On the Deal course, however, the outlook for either Barnes or Walter Hagen is particularly bright. Long Jim Barnes is long and accurate and always steady; qualities which are well suited for the task on this course, and I look for him to finish right up with the leaders. I have sten Mitchell, Duncan, Vardon, Taylor, Braid and nearly all the other English cracks perform, and I believe they are most remarkable golfers. But to my mind Barnes’s long and powerful game, coupled with his deadly accuracy around the green, will make the English golfing fraternity sit up and take notice. Hagen has a better chance at Deal than I believe he would have were the British Open to bo staged at Sandwich, say, for where Sandwich is short and easy for most of the boys, Deal is a he-man’s course in every sense of golf. Prodigious drivers like Hagen and Barnes will have a big advantage. Of course, Jock Hutchinson and Tommy McNamara will bear watching too. My friend who runs tho Literary Log on another page has seat me a copy of “SuperGolf, by Robert Browning, as being a more appropriate subject for notice in this column than in his. And in spite of his name we doubt if the author has any ambition at all to have Ilia little book discussed as literature. This Robert Browning is not the poet, who to most golfers is probably a sealed book and to nearly all who have tried to read him certainly a hopeless puzzle, but the well known editor of “Grilling," and the book is a. racy record of notable golf personages and happening;-. Mr Browning recounts the world’s records made in the game, tho longest drives, file most remarkable Lukes, the record ties, the famous recoveries and. so on. He also digs into the history of the game a little in discussing the question : Why eighteen holes for a golf course? end also in explaining the origin of the famous Colonel Bogey. The book, in .short, is full of the things that your genuine go'icr loves to read about. In the first two pages the reader comes across George Duncan’s beautiful card for his second sound in the champion■hip of the Lucerne Lakes, played at Axenftls, in August, 1913: Out:—l 4 ■! 3 3 3 2 3 2—28 In 3343 33 3 2 4 —28

This is the world’s record for ]S hole.-. Duncan's score in rbo first round v.-as OJ and his total of 113 for the two round; i the v,-orld’s record score for .30 holes. The ne::t two rounds of this championship were played at Lucerne, and Duncan’s score; were 71 end 7-1. His iv.;greg;tte of 20.3 for the 72 holes is the best ever returned in such a competition. The courses are, or were, short and easy, of course, hut even so, Duncan’s performance was a marvel of accuracy and consistency. Idr Browning, however, considers that the finest four rounds ever played stand to the credit of •fames Braid, whose 291 at Prestwick in 11 1 OS is still the bc-i return ever made in Tie British Open Ghampiom-hip. Braid a!.-o hold-- 1 lie record for iS holes played in Britum—-57 in an e.\h;b;t-on game over the Hedderwiek course, near Dunbar, in 1912. A record of a different sort was that of the Chevalier von Cittern in the "Duffer’s -Medal” at Biarritz in IS'.A. The Chevalier won the prize, an ooru'ss v,\.od,n spoon, with a grand total of lilil for is hole.-, rati on? would think that this mu,-;; be easily tii? worst round of golf ever perpe: rated. Sill!, in an American m:;!; hj. cards of 298 2.30 and 227 have hj sn re;timed, and in a monthly medal at Plymourii (England,! in 19bo one competitor bravely returned his can! for IS hole:; - 2.37--21 -23o—a nice steady average of 5 over 1;',.. After thi., we may well exclaim: Are we downhearted'; 1 The longest "recognised drive," that is, a drive made in competition, is the II3S yards of IV. if. Horne, piofe-sinnal :.t Cheriscy, in the Aorth Berwick tournament of l (J lf;. There have been longer drives, however. Ai ilerne Bay, in l.n.'i, -•lr hi. C. drove 4-15 yards, but (here was a fall of tiOfl in the ground covered. .)ernes Braid has driven 39d yards. The record with the old gti!i,i bail was the hive of Lieutenant F. G. Tail at the ileather Hole, St. Andrew;.;, on January :1, 1 Sl*?. oil yard-; 9 inches, V/ hen “Freddie” Tait was killed in the South African war golf 10-g a player who might have made many worM’s r< cotd.s had he live;!. One might go on indefinitely discoursing on the holes dene in one, the matches played in fop,, in which ;...- player; losi not only their hails but their caddies. their p.ut tiers and their way back to the club house, the historical flukes and recoveries, the great tussles between giants that went on ten holes or "more after the ISth or 36th, but for these the golfer must go to the book itself. One notable shot may he mentioned, in conclusion. Playing a match once Lieutenant'. F. G. Tait fount! his hall in a condensed mill: tin about 31) yards from the green. Did he begin to ask about local rules or his rights and privileges in sueh circumstances? Not “Freddie.” lie wasted no time but with his nibbJick and a cheerful smile banged the tin with tlie ball in it tin to the green, the ball rolled out and lay stone dead—and the shot deserve'! the luck. A most fascinating book to iiie golfer. Published by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent and Go., Ltd. —Our copy came from (he Australasian Publishing Co., Sydney.