Must Putt Well

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 126, 18 August 1927, Page 9

Must Putt Well

Winner at “Open” COURSE EXCELLENT GREENS REQUIRE STUDY Almost on the eve of the New Zealand championships I had the pleasure this week of being the guest of the Hamilton Golf Club on the championship links. The four points that most appealed to me were: 1. —That the course was very dry, considering the extraordinary rainfall of this year, and that the fairways and greens, with minor exceptions, were in excellent order. 2. —That there was little to the cry against the long carries required from the tees. 3. —That the winners of the championships will be among those who pay very careful attention to the line of their putts on the greens. 4. —That the course, starting with a one-shot hole and finishing with four two-shot holes, could not be better designed for a championship. These points require little elaboration. The whole course is spread alongside the silently moving waters of the huge Waikato River, and four of the holes run parallel with the river, though a particularly bad shot is required to put a ball into a watery grave. The clubhouse is placed fairly well above the links and with a good pair of glasses a great deal of the play could be followed from the verandah. The second fairway is a bit weedy, but the remainder left little to be desired, and with a couple of weeks of moderate or fine weather will be in excellent trim. PUTTING FAILURES The greens had not been cut for a week, but there need be no apprehensions about the condition of any of them. Putting failures will nevertheless be numerous. This will not be the fault of the greens, but will be attributable to the inability of the player correctly to get the line, or to want of attention. Tested out, with the dew on them, they showed that the ball kept a perfect line, but the line was very seldom straight. Hamilton does not possess a flat green. The basis is flat, but all the greens have little undulations that call for the greatest care in putting. Care in putting is stressed as the greatest necessity that will arise in the tournament. We intently studied the eighteenth green for the foreign matter that had been attributed to it by one writer, but, unless a worm or two could be termed a foreign body, we were unable to discover this drawback. ROUGH NOT FEARSOME With a few exceptions the rough was not of a particularly fearsome character, and nine shots of ten played from it should not cause any more penalty that that of making the shot more difficult, owing to its being off the line.

It happened that the day I played round was fine, and the carries from the tee, to clear the rough, did not present any difficulty, nor should they in the championship, even if there is a wind. The match committee will have at its disposal a number of alternatimve tees, and where there is a really hard carry they might well make use of a forward tee, giving a chance to the player. A strong head wind, or even a moderately strong one at either the 11th or 12th should see this alteration, but conditions would have to be very adverse before much other adjustment was required. Given anything approaching fine weather, the conditions should be excellent, and a most successful championship should result. STRAIGHT TALK ABOUT BRITISH GOLF An English critic has raised the yearly question of “what is wrong with British golf?” and has answered it with some very straight talk. His comments followed on the discreditable showing of the British professional team in America and he remarks: — “The international match with the American professionals was a disaster and the sorry show which Ray and his colleagues made in the championship at Pittsburgh was just as damaging to our prestige. “It was the putting again, we were told. George Gadd confesses that he more than once took three to get down on the green when he would have expected to take only one at home. But that is surely only half the reason, when one man goes out of the event in the first round and three others are well over 80. It is easier to believe that the golf all round was shockingly bad. “The British professionals will be home in a few days and they should be a melancholy party. The worst of it is, in the majority of cases, that it is impossible to persuade them that they are not very fine fellows on the links. “They have been urged for years to take off their coats and work at the game, but they are so cocksure that they do not even think it necessary, or if they do, they are never at a loss for a reason why they do not. “They tell you how the Americans practise, and they whole-heartedly commend their diligence and patience. ‘That’s the way to win prizes,’ they say. But they go to a championship, play round for a day or two, and then when the event starts they find no difficulty in believing that they are shot perfect. They do not go out with a dozen balls and play for half an hour, trying each club over in turn. HAGEN'S CRITICISM *

“It almost seems as if the professional has too good a time. His work at the club is easy and highly profitable. Men complain that they do not make enough, but they get all they deserve, and in some cases more than they are worth. “Last year Walter Hagen said that they were lazy. The criticism was not nice, but one begins to think it may have been justified. In comparison with the American players the men at home do not make anything like the same endeavour to fit themselves for their positions.”