THE WORM AND THE BALLAN ENGLISH GOLF PASTORAL

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 293, 2 March 1928, Page 10

THE WORM AND THE BALL—AN ENGLISH GOLF PASTORAL

X-TERE is a pretty pastoral picture recently arrived from the now and then sunny shores of England. The locale is the Queen’s Park golf course at Bournemouth. A large and glowing sun (much larger and more glowing than usual) casts forth what experts declare to be effulgent rays. Said rays cast their benign influence over a sector of land which may be described as the tenth green of the golf course. A little worm that should be on a fishing trip, but is not, wiggles forth into the sunlight, stretches its length in gladsome response to Old Sol’s greeting and then sets out to seek adventure. It journeys some three or four inches (which is a long, long trek for a werm) when it espfes a huge, white, spherical object. Now the worm does not know that the object is known to man as a golf ball. Nor would that knowledge make the slightest difference to the tiny invertebrate. So the worm laboriously works its way to the uppermost point of the globule and sits thereon, basking in the sunlight. Comes H. C. Shaw, golfer, of the Meyrick Club, who has just sent the ball thither by means of a stick. He says to himself, “Oh, Shaw! What shall I do?” To touch the worm means to touch the ball, which is a punishable offence in the eyes of golfers. Then the golfer finds himself in the same predicament as did Adam in the Garden of Eden, except that the voice at Shaw’s ear is that of his caddy instead of the dulcet one of Eve’s. The caddy advises removal of the worm. Shaw flicks the obtrusive creature off the ball and proceeds with the play. The royal and ancient golf fathers hear of the incident and gravely announce that Mr. Shaw shall be penalised one stroke for touching the ball. Mr. Shaw pays the penalty and wins the comoetition in which he is engaged.