Gambling Fever on English Golf Courses

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 803, 25 October 1929, Page 15

Gambling Fever on English Golf Courses

American Influence Blamed

“ANE day during the past week I was invited to play by V a stranger at a gol£ club much frequented by holidaymakers. On arriving at the first tee we found, through the difference in our handicaps, that I had 4 to give him four strokes. “As we walked down the fairway to the first hole he remarked: ‘I suppose we are playing for the usual fiver?’ I told him that he might have five of my shillings, but that was the limit. He beat me six and five.”

Thus a writer in the “Sunday Express” introduces a powerful article on the gambling evil on English and American golf courses. Ho continues: Even on the golf course they play the game known as “plucking the pigeon.” • The first-class golfer, unless he is willing to run the risk of creating ugly suspicions, should not play for money except among his friends. Bobbie Jones once told me that he never played for more than five shillings. The amateur, or at any rate one in his position, was not, he said, justified, either by gambling or other means, in making money through the game. I am afraid the American champion has not maintained this point of view. When he was pressed to write articles on the game, he used to say: “I can’t do that. You don’t want me to write because I can write, but because 1 can play.” Today the American professionals declare that Jones has made far more money through his golf than any of them. They estimate his earnings as a writer during the past two years at £30,000. ALWAYS WITH US There has always been betting on golf, but I am sorry to say that it has increased to an alarming extent during the past few years, and American influences have been largely responsible for this. Amateurs and professionals alike, American players are unblushing gamblers. Even when they are in this country for a championship they play for substantial stakes on a practice round, and they have no compunction about taking each other’s money. Betting, they say, prevents their game becoming loose. It is significant, too, that in those clubs which have an American colony there is a lot of high play. Friends of mine have taken as much as £6O out of a Sunday pool at Coombe Hill. I do not suggest that there is anything wrong about a £ 1 sweepstakes among those who can afford to enter it, but it is different when matches are played for stakes that are more in keeping with racing. We do not want our golf courses to be invested with the atmosphere of Tattersalls. In my experience it is the best golfers who play for high stakes. It is the handicap fflayers who seem to want more excitement than the game offers. I know of one who has never been round any course in under 100 who has played many matches for £IOO aside, and it probably serves him right, as we say, that he lias lost most of them. A MISS—AND THE SEQUEL Professionals are occasionally brought into these money matches without running any personal risk, and. of course, benefiting if they are on the winning side. There was one

case in which a professional was faced with a putt of about two yards on the last green, on the result of which depended the saving of £2OO, and he missed it. Ho has never wanted to play in a match of this description again. It may be thought that matches of this sort are only the concern of those engaged in them, but unfortunately this is not the case. Even the caddies come under their influence through the handsome tips which they receive from the winning side. On a recent Sunday afternoon a caddie showed me a £ 5 note be had been given in the morning. “We won £20,” ho told me, “an,d it was arranged that I should get a fiver if we pulled it off.” I don’t think he was well pleased with my mite. That is the worst of extravagant tipping. Caddies, too, have become gamblers. One who recently carried for me told me after I liad been beaten that he had lost five shillings, and he audaciously suggested that I should make it up. CLUBHOUSE BETS Worse than the betting which takes place on the course is that in the clubhouse. In some clubs it is now the custom for, some one to make a book oil a competition and more than once this has led to serious trouble. About £SOO depended on the result of a foursome final of a London club, and a dispute on a question of rule occurred near the end of the round. Spectators concerned in the result as well as the players entered into a heated discussion, and as no settlement could be reached the round was abandoned. Indeed, I believe the match was never finished, and all bets were called off. In another case the bookmakers were so badly hit that they could not pay. Needless to say, there was trouble again. The American authorities are most strict in maintaining amateurism, but players find a way of earning monev through their skill in the game. Several of the leading amateurs are engaged in the bond-selling business, and they carry out many large transactions on the course. Hagen at one time was employed by a Wall Street firm. Among players engaged in this work are Ernest Carter. George von Elm. and Jesse Sweetser. who won the British championship at Muirfield three years ago.