GOLF ENTHUSIAST

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 983, 28 May 1930, Page 6

GOLF ENTHUSIAST

EARL OF BALFOUR’S DEVOTION TO GAME TREMENDOUSLY KEEN The death of the Earl of Balfour robs the world of one of the greatest figures of our time, says a writer in “Golfing.” THe services as a statesman which earned him the proud distinction of being the first “commoner” to become a knight of the Garter, his achievements in philosophy and letters, have received the tributes of the whole world. Let it be ours to mourn his loss as that of the golfer who did more than any other to bring about the world boom in the royal and ancient game. In the days when the North Berwick caddies used to ask: Is Ar-r-thur Balfour on the links today?” I have frequently heard him described as “the Father of English Golf,” but that title might more fairly be accorded to the late Mr. W. T. Linskill, who, by founding tire Cambridge University Golf Club and bringing about the start of the university match in IS7S. really did establish golf as an English game. During the next ten years the progress of the game on this side of the Border was slow but none the less steady on that account. It was Mr. Balfour’s part to achieve- for golf a publicity that It could never have obtained in any other way. “GORGEOUSLY EXAGGERATED” It was the natural result of all this that liis own prowess at golf used to be most gorgeously exaggerated by enthusiastic pressmen, who in preWar days were wont to allude to him as a “champion” and to describe his performances in phrases which might have satisfied a Tolley. As a matter of fact, I think 1 am right in saying that his handicap was never below 9. When lie won the Parliamentary Handicap for the third time at Sandwich in 3 910, his allowance was 31, and -he missed a short putt—an unusual thing with him—to finish square with bogey. But the next return was 3 down, and the victory of the then Premier was thoroughly well earned.

His keenness for the game was tremendous, and on one occasion led to a minor tragedy at a railway station on the Riviera. It chanced that Mr. Balfour had to wait some time for his train, and he was whiling away the time by practising golf shots with his umbrella. But alas.’ with one of* the shots he took a trifle “too much turf,” the station platform not being sufficiently yielding, the head of his umbrella flew clean off the “shaft.” The Earl of Balfour will go down in the history of the game as a great and genuine enthusiast. He gave a. lifetime’s devotion to golf, and his memory will be cherished as long as the game is played.