GOLF IN ENGLAND.

Taihape Daily Times, 23 May 1919, Page 6

GOLF IN ENGLAND.

. (By R. Euderby, in a London

paper.) I met him on the railway platform al Bristol; a most estimable porter, who took charge of my luggage with the brisk air of one who liked to help. As he* deposited the bags on his trolley, ihe glanced critically at the heads of my gclf clubs. "No niblick, eh. sir?” he said. "Don’t you over got into bunkers?” "I got into one too many yesterday,” I replied, "and broke the niblick. Why? Do you play golf?” "No,” he said. "Wish I could. Bit 1 I reckon its the best game to look at ■when you understand it, and I often, go and watch the players:.” Some people, prepared to exceed thenstandard lip in exceptional stances, might have wondered whether this willing porter expressed the same kind of fellow-feeling to every client who engaged his attention with a bag of golf clubs. But his sincerity was nnmistakeable. "Yes, ” he went on, " 1 ’ve been to see Vardon and Taylor and Braid whenever they’ve given exhibitions in these pa-ts. And I generally try to get np to the course on a Saturday afternoon, I

to watch the members playing.” In golf a man who is content to bo a spectator is a rarity. The very nature of the game is to lure him to try his hand at it—because lie wants to show how easy it is. Tbc industrial classes in England would play golf-.,in their tons of thousands—just . as;-; rffee Scottish masses have played it fitQfi l time immemorial —if they had the opportunity. ' i

At a few places in England., Manchester, Liverpool, Tyne, Nottingham, Bournemouth, Brighton. Southport, New Brighton, and—in the London area—Epping Forest and Hainault, municipal golf has been provided. It has justified to the full the cost of launching it. At charges from sixpence to ra shilling a round, democracy pursued golf before the rear to the extent of 14.000 rounds a year at Chingford, 9000 rounds at Hainault —in spite of its Inaccessibility —and something like 15,000 rounds at Liverpool and Manchester. Probably the figures were bigger at Newcastle,- where the Town Moor

course is free, and on the two municipal courses at Bournemouth. The Bournemouth Corporation made a profit of £(100 a year on the Queen's Park course. • Even sc, golf ns a game for democracy is as yet in its infancy. It will ibe well {worth considering by local' authorities when 'the scheme of national construction gets under way.

“Whatever hours may be fixed -for the industrial Mmivmmliy. (hey will be shorter hours than they used to be,” said a prominent trade union- official to mo the other day. “And the Government will have to tackle the question of providing healthy recreation, for there will, be more hours of leisure to kill. In the summer, for instance, the workers will have long hours of day-

light. and their amusements will have

to be organised. We shall have no Bolshevism, if we have healthy diversions. ’ ’ No doubt it will be for the Ministry cf Health to attend to this matter. Why not public golf on an adequate scale? The person who has turned 30 is not, as a rule, inclined to engage in the more violent games; he wants a pastime at once absorbing and easygoing. Golf exactly suits him. That is the secret of its great rise. The Brighton Corporation showed what could bo done when, mainly in order to give work to the unemployed one winter, it laid out a public course at Hollingsbury Park, 25 minutes, tram car ride from, the sea front. The venture was such a success that within a year another 45 acres cf land had to be taken to extend the links. Golf at Bulwcll Forest has long been a favourite recreation of the Nottingham miners. And what has succeeded in a dozen places or so would not fail in others.