GOLF.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 101, 6 August 1910, Page 3

GOLF.

TOWNS MADE BY THE GAME. AMAZING FIGURES. '. 'Rubbers may come and oils may go, but golf looks like going on for ever | (says Mark Allerton, editor of the World of Golf). A pleasant exercise for a poor man is to provide himself with a very large sheet of paper and a well-sharpened pencil, and to do golf sums. On the most moderate basis it will lie found that the amount spent on golf in a year reaches many millions. But it i.s indirectly that golf statisticians caiji arrive at the biggest sums. The oAtiw day I visited an estate that is beiiag, <Jeveloped near Beckenham. The promoters first of all laid out a golf course. Thousands of pounds were spent on its formation. J. H. Taylor was called in as architect, and to Peter the greatest of all green-keepers, was [ entrusted the laying-t>uit of the greens. A fine old mansion was bought, and serves as a clubhouse. The promoters saw further possibilities. Houses were built, streets were driven through Kentish woods, shops are springing up, and to-day London has ia new suburb, and alt 'because of golf. Not very long ago there were dotted round our coasts tiny hamlets frequented only by the most enterprising, of holi-day-makers. To-day our coasts are bulwarked with golf links, and there have sprung up great hotels and spacious hoarding-houses and streets of shops, all for the benefit of the übiquitous golfor. The sums spent by individual clubs ai«. no' criterion of the amount of money that is spent on golf. ■ Take the Cinque Ports Club at TM'--£3OOO is spent yearly on the upkeep of this club. The bill for seed aiid other green-keeping incidentals reaches about £3OO a year. The green fees of visitors amount to nearly £750. But to arrive at the true figure one would have to examine the books of ■the great hotelkeepers and shopkeepers, i of the railway companies, of the restaurants, and pleasure-seekers. It costs *1 a. \ve»k to play at Deal, but it cosis at the very least £3 3s to live there, n.nd so one's figures must be j multiplied and multiplied again. These sidelights on golf statistics are! the most surprising of all. For example, I understand that no fewer than 20,000 lunches are served every year to the members of the Mid-Surrey Club! One might imagine that it is in London alone that the large figures are reached, for mv sheet of paper hints that over £150,000 is spent yearly by Londoners on their game. But a statistician in the north has been at work, and has discovered that there are more than 14,000 club members in Yorkshire. Allowing that 1000 of these are members of more than one cluh, the number is brought down to 1>3,000. At £lO a head —a far too moderate estimate—Yorkshire golfers spend at least £130,000 a year on golf, Okft Tesult of all this is that the modern' golfer is becoming particular. He will no longer be content with the wood and galvanised iron clubhouse of his forefathers.

The ißoyaJ ancl Ancient used to meet in the Union Parlor, which cost the club about £5 ia year. To-day London infers lunch at Burhill, where Queen Elizabeth used to lunch, at Eiltham Lodge, which was built bv Henry VIII., and the Chislehurst Club haa its home in the mansion where the last Napoleon died. To-day in these islands we have no fewer than 2300 links, and 700,000 players, but that is counting only private clubs. Municipalities are realising more and more the power of this wonderful game, and Glasgow, Edinburgh, Bournemouth, Brighton and so on, have their public links, where the number of players are as the sand of the seashore, for they cannot 'be numbered. London itself has recognised the value of this game, and the Hainualt Forest is a course which, if almost inaccessible, is nevertheless valued by thousands of golfers. Brighton finds that municipal golf is able to relieve the nates to the extent of nearly £.150 a year. Glasgow's, revenue amounts to about £ 1200 a year, and Edinburgh collects over £I2OO from its public courses. These municipalities wisely do not : reckon the value of golf according to the actual receipts alone. Bournemouth has two capital public links, which pay for their cost and leave something over, but this sum does not nearly represent the value of golf to Bournemouth. At least 23 *per cent, of the visitors to BourneMouth go there for its excellent golf. The holiday resort that has not its golf course—if such a place does exist—need make no bid for popularity.

NOTES. A good golf score was made recently on the links at Kaiapoi by Mr. Geo. Miller, who made the home hole, 150 yard®, in one stroke. This is the second record" made within a month. The Ngamotu ladies defeated the Hawera ladies on the Ngamotu links yesterday. Miss PercynSmith replaced Miss Read in the home team. Another round, in the men's championship and the junior scratch competition will be played at the Ngamotu links to-day. Reg. George has won the club presented by Mr. W. Perham for 'breaking the nine holes of the CJarrington Road links in 50. George did the round in 49. Perham, George, Broome, Schnackenburg and (Renal! are the most promising men of the new club.