GOLF.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 160, 23 November 1912, Page 7

GOLF.

The last English mails brings particulars of the match-play rounds in the News of the World golf tournament, which, after the open championship, is the most important golf competition of the year in Great Britain. On the opening day E. Ray (open champion) was given a great fright by Willie Watt, the Scottish champion. Watt, playing with remarkable confidence, was up with Ray from almost evety tee. He swings his club at an alarming pace, faster than Duncan, though not nearly so elegantly, and he drives a tremendous ball. Ray was never more than one up, waa thrice one down, and lost one so late as the 17th, which left them all square. The last hole was halved in 4, after two fine approach putts, and so the pair went on to the 19th. This, the first hole (over again) is well over 500 yards long, and for the-third time during the day Ray was on the green in 2 and down in 4, a heart-breaking repetition for a youthful opponent, such as was Watt, who played an indifferent second, failed to hole his third putt, and gave up the match. Still, he had made Ray put his pipe away, which is an almost un-heard-of thing for the champion. On the same day Jack White (an ex-cham-pion) had the mortification to be beaten by F. C. Gadd, a strip of a boy. George Duncan was beaten by Harry Vardon by 4up and 3. Vardon was just Vardon, and Duncan bv no means himself.

When Mr. John Ball was practising at Westward Ho! for the recent British amateur championship (which, by the way, he won for the eighth time), an ardent admirer who had never seen the veteran, approached one of the caddies. "Is Mr. Ball playing in this match?" he asked in a whisper.^ "No." replied the caddie.

"Isn't that him?" queried the stranger, clearly indicating the champion. " 'lm," said the caddie, not without a measure of contempt. "That's an old gentleman they took in to make up the number!"

We all know that if the opponent's ball is on the lip of the hole you may knock it away, giving it to him as holed out in the next stroke as soon as you have holed your own ball. What happened in a rather puzzling case the other day was that A, playing in a foursome with B as his partner, holed a very long putt; and B, who was standing close to the hole, at once and before A could arrive at the hole knocked away (presumably acting under the aforesaid rule) the hall of C and D, the opponent pair, which was on the hole's brink. Had he a right to do so? The question was raised at once by C and D. Xobody doubts that A himself, the player, had the right to knock the other ball away when he came to the hole, but the question is whether his partner had the right to do so. My own notion (says a writer in au exchange) is that A and B in such a ca.ie are to be considered, like the old idea of husband and wife, as one in the eye of the law. and that the right obviously conceded to A belonged to B also; but it seems very open to argument. At all events there has been a deal of argument one way and the other about it, and it is still going on.