GOLF.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1921, Page 11

GOLF.

Mr. Lloyd George has stated that golf is the greatest boon that Scotland has given to the world. Golf has been described as a “continual struggle to overcome one’s natural tendencies,” and the temptation to lift the head in the short approach is sufficiently strong in itself to render this description true. Golf is pedestrianism with a plot.

Golf is the leisure of the man of business, and the business of the man of leisure.

A doctor lias said that golf is the most mental ball game in the world, inasmuch as it involves a more intellectual process than tennis or any other pastime in which a flying ball is concerned.

When a golf ball is lying still it necessitates a more complex method of thinking than the automatic brain action attending the tennis ball in motion. '

The remedy for all ills given ft man is golf. You can play golf every day in the year, rain or shine. You can play golf when the links are lightly covered with snow, by using red painted balls. If you haven’t time to get to the links, you can play mashie shots in the back garden, or, if the back garden is too small for that, you can practise swings with a cork or captive ball. You can play golf when you are eight and when youvire eighty. You can play it on your holidays, and you can play it anywhere in the world.

“Bogey” never cheats or quarrels, he is an ideal opponent, always courteous and even-tempered. He can encourage without luring you on by false praise. Perhaps it is’not sufficiently realised that everything below the left shoulder is club shaft, and that, as.it would be absurd to have a hinge in the hickory stick, so the left elbow joint should, for the purpose of golfing, be kept quite taut; if it be permitted to bend at all, the bend should be constant, like the warp in a good putter shaft, all through the stroke.

Sir Herbert Tree, the famous actor, plays golf, but he cannot be described as an enthusiastic golfer. As to the stories of his play —well, here’s a story that was told nie recently: “On one occasion when Sir Herbert Tree was in very bad form, and after a very poor shot,, he turned to his caddy and said, I believe I am the worst player in this club.’ The caddy scratched his head thoughtfully. YVell,’ he said, T have just come here, an’ I dunno as I knows ’em all, but from wott the other chaps tell me, and from wo-tt I’ve seen of you. there s one man ye might beat.’ ‘Who’s that? Sir Herbert Tree asked with restrained earnestness. ‘Well, I’ve never seen him, but ’is name is Tree.’ ” It is a good plan with every club, to fix a spot a couple of yards ahead of where the ball lies, over which it should go to get to the place at which it is desired that it should come to rest, and to devote great attention to starting the ball off over the spot, leaving the question of strength to the sub-conscious knowledge or instinct that is required by practice, and practice alone. ‘Do not let the backward swing be too long,’ and have to say as a lady once did, “I think we all swing too far back, whilst she thoughtfully and carefully rubbed her left heel.