MEN VS. WOMEN GOLFERS

Transcription

1 MEN VS. WOMEN GOLFERS By JOHN ASHLEY PHOTOGRAPHS BY LEVICK Not Weakness But Lack of Delicate Control the Handicap of Our Sisters on the Links F YOU were asked why men play better golf than women your answer would probably be: because men are stronger than women. And that would be the truth, but only part of it. Possibly the difference in the effectiveness of the woman's and the man's game can, as some people claim, be traced directly to the length of shot, but the more one investigates the more he is led to qualify this conclusion. It becomes, on the whole, less reasonable to credit solely to muscular advantage the eight to nine strokes which, roughly, measure the handicap due from a man to a woman. In other words, if a man and a woman should happen to have an equal supply of strength and endurance, it seems that the man would turn out to be the better golfer. That is the question. It is certainly true that as we leave the lowest and approach the highest standard of golf the inequality in the games of either sex diminishes. For instance, in that famous match in England when Miss Cecilia Leitch played our present American champion, Mr. H. H. Hilton, to find out what odds a good man player should give a good lady player, off the tee Mr. Hilton's shots were surprisingly little longer than his opponent's, whereas with the brassie his shots were frequently equalled by the young English woman. Miss Leitch is, of course, a most unusual player. Although beaten in the British National Women's Tournament last year by the other favorite for the title, Miss Ravenscroft, Miss Leitch, in the International matches beat Miss Dorothy Campbell, the British champion, 4 and 2. She has had the best sort of training and appreciates as few women do the value of a perfected short game. Besides possessing head and a gift for golf, she is splendidly set up and very strong. The match between Miss Leitch and Mr. Hilton shows that it is possible for a woman to reach as high a standard of distance as is necessary for all but the rarest flights of play. Miss Leitch is said to have a driving record of two hundred and seventy-five yards. Whether this shot was made with a helpful gale on a downhill hole or not, we know that in her match with Mr. Hilton she found no trouble, while playing a fourhundred-yard hole, to reach the green in two. To show that Miss Leitch is not a solitary phenomenon, we have in our country a few lady players who can manipulate a two-hundred-yard drive with tolerable certainty. The first hole at Baltusrol is four hundred and sixty-three yards long with a trying bunker ready to catch the second shot if it fails to land the ball some four hundred yards away from the tee. During the Women's National Tournament, last October, Miss Hyde, the Metropolitan champion, and Miss Curtis, our National champion, carried this bunker on their second shots, not merely to prove that it was possible, but as a regular performance. Again and again Miss Hyde sent her second sailing over all obstacles up to within a short approach of the green. And in her match with Miss Harley, playing the extra hole, she threw some light on woman's endurance by sending out a drive and a brassie shot that aggregated nearly [193]

2 194 THE OUTING MAGAZINE MRS. M. D. PATTERSON Semi-finalist in the Women's 1911 Metropolitan Championship four hundred and twenty-five yards. As she had already played eighteen holes, this was not bad. Miss Campbell believes that Miss Hyde is one of the longest hitters among women players. Like Miss Leitch, Miss Hyde is very strong. But there are a number of other women who are little handicapped by inability to "get distance." Our present champion, Miss Margaret Curtis, is a long player, and so is Miss Anita Phipps, and our ex-champion, Miss Dorothy Campbell, though not a celebrated "hitter," played the six-thousand-yard Homewood course in the 1910 National tournament in the remarkably small number of seventy-eight strokes. The Metropolitan Championship at Scarsdale last year supplied proof that it is possible for at least one woman to play a man's game. In the semi-finals Miss Hyde met Mrs. M. D. Patterson, and, though she defeated the latter by the overwhelming scores of 8 and 6, Miss Hyde continued to play out the remaining holes. Her card reads as follows: Out In This is three strokes more than the amateur record for the course, and but for a heavy wind it is possible that Scarsdale would have had the distinction of having its amateur record held by a woman. Nevertheless, in spite of this feat, the low score of the qualifying round was, as is usual in women's tournaments, well up in the eighties. It was 88 and made by Miss Hyde, who made the 78 in the semi-finals. A few more records will indicate what women sometimes accomplish in the way of good scoring. Miss Dorothy Campbell in her match against Miss Anita Phipps at Baltusrol came home in twenty for the first five holes, the figures being: 3, 5, 4, 4, 4. This is only one stroke more than the score made on these same holes by Mr. Max Behr when he made the record for that course in the spring. For the same holes his card read: 4, 5, 4, 3, 3. Robert Gardner, the brilliant Yale player, when making the low medal score in the Intercollegiate tournament, played these holes in 4, 4, 4, 3, 4, and Albert Seckel, in his match against Mr. Heyburn, did them in 5, 5, 4, 4, 5, two strokes more than Miss Campbell found necessary. Without becoming too statistical, the distances for these holes might be given. They are: 225; 360; 262; 210; and 329 yards, respectively. About a month before the Women's National tournament was held at Baltusrol there took place on the same links the Intercollegiate tournament, and as some of our best men players, including Robert Gardner and Albert Seckel, then played the course we can gain from a comparison of scores a fair idea of the difference in the accomplishments of men and women players of the best class under similar conditions. Mrs. Barlow got the low medal score in the women's tournament by playing the 6,100-yard course in 87, which was eight points more than the score made

3 MEN VS. WOMEN GOLFERS 195 by Robert Gardner in the Intercollegiate. Some of the men who did the eighteen holes in 87 or less were: Albert Seckel, 81 ; George Stanley, Intercollegiate champion, 85; E. B. Jennings, 86; C. P. Eddy and T. F. Clarke, 87. These are all very good players, but they are not the highest ranking men. Yet to compare with their scores at Baltusrol, we find that the greatest women players can register only the following figures: Mrs. R. H. Barlow, 87; Miss Dorothy Campbell, 93; Miss Lilian Hyde, 95; Mrs. N. P. Rogers, 96; Miss Margaret Curtis, 96; Mrs. V. M. Earle, 99; Miss Anita Phipps, 99; Miss Eleanor W. Allen, 101, and Miss E. S. Porter, 102, while Miss H. S. Curtis, at that time the only woman in America to hold the honor of defeating Miss Campbell, used 105 shots to go from the first tee to the last cup. Various interesting comparisons can be made. For instance, Miss Campbell employed fourteen more strokes than Mr. Gardner, while our present champion took seventeen more, and the longhitting Misses Hyde and Phipps missed Mr. Gardner's score by sixteen and twenty points respectively. Before bidding good-bye forever to the monotony of arithmetic, a little more light might be thrown on the subject by comparing the scores made by the men with those made by the women on the first five holes, which include two long holes, two longish holes and a short hole. Their distances follow in order: 463, 376, 145, 488, and 300. Some of the ladies' cards for these holes read : Miss Hyde 6, 5, 4, 6, 4, and again 5, 4, 4, 7,5. Miss M. Curtis 6, 5, 4, 6 4, and 5, 5, 4, 7, 4. Miss Campbell 5, 6, 4, 8, 5, and 6, 7, 3, 6, 4. Miss Phipps 6, 6, 3, 6, 4, and 5, 5, 4, 5, 5. Some of the men played these as follows : Seckel 5, 4, 3, 4, 4, and 4, 4, 4, 6, 4. Gardner 5, 5, 4, 6, 5, and Stanley: 4, 4, 4, 5, 4. From these records we learn that the men outplayed the women by at least eight points and generally by more than that number; that on the long holes they averaged about one stroke better than the ladies, and that when the holes shortened this gain diminished, until on the short 145-yard hole the scores of the men and women varied in about equal proportions between 3s and 4s. These conclusions all appear to prove that to equal the scores made by men women lack only distance. But look a little deeper. With a 150-yard stroke at your command you could play Baltusrol in 85 if you were absolutely accurate and played your short game properly; under the same conditions, with a 175-yard distance under control, you might do it in 79, while if you were lucky enough to have a 200-yard shot in your repertoire you could conceivably play round MISS LILIAN B. HYDE A long driver but a poor putter

4 MRS. R. H. BARLOW Winner of the Low Score Medal in the Women's National last year in 75. None of these scores were equalled by any of the various contestants in the Women's championship, even when they were capable of the requisite amount of distance. Throwing off the hint that there has never been a woman champion billiard player, or a woman champion sharpshooter, or a woman champion surgeon, if there are champion surgeons, and that women have never defeated men in fields wherein extremely delicate, accurate, and controlled workmanship was demanded, we can proceed to that side of golf where something besides muscle admittedly plays the important part. In the first place, men have far greater game experience. They begin to play bat and ball games at an earlier age and thereby develop more thoroughly the "feel" of clubs and the fine eye that is necessary for success in such [196] games. There are all sorts of games that boys amuse themselves with from their earliest youth which give them eye. And when they take a golf club in their hands for the first time the essential act of concentrating their vision on the object to be struck is not a novelty. It is second nature. With a girl it is different. She has not daily played games that developed her eye, such as marbles, "scrub," hockey, snowballing, and target practice, games that are the constant avocations of bipeds who practice the profession of being boys. And yet one of the greatest of women golfers assures me that women have shown in tournaments more concentration of the eye than men and that only last fall this fact was proved. It appears that a computation was made both at the Men's championship and the Women's which proved

5 MISS DOROTHY CAMPBELL Who has done a six-thousand-yard course in 78 that the women missed their drives less often than the men. Both this player and another of championship caliber maintained that men missed their drives more often because less depended on them. They could more easily remedy a mistake off the tee by an extra long second. Some other conclusions which were reached by these two players in discussing the difference between men and women golfers are enlightening. Both believe that women are as consistent as men and that all they lack is strength. Calling the woman's best score 84 and the man's 73, they debited eight strokes to woman's inability to "get distance" and suggested that the other three might be accounted for by lack of endurance. They further agreed that the full iron or cleek is woman's weakest shot," and that she constantly found herself a brassie shot instead of a mashie away from the hole because her second and third shots were so greatly handicapped by enforced shortness. The second shot would be played short in order not to go into the bunker, and the third because, in order not to be "caught" by the bunker, it was necessary to play a lifting club instead of a brassie or cleek. If the hole were a medium hole she might make up this loss by approaching, as it were, with a brassie, but if it were a long hole it meant a permanent sacrifice of from one to two strokes on account of lack of power. Experienced women players should understand the shortcomings of their game better than a man, and no doubt they do, but as I have been rash enough [197]

6 198 THE OUTING MAGAZINE MISS ANITA PHIPPS A strong player through the fair green, but weak in putting to suggest, women have never equalled the controlled delicacy of handling of men in other fields, and perhaps they can't control the putter or lay an approach dead as well as men do. We know that in the finals at Baltusrol Miss Hyde used thirty-seven puts for fifteen holes. Of course this is the record of a player almost as celebrated for her bad putting as for her long playing. Take, for instance, this player's qualifying round and we find that she took three puts on the first hole, and on the second, after a beautiful drive, she again took three, and once more on the third, after reaching the green with her drive, she added three puts. Against Miss Harley Miss Hyde had another attack of three-putting, on one occasion missing her first put by about twelve feet. But Miss Hyde is not unique. Glance at the match in which Miss Campbell lost to Miss Curtis. Miss Campbell took three puts at the second and lost it thereby. At the third, after driving within fifteen feet of the hole, Miss Curtis took three more. They both used three puts on the sixth. The seventh Miss Curtis lost by requiring three puts, and in the same way she lost a half on the eighth, while at the ninth persistent "afteryou" politeness resulted in their each taking four from the edge of the green to the cup. Such putting is not characteristic of lady's play, which can easily be proved by the way Miss Curtis putted coming home, by the way Miss Porter putted in her match against Miss Bishop, and by other examples, but, on the other hand, it is hard to imagine a Travis or a Hilton flopping into a siege of using three puts. No one is free from the possibility of an attack of nerves on the putting green, and Mr. Hilton himself had such an attack in the British finals, where several times he missed very short puts. But the fact remains that in our Men's National tournament there was much less excess putting than in our Women's. Women ought to approach and put better than men, for the reason that it is in those departments that they more surely can improve. But even as they have not had other training to prepare them for golf, in the same way they are not as liable to have the habit of practicing as men. It is much more fun to play golf than to practice putting and approaching, but when the long game is limited there is an obligation to make oneself pluperfect in the short game. Women do not always recognize this obligation. Finding themselves at a disadvantage with the driver, the brassie, and the cleek, they do not set out to make mere man look like a dub

7 MEN VS. WOMEN GOLFERS 199 with the mashie and the putter. This is why they do not make up some of the ground lost in the long game. There is, too, the psychological effect of feeling that you are not strong. Nowhere does this feeling trouble one so much as in the full iron shots where lies the woman golf player's greatest weakness. The full iron shot arises either because the lie is not suited to a wooden club, or because the distance is not suited to it. In both cases the girl has a preliminary handicap. A bad lie means added concentration, and the girl, not having as good an eye as the man, finds this added concentration an extra strain on her confidence. This same inferiority of eye makes her less capable of judging distance accurately, and even where she has enough muscle she has not that helpful sense of reserve force. She is more liable to feel that she must put all her strength into the shot, and thence arises the temptation to press and overswing. If she succumbs she will naturally fail to MISS MARGARET CURTIS Women's National Champion and a better player than most men where length is needed

8 200 THE OUTING MAGAZINE pick her ball "sweetly" from a bad lie, and she will also fail to obtain that accuracy of distance, depending not on strength but on perfect timing and judgment. Correct timing is the greatest rival muscle ever had, and the girl's common fault of overswinging most easily defeats it. A little summary of the situation might be timely. Perhaps about two-thirds of the handicap now due to a woman from a man ought to be allowed to muscular difference. The other third might be eliminated by women if they played their irons as well as they should. They might overcome their putting and approaching deficiencies if they would remember that just because they are handicapped in terrific hitting they ought to give all the more attention to the short game. In this way they could overcome the natural advantages which men have in eye training. In taking long-distance iron shots women should simply forget whether they are Samsons with or without hair and make up their minds to hit cleanly and time correctly, no matter how slender their wrists may happen to be. They should study playing with reserve force and control, especially where they feel that they are not quite equal to the shot. They will wake up to find that they are equal to it. Men, of course, have an advantage in being stronger in the wrists, an advantage which, however, need not worry a woman into flubbing her iron so frequently. There are about four shots which the ladies present to the men, two, let us say, because they do not use their eyes as well as men, and two because they allow the fact that they are not as strong as men to be a mental drawback. Thus, taking the difference at 11 instead of 8, leaves a liberal seven for distance. But it seems as if the best women ought to play within four or even three strokes of the best men, and at their present rate of progress they will. That is certain to be the case if they pay greater attention to their short game.