Lessons from Abroad.

The visits of American golfers and Canadian schoolboy athletes have opened our eyes to the reasons why New Zealand is lagging behind in those sports of individual achievement.

Golf is now revealed to us as something as exacting as billiards or bridge in the demands it makes on its devotees. Here in New Zealand for many years the golfer has been almost a man apart (even the most amateurish of him) in his desire to fathom the theoretical mysteries of his remarkable game. Remarkable is truly the word for to the non-golfer the club and the ball can never appeal as anything but unnecessary complications of walking exercise, tending to destroy all the benefits of strolling by their effect on the temper of the stroller. The golfer will devote to unravelling the mysteries of grip and swing and to discussions of the mechanics of both, time which, when given by anyone else to any other sport, he is the first to deplore.

And yet with it all, our standard is so low. The Americans have shown that golf is a matter of deeds, not words. And by deeds they mean practice, practice, practice of individual shots, or with individual clubs till the whole world is just a whirling weariness of wood and iron with white spots dancing before the eyes. The reward of it all, as witnessed in the ease and achievement of a Sarazen is something to behold. There was truth in a cryptic remark I heard the day Sarazen played at Miramar. “Sarazen is the most ill-mannered player I have ever seen. He does not even say ‘Good Day’ to the ball.” The painfully prolonged address of such a good player as Drake made the meaning clear.

The desire is here not accompanied by the fierce will to achieve that makes the Americans what they are. If our amateurs had that will they could be among the world's best for their achievement in the absence of it is excellent, as Sarazen emphatically bears witness.

There is one other condition, however, that is an even greater handicap than the lack of practice—opportunity for continuous competition in first-class company. Our professionals are the great sufferers from this. There is no doubt that Sarazen was sincere in his expressed opinion that given the opportunities for match play enjoyed by professionals in America, Andy Shaw would be a world figure in golf.

The Canadian schoolboys read us much the same lesson. It is not that by nature they have been better equipped for athletic success than our own. Very few who saw young Limon, for instance, run his great quarter in 50 2-5 secs. on the Basin Reserve, Wellington, were aware that in New Zealand we have a boy between whom and Limon the only difference is knowledge of how to run a race. Young Sayers, of Auckland, who was such a close second to Limon in Melbourne, would on Limon's own admission have run the Canadian into the ground if he had only known anything at all about running a quarter. And Sayers is not by himself, for two other boys finished between Limon and he at Auckland.

The Canadian boys apart from Richardson and, perhaps, Jansen are not outstanding, by word of standards, for humans of their age. But to us they are outstanding as an example of what proper coaching and, by the boys themselves, desire to excel and intelligent effort to that end can achieve. Young Jansen, the high jumper, is wonderful evidence of what the individual himself can do. He has never had real coaching. Dissatisfied with the 5ft. 2in. (which was the best he could do using the natural scissors style) he, with the aid of books and photographs, made a study of high jumping. His present record of 6ft. 1 in. is the result of his own efforts—the intelligent practice of what he read and saw.

[No sooner had this been written than Arthur Duncan went round Here-taunga in 67. So far, however, from that effort being a reply to all my criticism it is but confirmation. No one more than Mr. Duncan has taken seriously in all its phases the game in which he excels. The world over he has but one peer, the Hon. Michael Scott, and these two are the grand counter by mature age to the cry that modern golf is a preserve of flaming youth.]

“Cigarettes are superseding cigars in this country,” remarks the New York Times. It's the same story in New Zealand, where the sale of cigars, even the cheaper qualities, is steadily dwindling. Like the Yanks, we smoke prodigious quantities of cigarettes (in proportion to population). Nevertheless and notwithstanding, the pipe, with us, is more than holding its own. It's true that the coarser brands of tobacco are not nearly so much in request as formerly. The demand now is for brands of a better—but not necessarily a more expensive grade, with less nicotine in them. In a word smokers are at last waking up to the fact that nicotine is a menace and must be cut out. Hence the overwhelming success of “New Zealand Toasted,” which, quite moderate in price, combines flavour and bouquet with practically complete immunity from risk. The effect of toasting is magical!—it gets rid of the nicotine! The genuine toasted brands are five in number: Cut Plug No. 1 (Bullhead), Navy Cut No. 3 (Bulldog), Cavendish, Desert Gold and Riverhead Gold.*

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