The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-05-01
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FIVE IN ONE

Golf constitutes five games in one ana perhaps that Is why the fasci- nating Scotch pastime Is five times more popular today than any other amateur sport.
 The five fundamentals in the or- der in which they usually are mas tered-or should I say attempted?- are the drive, the full iron play, the pitch with the mashie, the chin shot ana. last, but by no means least, the putt Now add to these fundamen- tals stance, grip, slice. spin. etc and you have a proposition which as sport Is at once replete with all most amazing ramifications for thrills that are incident to expert execution'in play. In all other sports there Is but one kind of club used while In golf each of the clubs con stftutes game in itself, though few players realize this fact forcefully enough to better their games very much thereby.
 Each club in golf has distinct purpose and each club will perform stunts which the other clubs will not do. It Is when the player has mas tered. to degree, all his clubs that he really becomes a scratch man. and in the degree that he masters all his clubs, not one or two of them, does he become really expert shooter on the links. Because none of us can ever master all these clubs abso- lutely. the game never ceases to abound in thrills, nor does custom stale the sport.
 Everything Playable
 In all other sports there are impos- sible situations of play. For instance in baseball the batsman cannot hit the pitched ball unless it crosses somewhere near the plato. The fielder cannot arrest the driven ball if 1t is beyond his limits of speed and reach. The fielder cannot pull them down when Babe Ruth wallops them to pastures well beyond the garden walls. But in golf every con dition of the ball, every situation with which the player is confronted must be played out-and can be played out successfully if the player can work out the combination of club, stance and swing for the shot
 The game, then, Is more than a sport-it is a puzzle as well as a pastime. Perhaps its astonishing growth in popularity is due to the fact that we like puzzles. But be- cause of the various departments of the game we see on a links curious ucNSlOpIHcHt Ol SKILL one man steps up to the tee and sends out a per fectly executed and far flying drive "A fine player" you think. But if you watched his game from then on you would see fine example of miserable golf until the player again stepped up to the tee. A good player with his driver. but hopeless with any other club in his bag. Plainly you could observe, all his golf had been concentrated on the one shot the drive, which is the spectacular department of the game but far from the decisive part.
 But all these players are learning Little by little this fine driver will become more expert with irons and butter, so that presently you will see his cards showing totals in the eighties or nineties If the thing could all be grasped in one season men and women would soon tire of it. It is the never ending quest for the solution to the shot-puzzle oi the links that draws tens of thou. sands of newcomers into the play each year. These are some of the reasons why more people play goli now than play all other sports com bined.
 It is really getting so now tha, the man Is queer indeed who de clares he cannot see what people find to amtse themselves in hitting a ball and then chasing after 1t" H< thinks the golfer Is nut and th< golfer wonders what he thinks with Like the gAme itself. the non. player in this era ts . puz&1e.