San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-01-07
1T DOESN'T FOLLOW
THAT ALL BASEBALL
PLAYERS CAN GOLF
Some Few Play Well, but
Nest of Them HaUen't
Enough Patience. .
By JOHN B. FOSTER.

Copyright, 1928, by The San Antonio Light.
New York, Jan. 6--The man who
said that all ball players would make
good golfers favored the ball players
too much. Maybe he had an idea that
they should make good golfers simply
because they were ball players. 1t
doesn't follow, however, that all ball
players are accomplished athletes sim
ply because they play baseball well.
There are some ball players who can
play golf; not in the sense OF just 60
ing out and swinging at ball, but
playing it like golfers. Heinie Zim-
norman would have made a capital
golfer if he had stuck TO it and not be-
come mixed with professional baseball
and probably he would have been
better off. He had a beautiful swing
and he drove out those long, power
full liners that just clear the ground.
He had the delicate touch Of the good
putter and handled n golf club as if it
were a portrait painters brush.
Babe Ruth is a fair golfer in his
way. He never is likely TO be as great
a golfer as he is great as a hOme-run
hitter. He can whale q golf ball with
his left-hand swing and he likes TO see
the ball travel. Because he likes so
much to make it travel he is not as
good q golfer as he might be, for he has
no patience with his short game. Ruth
would prefer that the game be all
drives. The holes should be about five
miles apart and there should be only
two of them, one at the start and the
other at the finish. That would make
it purely a driving game and make him
happy. He takes a tremendous swing
at the ball exactly as he takes one at a
baseball. He almost invariably hooks
his long shots, and, since a left-hand
golfer almost invariably slices, some
idea can be had of the swing Ruth uses
and how he turns the face of his club
in to drag the ball toward him in
stead of sloping it out.
Mathewson could go around n course
fairly well after he had mastered some
of the shots and he was as methOdical
about playing golf as he was about
pitching. He studied out many of the
shots before he tried them. This was
due to trait in MathewsOn always TO
try 10 learn first principles. He studied
his fade-away until he thought it out
and when he tried to master bridge he
undertook to get at the first principles
of whist and studied up the table OF
chances to see what show he might have
to make bids on his hand.
Chief Bender. who managed the
Reading (Pa.) Club last year, possibly
would make the best of all baseball
golfers if you could get him TO apply
himself TO the game. The Chief couldn't
grub through golf if he tried. He
would lose interest in the game at once.
He wants TO get out on the course and
play it just as it happens. II he is
bunkered. all right. That is part of
the game. He wouldn't stop and study
out a shot to try TO keep from being
bunkered il he never played another
game. because that would be hard work.
1t isn't likely that he gives as much at
tention to his golf game as he did TO
trying to master curves and a change
of pace but that was bread and but
ter to him and he absolutely refuses
to play golf that way. He gets in and
shoots the very best that he can AMI
he accepts the outcome of the shot with
perfect equanimity whether he lands on
] the green or hits the ball into the
rough. If he played golf with any seri'
BUSINESS he might be a champion Of some
kind.