Evening star., 1933-03-12
BY BOBBY JONES,


The only man who ever held the American
amateur and open championships and Brit
ish amateur and open championships IN
one year.
VERY interesting letter from
~ Myles Coen Of New York City
~ discusses quite intelligently a
problem of vital importance to
all golfers, because it SO closely affects
the progress which the game is likely to
make in future years. Coen points to
the very vague popular conception Of
the meaning of the term "golf pro-
fessional," and asserts that he knows
eases Of men being paid as golf in
structors who could not rate, as anna
teurs, better than Is handicap" His
contention in short is that some meth
cd of licensing or certifying the profess
sionals who know their business would
help create a new title which would dis
tinguish them from those who are pro-
fessionals merely by reason Of not being
amateurs.
The present notion of what is re-
Quired to make a man professional
SUjleI may Uc ali llklll NiCWCO
from the amateur side. 1t is that per-
son who has made money out of golf
directly or indirectly and by so doing
becomes ineligible for amateur compe-
tition is ipso facto a professional. But
what should the professionals say about
that? Would a person who received
fee for making title abstract or draft
ing a contract, or for writing prescrip-
ton, automatically become lawyer or
a doctor. without being required to
prove other qualifications? For the
protection CT the public to whom they
offer themselves as instructors, should
not a golf professional be required to
exhibit certification from competent
authority that he is qualified to teach?
p. C. A. Giving Problem Study.
OBVIOUSLY. the competent author
~ ity should be the Professional
Golfers Association, and the men
at the head of this body have for some
time been mindful of this problem and
Of their responsibility in connection
with it. They are able to command the
best golfers and the best instructive
thought in the country. Why are not
they the logical ones to examine a
mans qualifications and say whether or
not, judged by reasonable standards,
he is competent to practice his and their
profession?
The average person distrusts any
kind of instruction because he feels that
instruction is useless in anything upon
which there is said to be so much dis
agreement among experts and teachers.
AS matter of fact, the extent of this
disagreement among competent author
tiles is by no means so great as is gen.
orally believed. The appearance OF
chaos has been fostered to a large ex-
tent by the utterances Of the very in
competents which procedure OF this
kind would discredit.
Before any real good can be done by
the P. G. A. it must have the complete
confidence of the golfing public The
organization has been striving hard to
merit this confidence in order to be able
to perform the functions which Coen
suggests. But no matter how sincerely
the work may be done. it can have no
effect until any certificate which might
be issued will be accepted by the public
as real. honest-to-goodnesS evidence Of
competence.
Camera Reveals Fundamentals.
THE high-speed motion picture camera
i has made possible the accurate anal
ysis of the golf swing. BY examin-
ing the swings of numbers of first-rate
players, it has been possible to find GER
tain movements which, because they are
repeated in the swings of so many sue
cessful players. can be regarded as fun
damentals. There Is no reason for any
important difference of opinion in re-
spect to these, although all instructors
and writer's may not choose exactly the
same words to describe the movements.
But the knowledge and understanding
of these fundamentals could very safely
be used. as Coen suggests, as yard
stick with which to measure the COM
parative soundness of an instructors
ideas"