Acclimatising Golf

LET us now consider the early development of a game which at one time was thought to be only for the leisured and well-to-do, but now has the interest of many thousands. In this it resembles the original status of the game in Scotland, its country of origin.

To those who think that golf is a comparatively recent growth, it may seem surprising that golf has been played in New Zealand for almost seventy years. It was no accident that Dunedin became the cradle of New Zealand golf, for at that time it was still in the main a Scottish game. When the game was started in Dunedin, on a 9-hole course on the Town Belt at Mornington, it was still practically unknown in England. But one Englishman who helped to spread it was the Rev. Isaac Henry Gosset, one of the pioneers of the famous Westward Ho! golf club in Devon, who deserves special notice in New Zealand, since he was the father of Dr. George Gosset, a pioneer of the game in New Zealand, and amateur champion in 1895.

The pampered golfer of to-day would be inclined to sneer at the facilities for golf on the ‘But’ at Dunedin in 1872. The old ‘gutty’ (gutta percha) ball of those days was vastly inferior to the high-velocity ball of to-day, and it was im­possible for even the mightiest hitter to get any­thing approaching the same length with it as the big hitters command to-day. The ‘gutty,’ however, was at least a more tractable object. It did not slice or hook to the extent that the modern ball does.

Clubs were of weird and assorted shapes. Here rugged individualism had a chance to assert itself. There were no golf bags. Players carried their clubs under their arms, and this gave them a delightfully casual appearance as they sauntered about the course.

New Zealand’s first ‘nineteenth hole’ was the small room which the members of the first Dunedin golf club obtained from a Mr. Fogarty, who had a hotel on the corner of Meadow Street, near their course. Unfortunately Fogarty left. In the meantime vicissitudes had befallen the club. Cows at first were permitted to graze on the course, a practice which had certain advantages, but was not conducive to good greens. The members thereupon approached the Town Council and were able to wield sufficient influence to have the cows kept off the course. But then the club’s troubles began. The grass got out of hand, and efforts to provide for golf by cutting narrow strips of ‘fairway’ did not succeed. Too many balls were lost, and enthusiasm waned. By the time it revived Fogarty had sold his hotel, another landlord had taken over and gone bankrupt, and the hotel and all it contained had been sold up. The clubs left on the premises were tied in a bundle and knocked down to a Mr. Bills for £, 1. There was not much demand for golf clubs in those days. When the revival of the club was mooted by the brothers Howden a year or two later, C. R. Howden unearthed the clubs in a shed, but by that time they were twisted and useless. Balls too were subject to rapid depreciation. While the club was at Mornington a member imported a gross of balls from England, but by the time they arrived play had stopped. Some years later the club resumed in the paddocks overlooking the Roslyn woollen mills, but by that time the balls had perished and flew into pieces when hit. Such were the trials of golfers in the days of the ‘gutty.’