THE BLUE BIRD OF GOLF.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 246, 16 September 1929, Page 2

THE BLUE BIRD OF GOLF.

THE WORAIS THAT FRAY TEMPERS. ACID-DROP CURE. On hundreds of little plots of land near Bmgiey,- Yorkshire, tne Blue Bird of golf has (says a correspondent of the Sunday Despatch) made its home. It is searching for the worms and grubs that spoil the greens, and is going about its job so methodically that somo day perhaps golfers will never lose their tempers, will never swear, and, it may be, will never seek solace at the nineteenth. ,- To-day I found the keeper of the Blue Bird. He is Mr R. B. Dawson, a youthful-looking Master of Science who has been engaged by the Golf Unions of Great Britain to test existing turfs and possibly grow new ones. Mr Norman Hackett, honorary secretary of *t 1 10 Research Board, who motored me out to the test station, took with him flower-pots in which grew a peculiarly fine grass transplanted from “somewhere in Wales.” . “This grass,” ho said, “will be the grass of tho future for golfers. The stalks send out roots at each joint, and when the stalks are cut in a machine the joints may be sown broadcast. “Our research work was started little more than a month ago,” he added, “yet already we are being inundated with requests for information, not only from golf clubs but from cricket clubs as well. Who knows that in making golfers happy we shall not also help to solve the problem of how to brighten cricket!” Little divots were tested with chemicals for my benefit. Apparently it is farmland rich, in alkali winch turns future world-beaters at golf into prospective wife-beaters at home. Farmland nourishes coarse grasses and big weeds, and it abounds in earth-worms. Acid soil, on the other hand, is detested by earthworms, but favours tho-growth of fine grasses. At first sight, then, all that is required is to give puttiny-greens an acid-drop. But Air Dawson declined to be too optimistic. “That might take years,” ho said, “so that there is no hope of early reform in the temper and habits of golfers. The matter does not end with acids and earthworms.” Daddy-long-legs, moles and weedkiller are all apparently the enemies of the golfer. So it would seem that in the past the golfer has been misunderstood. His more lurid moments owe their origin to the activities of countless hidden enemies. He has everything against him. But the Blue Bird has come to bring him joy.