Forged Golf Irons

Golfers From Other Sports 1917

Fore!

That a good baseball player may also be a good golfer is being proven with increasing frequency as more and more baseball players succumb to the lure of the ancient and honorable golf game in their leisure hours.

Some excellent golfers have been recruited from the ranks of the stars of the diamond, and many others are in the process of development, for it takes time to develop a golfer.

Two names stand out when golfing ballplayers are mentioned. One is the veteran John Montgomery Ward, manager of the Giants more than a score of years ago, and the other is Arthur Shafor, who played with the McGraw machine only a few years ago. Both men are amateur golfers, having been formally reinstated by the United States Golf Association after having given proof that they had permanently forsaken the ranks of professional sport and swearing they did not intend to return to it at any time in the future.

Both are good golfers, and a meeting between them would prove an interesting struggle. Ward generally disposes of several of the younger stars in each tournament he enters. Shafor is now a member of the California club and is rated at 5 on the national handicap list. He has been a prominent figure in all of the recent coast tournaments.

Everyone knows that Christy Mathewson plays golf and does pretty well at the game, although he is far from being in the class of Ward and Shafor. Chief Bender is absent in Matty’s class. He is said to be extremely erratic, playing a strong game one day and a wretched one the next. Among the managers, John McGraw, Connie Mack and Hughie Jennings are enthusiastic golfers, and it is being planned to lure Charles Comlskey into the ranks this year. Two great ballplayers who play golf as they bat — left-handed — are Tyrus Cobb and Eddie Collins.

A King’s Hole In One

How King George, when golfing some years ago holed out in one — into a cow’s ear – is disclosed by Sir Theodore Andrea Cook, editor of Field, in a new book published in London.

He relates that some time ago he published in Field the following story: “A distinguished golfer in Scotland who had just played his approach shot was distressed to see his ball hit a cow. He walked up, but the hall was nowhere to be seen. Shaking her head more in sorrow than in anger, the offended quadruped moved forward and then dropped the sphere upon the green out of her left ear.”

The story at the time was received with derision, and now Sir Theodore, in his book, reveals the identity of the distinguished golfer.