Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1917 — MAKING GOOD AT GOLF [ARTICLE]

MAKING GOOD AT GOLF

Bab Players Succumb to Lure of Scottish Sport. , * < & Several Excellent Golfers Recruited From Ranks of Diamond Stare— John Ward and Arthur Shafer Are Most Prominent.

That a good baseball player may also be a good golfer -is being provedwith increasing frequency as more and more ball players succumb to the lure of the royal, and .ancient game in their leisure hours. Several excellent golfers have been recruited from the ranks of the stars of the diamond and there are said to be many more in the process of development, for it takes time to develop a golfer. Two names stand out when the golfing ball players are named. One is the veteran, John Montgomery Ward, manager of the Giants more than a score of years ago, and the other is Arthur Shafer, who played with the Giants only a few seasons back. Both Ward and Shafer are amateur golfers, having been formally reinstated by the United States Golf association after ’producing legal proof that they had forsaken professional sport, and swearing that they did not intend to return to it at any time in the future. Both are good golfers, too, and a meeting between them would be an interesting struggle. Ward plays his golf right in the metropolitan district and generally disposes of one or two of the younger stars in every tournament which he enters. Shafer is a member of a California club and is rated at five on the handicap list of the Southern California Golf association. He has. been a prominent figure in recent tourneys on the Pacific coast, although he has been playing golf only a couple of years. Everybody knows that Christy Mathewson plays golf and does pretty well at the game, although he is far from being in the class with Ward and Shafer. Chief Bender is about on a par with Matty, although he is said to be extremely erratic, paying well one day and wretchedly the next. Among the managers—not counting Matty, who is so young a manager that he needn’t be grouped with them yet— Connie Mack and Hugh Jennings are the most aydent golfers, and John McGraw has tried to play the game two or three times, with what success no one knows who was not with him on those occasions.

Two great batters who play golf and play it as they bat —left hand — are Tyrus Cobb and Eddie Collins. Grover Cleveland Alexander of the Phillies has a habit of preparing for a ball game by indulging in a round qf the links, and others of lesser fame with similar habits are Charles Dooin, Hans Lobart, Harry Davis, Sherwood Magee, Jack Lapp, Jimmy Walsh, Earl More, Otto Knabe, George McQuillan, and among the veterans Adrian C. Anson, who, like Ward and ‘Shafer, has been reinstated by the United States Golf association.