On Combining Tennis and Golf

Some Difficulties, and Advantages, of Playing Both Games at the Same Time

MARY K. BROWNE

EDITOR'S NOTE: No woman in America is better qualified to point out the difficulties or benefits, in gaining a great proficiency in both tennis and golf than is Mary K. Browne. Miss Browne, it will be remembered, was for three years, our National Tennis Champion. She was also runner-up in the National Golf Championship 1924.

MISS JOYCE WETHERED recently expressed her intention of withdrawing from golf competitions in order to devote more of her time to tennis. She has always played tennis well hut never in serious competitions. If during 1926, Miss Wethered decides to enter the English tennis tournaments, her progress in them will be followed with great interest.

Cyril Tolley, one of the greatest amateurs ever to play golf in England, has definitely renounced his golf in favor of tennis; on the ground that golf is hardly a strenuous enough game to keep him fit.

Norman Brooks, has always combined the two games and played fine rounds of golf in his spare moments during tennis competitions. He 'S now devoting the major part of his time to golf.

Speaking for myself, 1 may say that I took up golf after an unusually strenuous tennis season, because I was "fed up" on tennis; had gone completely stale on it, and felt no enthusiasm for the game. I felt that I needed a new sport. 1 found golf not only a splendid change but discovered that the problem of playing the two games concurrently was a fascinating problem. 1 think 1 have enjoyed both games more kcenlv since I began dividing my time and affections between them. 1 am sure that Miss Wethered and Mr. Tolley will come back to their golf—even if they do not play it in competitions—with renewed interest and enthusiasm.

It is interesting to learn that many of the great champions abroad still play both games, but play them merely for pleasure regarding them simply, as two logical and pleasurable interests in life. Games like golf and tennis naturally conduce to good health; but either of the two games can be overdone. Champions in one game alone are drawn into so many competitions that they become bored with their chosen sport. It is then that the need for exercise and diversion drives them into another sport. I was driven from tennis into golf in this same way, and my experience has convinced me that the two games are wholly congenial.

There is only one theory which I have ever heard advanced to show that tennis is bad for one's golf and that is the old argument of "too much right hand." Manv successful golf professionals maintain that one should use one's left hand to hit and the right hand merely to guide the club. 1 believe that these professionals have secured successful results with their pupils in spite of that theory, rather than by its practical application. The correct golf stroke, to my mind, requires just as much right hand as left, and the muscular development and control of the right—acquired as the result of strenuous play in tennis—docs not prevent the right hand from being a great asset in golf. However, the majority of people, whether they play tennis or not, have developed their right hand more than their left. Their ideal combination in golf is the absolute coordination of the two hands and not the use of one hand more than the other. If there is a tendency for the right to overpower the left then 1 would suggest that the golicr take up exercises to strengthen the left hand rather than try to cut down on the power of the right. However if the right hand is a trusted member of your anatomy, no matter how much strength is on tap, it will only apply as much as its master, the brain, permits it to apply. In tennis, its strength is withheld or unleashed at will; so why, simply because it is asked to assume a new grip in golf should it suddenly become obstreperous and bully the left. Tennis right hands are well disciplined and know perfectly well how to behave when properly directed by the brain. So, don't worry about your strong right hand. Simple bring up the efficiency of your left a little, and you will be equipped with the most necessary part of a perfect golf machine; a pair of good hands.

Only last year, while I was practising for a golf tournament on Tong Island a champion woman golfer had arrived there from California and called on her golf professional, Ernest Jones, at the Woman's National Golf Club, to straighten out her drive. She was hooking badly and thought she had acquired the hook as the result of indulging in a few matches of tennis; advancing the same old theory of too much right hand. The following day, while taking a golf lesson, 1 asked the same "pro" how he could account for the fact that, though 1 had been playing tennis steadily for several months and had only a few days between the National Tennis and National Golf tournaments, my drives were fairly straight?

I told him that I could not see how the little tennis which the lady champion had indulged in possibly could have affected her drives. Mr. Jones explained that it wasn't tennis or "too much right hand" that bothered her, but a wholly faulty action with the club head. He straightened her out in no time. The woman golfer I refer to knows the game of golf as few women know it, and I do not presume to criticise her theory; I merely wish to show that if so little tennis had caused her to hook then I, an inveterate tennis player, standing on a tee and driving a golf ball, would be in danger of having it hit me on it's return journey.

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The only sane argument against playing both games at the same time (assuring that you are deadly serious and hope to reach the heights in both sports) is the lack of time in which to practise them both. It seems impossible to find enough practise time in which to acquire supreme skill in both golf and tennis, as the champions are devoting their entire time to one game only.

If I were to advise young people in regard to the order of their athletic program, I Jtould certainly beg them to learn tennis first. It is a game in which their youthful energy and vitality can be used to supreme advantage because of the need for great quickness and activity on the court. Tennis is stiffer and, probably, better exercise for young people than golf. As tennis courts are now available at almost every school and as the game is not as expensive as golf, it should certainly and by all means be learned before golf. Again, it requires more time to play one round of golf than five sets of tennis and in those five sets you will get ten times as much all around exercise as in one round of golf. On the tennis court people perspire freely and, after a shower, they feel a splendid reaction, whereas a round of golf is likely to leave them simply tired. Tennis will keep them fit. If youngsters must take up golf before tennis, then they should combine it with swimming, or baseball, or basketball; at least one other form of exercise that is stimulating and that will develop all the muscles of the body. Golf should be played after the growing boy and girl have reached their full stature; when the principles of timing, eye, rhythm and balance which they have acquired in other games can be applied to the game of golf.

But mention must now be made of the great advantage of golf over any other major sport—the fact that it can be taken up late in life and still be played with a very considerable amount of skill. Men and women who have been, because of business, too much occupied to indulge in any form of athletics since their early youth, will find in golf a game which will fill their every need. The super activity necessary in tennis is beyond them, while golf can be played, and played well, by people who are, by nature, inactive. Partners and adversaries don't matter as much as they do in tennis, for, in golf, we always have that -worthy opponent, Mr. Par.

In pointing out the advantage of golf over tennis, for older players, I have in mind the average player, not the champion; because, in both games the supreme laurels are nearly always awarded to the young. Miss Helen Wills, only nineteen, has won the tennis championship for the third time; Bobby Jones, just twenty-three, has twice been our National Amateur Golf champion.

Standards of skill in both tennis and golf have advanced tremendously and the pace set by the champions is now beyond the strength of men or women over thirty or so. To become a real champion in these games means the strictest kind of training, constant practise and a great deal of hard work. When you have become a master player, like Joyce Wethered, Bobby Jones, Suzanne Lenglen or Bill Tilden, winning a title is not so supremely difficult. They all have perfected their games until they are in a class by themselves, but that perfection represents years and years of patient and unremitting study and practise combined with that other intangible asset, natural ability. No one seems to have a chance against these four great amateur champions. They have raised the standards of the two games to such a point that the tottering champions of a few years ago must stand aside and be content to applaud the skill of these four miraculous youngsters. The possibility of a "comeback" by the champions of a few' years ago is as remote as that of a permanent peace in Mexico.

Skill in tennis and golf has improved so markedly of late, and competition in the two games has become so keen that it is now a long and painstaking climb to the top. Unless you are a real prodigy my advice to you is not to try for the really difficult titles. If you win a State championship then you will begin to look toward the National. If you once win the National, you will want to win it again. Three wins would give you permanent possession of the trophy, so you will struggle to win it for a third time. If you accomplish that you may say "Why not try to win the National Championship in another sport?" Always trying to go Fate one better. An endless chain of practise, worry and competitions. All other interests in life will become subordinated. Scholastic careers, tastes in art, family life, common sense in living, travel, charities, all must go by the board in this eternal struggle for the championship titles.

And, after the titles are won they too often become just one more thing to worry about. When you have been dethroned by one of the army of challengers and you find yourself temporarily relegated to the back pages of the newspapers, you will probably want to begin struggling again, working and hoping to "come back" and be a champion once more. The game of pursuing those massive and (usually) over-ornate silver trophies is, I must aamit, an absorbing and thrilling one —but, really, is the game worth the candle? Isn't the real joy of it all, to be found in.playing the game, win or lose, for the sake of sociability and the satisfaction of keeping fit?