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Show I VXTHAT game is played more ' throughout the world than any other? This is one of the queries you get from servicemen billeted in Europe and the South Pacific. And then they lead you on to a comparison compari-son of tennis and golf. This includes courses, courts and all other ingredients in-gredients that make up an argument. argu-ment. I put this debate up to one of our leading tennis statisticians and here are the facts: "Why compare tennis with golf? Why not compare tennis with any other national or international sport? You won't find any other game even close, in an international interna-tional way. "Here's something that may shock national na-tional and international interna-tional sport followers. follow-ers. In 1939, just before the recent world war broke I Ail out, the Internation- GranllandRice al Lawn Tennis association as-sociation had a membership of 59 nations, headed for the Davis cup. No other sport has even come close to this mark. "This entry list embraced every continent and every civilized country coun-try from the U. S. to Kenya and China. And each of these 59 nations has a tennis governing body. "Without any argument, the most famous international SDortine trophy is the Davis cup, donated in 1900 by Dwight Davis from St. Louis. No other international cup is in the same class. "Fifty-nine nations what other sport can equal that? Or even come close, including soccer, golf, basketball, basket-ball, or track and field? "Strangely enough the two most famous cups the Davis cup for tennis and the Walker cup for golf came from two famous St. Louis sportsmen Dwight Davis and George Herbert Walker. Dwight Davis and Bert Walker, both from inland St. Louis, were main factors in putting tennis and golf on the international sporting map. "There may have been two finer sportsmen, but I can't recall their names. Their international appeaj reached to more than millions 11 moved close to the billion mark." 15,000 Tennis Courts Our tennis expert then began to get eloquent. "As you may know," he said, "there are about 5,000 golf courses in the country. But don't forget there are 14,800 municipal tennis ten-nis courts in 983 towns and cities of the U. S. There are 2,300 municipal courts located in as few as 10 cities, and New York isn t one of them. There are 706 tennis clubs, members mem-bers of U.S.L.T.A., and 777 others not members. And this doesn't include in-clude the enormous number of tennis ten-nis courts at private homes. "Golf claims around 3,000,000 players in the U. S. We happen to know that tennis can claim around 5,000,000 players possibly more. After all, golf requires from 100 to 130 acres for a course. Tennis requires far less." The main point is that tennis and golf belong largely to competitors, competi-tors, not to spectators. And that's the way it should be. We have had entirely to many spectators In this country and far too few actual players play-ers or competitors. This goes especially espe-cially for football, baseball and boxing. box-ing. These are largely spectator games. But these conditions may also change later on. Millions of spectators only mean box office receipts. re-ceipts. They mean nothing tn the way of physical condition. Now back to tennis. Our expert continues "Tennis is the only sport nlnvpH in countries all over the world under the same rules and regulations. Tennis is an international internation-al matter, not a local affair. We figure there are something like 40,-(1(1(1 40,-(1(1(1 f)00 tennis nlavers in the world. men and women. No other sport can even approach this mark. Be-,fore Be-,fore the war we had something like 800,000 tennis rackets turned out each year. This will be doubled after the war. Tennis will be one of our greatest games. It takes up far less space and gives far more action than golf." To forestall any wild squawks from bowlers, Softball players and basketball players, we'd like tc step aside on this part of the argument. argu-ment. The bowlers and the basketball basket-ball players claim around 20,000.000. The softball players over 30,000.,-000. 30,000.,-000. We'll let them fight this out. But people don't read so mucl about their stars or their teams. The four major reading sports in the United States are baseball, football, boxing and racing with golf next. The Best Golf Sivinz Craig Wood reopened a hot argu- I ment a few days back: J "The biggest improvement in golf, one of the reasons the leaders give you those record scores is this they use the squared-face on the back-swing back-swing and keep the squared-face working through the downswing. "This means less pivot. less body turn. It means more hand control. You should take the club head away squarely from the ball and keep it in this position so you can bring it I back squarely to the ball." i I |