*Page 20
THE CHINA MAIL, JULY 20, 1988.
COTTON'S TITLE SLIPS FROM GRASP
BRUEN COLLAPSES SENSATIONALLY
*
British
Open Golf Event Provides Thrills
BUSSON SETS THE PACE
(By AIR MAIL)
Sandwich, July 7. ANOTHER day's figure striving in the amazing Open Golf Championship on the Royal St. George's Course still leaves the biggest possible guess at the half-way stage completed here to- night.
With thirty-six holes of the supreme test over, there are actually 15 competitors covered by five strokes, with the joint lea- dership in the hands of J. J. Busson, Pannal; W. J. Cox, Wimbledon Park, and R. Burton, Sale, who have the aggregates of 140, and are just one stroke ahead of Bert Gadd, West Cheshire, and Jalnes Adams, Hoylake.
What was called in yesterday's account the "jack-in-the-box" complexion still colours the Championship, though the leading "jacks" are all men of first rank reputation, while others who came to the top yesterday have lost something of their spring, and will in effect stay in their boxes.
Henry Cotton's title is slipping from his grasp, for his 73 to-day! was nothing like nearly good enough among the low scores that again filed in, and in the end he scraped a last day chance by the narrow margin of two strokes. There are no fewer than two dozen players in front of the Champion to-night, and something on the lines of his phenomenal rounds of four years ago look like his only hope making a real fight for it.
of
DUNCAN'S FEAT RECALLED
Seven strokes behind the leaders, however, creates ́ ́ ́no. impossibility, when we remember the classic case of George Duncan, who made up 13 strokes on the final 36 holes at Deal eighteen years ago.
Cotton will have to come from be- hind in both senses of the word to morrow, for the draw send the ma- jority of the leaders to the tee before him. Under the new regulation which puts all tiers for 40th place into the discard to-night there will be a con- tracted last day field of 37 players, and on the basis of last night's re turns it looked as if the guillotine might have operated with greater severity.
The sensational absentee from the surviving company is James Bruen the 18 years old Irish boy, whose golf collapsed dramatically-to-day when he, in effect, offered his young head to the knife.
BRUEN GOES UNDER the daring of the crowds, and when he This marvellous youngster was still stepped on to the tee, his head shaded from the strong sun by a jauntily set pork-pie felt hat, there was no hint of
MINIMUM PURSE MONEY
FOR BOXER
(By Air Mail)
oon.
The executive committoo of the National Boxing Association havo decided to increase the minimum purso money for boxers taking part in two-minuto round teste, Somo 2000 boxera who normally make up the supporting bouts at London and provincial tournaments are affected. Pro- "moters are now asked to paŋ not less than £1 158 to the winner and £1 108 to the loser of eight round contest: and not less than ES 108 to the winner and £S to the loser of ten round contests.
At pressent it is the general practice to pay the same purso money to the loser and winner of supporting bouts. The N.B.A. believe that, a distinction should be made in favour of winning boxers. Minimum payment for six round boxera' was recently raised by the Association to £1 58 for the winner and £1 for thelosor. This was endorsed
by the Southern Area council of the B.B.B. of G., and the stewards of the board are being urged to
inoreaso make the
compulsory throughout country.
Ho
stroke here and there. A short missed putt at the third was a jolt. failed to get up in two from a cuppy lie at the next, and then proceeded to take three putts at the fifth, so that his start was 5 4 4 5 5.
his mind. I must on no account drive out of bounds here,” and," aim- ing too far to the left, he then put his second on the other side of the course, where he had to bomb the ball out of an atrocious lie with a blaster. That hole put a 6 on his card, but he never- theless picked up his good-going, story again, and tapped down a stiff putt at the eighteenth, for the following card: -Out, 448448424-82; in—444.4 6484487. AN
EX-RYDER CUP LEADERS
Two other former Ryder Cup mon joined Busson in his distinction at the top. Burton, one of the longest hit- ters in the Championship, doing a 69, Burton's and Cox turning in a 70. power told heavily at the longer holes, and after failing to get quite up at also the first with his brassle, and taking a 5 at the fourth, where he was in the rough off the tee, he settled down to a magnificent exhibition of golf which, but for one or two slipped putts, would have counted better.
There was just one anxious moment at the last hole, where he knocked his drive no more than 100 yards. But with a super brassie stroke he hit the ball an enormous distance just short of the green, chipped up dead, and. got his 4, a great battling finish the like of which might turn the whole Championship to-morrow.
or
Cox played the steadiest of golf, and five times putts of four yards thereabouts Just failed to drop for him. Gadd, who was just beaten by Alliss in the recent professional match play tournament at Sandy Lodge, 'also went round in 70, while Reg. Whitcom- be did another 71.
SUPERB PERFORMANCE
James Adams was one "of the 71 compilers towards the end of the day, and a superb fighting performance it was, considering that he was in five bunkers in four holes. His putting is at its best this week, and that may prove to be his luck in this champion- No putt beat him, and among ship. some good ones was one of eight yards Adams has the luck at the seventh. of the draw, for to-morrow, for he is drawn to strike first off the tee
Hardly good enough was the general verdict, "unless but the retrieving effort was not there. A three yards putt sent truly to the hole at the ninth was a saver after a bunker stroke, and all the way in he fought hard and wel enough for his figures, for after a 5 at the fifteenth he laid a long putt
Bobby Locke, who had a brilliant 72 dead at the sixteenth, a niblick pitch against the stick at the seventeenth, to-day, although he missed two putts bunkered at the eighteenth. and then got par again after being in the first halfhour that measured That under four feet between them they was the spell that kept him ́ in the were at the fourth and fifth holes.
Syd Brews, who had a magnificent re- Championship.
covery from his yesterday's 76 with a 70, including an electric spurb from the short eighth which gave him five successive 3s with wonderful pitching and putting, and Marcel Dallemagne, the French Open champion, are the only overseas competitors, left in. li
FOUR SURVIVING AMATEURS
Cyril Tolley is the best of four surviving amateurs and deserves to be, for he had a wonderful round in his grasp to-day, when he was ac- tually six under 4s with two holes to play.
·BUSSON SETS THE PACE the disastrous round on which he was about to embark. Right from the Busson, the 27-years-old Yorkshire start he failed to connect. The brilli golfer, who swings the club as rhyth ance of yesterday was gone, and mically as Bobby Jones, jumped into though he hit a number of first-rate the leadership about lunch-time, when strokes, his game had become complete he bold out in 69 for his aggregate of ly disorganised, and he was hardly re- 140. Here was a rattling good pace, cognisable as the boy whom we were eet with a 32 for the first nine holes discussing as actually a possible win- despite the fact that he arrived at the ner of the Championship 24 hours ago. course this morning with a painful In a round that its spectators could and bandaged left knee. This obvious- hardly believe, the worst he has play-ly proved no disability, though he felt ed-in-competition this year, he-ran-up it-now-and-again when he swung, but. 80 strokes, ten higher than yesterday's there are thousands of golfers who
Tolley never hit the ball with brilliant effort, losing his touch on the would be any sort of casualty you greater ease, and just when a grand greens, missing the greens with his might care to name if they could go chance was beginning to slip he holed a seconds, and hitting his ball from one round St George's in the Open and five yards putt for a 2 at the sixteenth. side of the fairway to the other at the break 70. Busson might have even Then came the startling anti-climax finish.
been better had the ball just toppled for he topped his drive to the seven- from some of his putts. Five or six teenth, and then, after too much times on that brilliant enough out palaver and time lying on his hands ward half it looked as if it might, and and knees, he missed a two-feet putt what the half total would have been, at the eighteenth. well, imagination is rather staggered round in 68.
Even so, he was by the thought.
BREAKS AGAINST · HIM Many older heads than his have slept badly on an overnight lead, and the tension, may have got into his mind and play. Bruen said. after wards that he felt all right when he took the tee, but he got a little dis heartened when he felt that the break seemed to be going against him.
Hector Thoptson was himself again As it was, he missed a quite possí- this morning with a grand 71, includ- ble putt for 31 to the turn, and, step-ing three putts twice on the way out, ping up to all his strokes and dis and Jack M'Lean played sterling golf patching them with a copybook style in a 74, after starting 5 5 8 6.... and assurance, he seemed set for something special.
ATROCIOUS LIE.
The weather may hold the key to this championship, for, as I am typing, the Press tent is being battered by fourteenth, where, he confessed to me playing frequently in one of the sever
The one break came at the long torrential rain, and lightning afterwards the thought flashed into est. thunderstorms. I can remember.
EVERYTHING FOR THE
BEACH & PICNICS
Three 6s were a bad start, and it PERFECT WEATHER
was obvious from the side-lines that After yesterday's mass leadership, something had gone wrong with the which might have had the top of the works. He was definitely off his score list scheduled as a congested game, and glimpses, such as his 4 at area, there were many items on the the long Suez Canal hole, showed how agenda paper for to-day's attention. much otherwise he was off. At that More spectators than we usually see hole he showed all his remarkable at St. George's moved about the power from the tee, and was home with course, enjoying the open air and an a No. 4 Iron for his second, but by abnormally open Championship, and that time he was as many as six over it was a perfect day, with warm sum- 48, having taken 40 to the turn. mer sunshine, blue sky, and a stiff breeze blowing in from the Channel, The short eighth was a good example That wind must have a line to itself, I of how his control had left him. There for it materially changed the course, he was bunkered, and exploded making the outward half much stif hard out of the sand that he hit his fer, the inward half, of course, easier. ball not only over the green but, over They were hitting out for the fourth, the heads of the spectators on the for example, with two woods, and the other side, and then took other three to SUNSHADE UMBRELLA. Water-proofed gayly coloured cloth, long fourteenth of 520 yards was a get into the hole. The self-deliver-fast dyed, strongly mounted and fitted with brass tilting adjuster. drive and a No. 4 before the day was ance never looked like coming, for. out
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But to get back to the agenda. Po- three putts on the thirteenth, zig- pular fancy trailed large crowds in zagged his way to the seventeenth, LI-LO LOUNGE. Nothing to beat these for fun, in the water the wake of Cotton, anticipating a and finally hooked a long drive to the comfort in the garden. big recovery effort, with perhaps that putting wizardry of four years ago; and James Bruen, the boy wonder from -County Cork, who, "David-like, had thrust his youthful challenge un- der the noses of all the professional Goliaths yesterday: Cotton, however, {#gain played without the needed, in"
ation," and "the Gollaths tin ở this the good.
a much better days, than) right int Bruen, ose collapse" was indeed the His: 78 migh have bee sensation" of the earlierästägeri. higher, but he br
ECOTTON'S POOR START.. Cotton had an equally inauspicious start, for he d
ed three str the first five holes, and fulsed but there was more-
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