THE CHINA MAIL, JULY 22, 1989.
OPEN GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP-FOURTH DAY
Pàge
BURTON HEADS FINAL DAY'S QUALIFIERS
Exciting Finish In Prospect At St. Andrews
Cotton Four Strokes Behind The Leader
St. Andrews, July 6. British golf still leads the way in the Open Golf Championship, which has reached its half-way stage in the vital counting rounds on the Old Course here this even- ing. But the leadership has changed in respect that two of the men who shared it yesterday have dropped back, leaving Rich- ard Burton, the long-hitting Cheshire professional, who has twice represented Britain in the Ryder Cup international, at the head of the list with an aggre- gate of 142.
in the old Roman arena as he waited" for the up or down sign from the im-- did not know how matters stood with perial box. Rhodes, who, of course, the score board, was doing his best, but I am sure there were ten men on the terrace who would have had no regrets had, that Rhodes putt beeri numbered with all the others that had been missed here and there all day. No doubt Rhodes when he learned what had happened would say, "Them's my sentiments." little niggers" with a difference. They did not go one by one here: they went in a heap.
It was
the
"Ten
2
at 151, a figure which, owing to
The men who went down with Rhodes troublesome wind, was higher than at first expected, included C. A. Whit- Thomson. combe, Abe Mitchell, and Hector
ers might win this championship, and since the unforeseen was dramatically illustrated in a sequence of catastro- phic collapses that involved the out- standing personalities of the week, one night, especially when so few strokes guess is just as good as another to-
cover so many candidates.
The score-board generally pre- sents a picture exceedingly agree-
BURTON STEPS UP able to home golf sentiment, and the necessity under which we work-ly exciting day. Any one of ten golf- To-morrow should be a tremendous- ed some years ago of setting out at this stage how many Americans were in the first six or something of that kind has been definitely set aside. But it looks to-night a case of new "menace" for old, for Mar- tin Pose, of the Argentine, and a former winner of that country's Open Championship, has climbed up into second position, and. Bobby Locke, the brilliant 21-years-old South African, has a place in the 145 bracket, which includes such well-known competitors as Dai Rees and Alf Perry J. Fallon, the Scottish internationalist from Huddersfield, is third at 144.
"LITTLE NIGGERS”-NEW
Dick Burton, who has come to the front, is 32 years of age, and is tall has been the talk of the clubhouse at and powerful. Some of his smitings Sale, where he is located.
the crowds to-day when he started, it Though he had no magnétic pull on will be a horse of another colour to-
morrow.
his 72, Pose
When Burton came in to-day with was leading the field, after Bruen had failed to coax his magic back into his game. As I have said, Burton commanded no special at- tention when he set out, and his un- steady start-in heavy rain, by
the way-for showers still punctuated the best day of the week, so far hardly hinted at the position he occupied to- night. .“
Burton was inclined to push his He began with 4 5 4 5 5. Under the long strokes and miss shortish putts. circumstances his first. nine holes in two over is were none too bad. When he turned for home against a
hard
HENRY COTTON
Locke supplied the second sensation of the day, for at the long fourteenth, where his 8 yesterday wrecked a splen- did score, he stunned the spectators by taking a 7. Fifteen strokes at one hole in two rounds. This is surely the South African's ghost hole.
Again Locke marched over the first 18 holes., with impressive golf; again with a marked offciency he built up a great chance. With five holes to play he was 3 below: 4a Yesterday at the same point he was 6 under. The haunt- ing memory of yesterday decided him to drive rather to the right to avold the Beardies and get the advantage of the wind, but he overdid it, and put his ball out of bounds over the wall. Three off the tee at that long, treacherous hole hardly ever means less than 7. and that
was Locke's figure.
The effect of that crash, was damag- ing. At any rate, the youngster. play- ed decidedly unsettled golf to the end, for his 75, and he had a 6 at the Road hole.
Again, driving too much to the right, he was nearly out of bounds, and after getting out of the thick grass near the wall, he put his third in the bunker guarding the pin, and, like Bruen, got
'bad lie.
B
cue
THE COTTON DISASTER Everything was set for the which would bring Cotton on to the stage in the late afternoon. Thousands waited to trek round with him, and he made a picturesque figure as he took the tee in a wine-coloured. pull-over and a white pork pie hat, with the brim turned down all round. As hơ went in through the barrier at the clubhouse, his finance, Mrs. Moss, wished him good luck, and went round to the public entrance to join the crowd. The wind by this time had fallen, there was general the weather hda turned sunny, and agreement that Cotton was due this break, because he worst of yesterday's weather. was one of those who had had the
The surging crowd wrong
holes of his round, he pulled the par,
and strain about his golf that was
to speak out of the fire. There was an element of struggle foreign to it. When he holed out for 75 the vast throng round the last green saw him take a straight-for- ward four, and saw nothing unless they noticed him bang his club head forcefully on the turf as he came up the fairway. This was the out- ward sign of an inward dis-appoint-
ment.
Bruen had just figured in a disas trous episode at the Road Hole that may cost him the championship.
Was
Hooking his iron at the seventeenth, after a long drive, Bruen left himself between him and the flag. For pitch one of the hardest strokes in the world. The death-dealing pot, bunker ing, the landing space on the green between bunker and road is frighten- ingly limited; for the traditional run and all
Then come Henry Cotton at 146, and James Bruen, the much-talked about Irish wonder, one stroke be- hind him. There is a situation of much more than ordinary interest, which the fates and fortunes of the final thirty-six holes to-morrow have to sort out. In other words, it is still a very Open Championshir even if some of the limited four who have survived the keener- field of thirty- edged guillotine that descends at this stage of the Championship can hope for no further honour, I am afraid, than teeing up in the last-day lime-right-hand wind, blowing diagonally up there is the narrow gulley light.
across the course, his golf rose to its its riske. full influential stature. Burton began to hit his irons-like shots from a gun.
Bruen at that stage was one under That late hour just before the guillo-pitch, the thirtenth a picture
The twelfth produced a copperplate 48, and he chose to run up and seem
ed to have hit the ball firmly enough. tine falls always spreads an obvious iron, the fifteenth another of the same On and on it went until it mounted anxiety over certain faces. I recall mould, and Burton did the inward half to the top of the slope. Had it the one occasion just after the war when in 84 in the wind for a total of 72. strength to get over and down to the a little coterie whose general demean- His 38, with the exception of the short and it must have been well-nigh dead. pin? Another roll would have done, our suggested the hush outside the eleventh, were got with putts of two But after one of those eternities that operating room waited to hear the fate or three yards. of James Braid at Sandwich.“ An Three personalities dominated the are measured by a moment, the ball amazing situation. was created to-championship scene, and attracted the began to trickle back, and then noth night when the elimination blade was crowds round the classic course, like ing on earth could save it. Down It about to come down between the "ina" golfing pipers of Hamlin and the "outs."
Bruen, Bobby Locke Cotton...
and Henry I write them in that order strictly by their chronology of the draw-sheet and not as a tipster
VERSION
H. B. Rhodes, of South Herts, who was in the last couple of the day, siz ed up a four-feet put on the last green with studied care, and got it into the hole. As that putt went into the hole nine competitors went out of the Championship, including Rhodes himself.
This was as extraordinary a position as I remember to have seen. Under the new provision introduced for this Championship the last day numbers were raised to 44, and that was exact ly the number who had qualified for to-morrow before the South Herts player came along. His putt on the eighteenth put the number up to forty five, so that Rhodes and all the others on the 151 mark automatically went into the shade under the proviso that rules out all the tie players.
That little band of brothers poised perilously on the brink of exclusion must, as they kept their wor on the R. and A. terrace shi watched Rhodes face up th have felt something like
of an
James
As a matter of fact, the final order may follow scriptural lines the last may be first.
went into the bunker. The stroke from that bunker is sometimes worse than, the bunker Itself, for the road Bruen failed to get out first time, and in the end had a seven. danger is only a few yards away.
to-
that followed him were a reliable forecast of morrow's hubbub. The vicinity of the clubhouse and the last green were as busy as a World Fair, and every stroke played by the favourite loosed a stampede for places. Cotton, going steadily and smoothly and putting safely, was out in 35, and then the ex→ citement really boiled up when he cov ered the next four holes in 4 2.38 ---
in the round was not up with his ap- the last three all under-par. He drove the tenth green, and for the first time proach putt, and missed the next one of three feet. But the lustre of his next three holes blinded us to that mistake:
A-perfect tee stroke got his 2 at the eleventh, a five-feet putt was all that was needed at the twelfth, and at the thirteenth he holed a long one. That made him, five under 48.
It was a magnificent piece of work. Then came two unexpected crashes - having the crowd cleared from the left a. 6 at the fourteenth, where, after side of the course, he drove into the Beardies. there, and a 7 at the Road hole, though not in the Bruen OT Locke. fashion. With an iron at the seventeenth he hit such a full second against te breeze that his ball hit nothing till it jumped off the road be- the wall, out of bounds. He finished heind the green and bounded out over in 72.
A
LOCKE'S GHOST HOLE
Pose, the Argentinian, who has scores, the big field, was to-day the journey: Bruen said afterwards that performance. His 12 was done with- Irrespective of the It was a cruel knock after a hard wagging here to-night with his fine finely grooved swing, has set tongues.. background for these golfers who have he had no chance in the bunker, for out any chapter of trouble whatever. caught the public imagination to a his ball was in a foot mark. He got He carried Hell. Bunker, like the best quite romantic degree.
several of his figures in the round only of the golfers in the field; and he put- by a stout heart. At the second heted excedingly well, and Interpreted by drove into whina, but tore the ball out Jurado, his fellow South American, he with all his strength and got his four. expressed his delight at getting so far He drove into a bunker at the fourth, up the list. Fallon, who has come up and dropped a stroke there, but he to third place, is an old Lanar brought off a daring effort at the long and led the qualifiers in last year's fifth. From the tes there, he drove Championship, rung
boy,
into a part of the Hell bunker where It should be - specially mentioned his ball lay on a handy ledge. With that Perry, who is at times as most a spoon he expertly whipped it away dangerous raider - 18: beautifully and got his par B
only three strokes beh
night Brush, who went out lit the morn Ingy was followed by hundreds of homeward passport the best possible
He was out in 87, Two 8s gave his Co
The Tender. behind and ctators, and finished with 200 visa, and though, he spared hi kobing him. The Irish youth was proaches too often, he would have fin
his best, but he must get fullished probably in 72 but for the Road the inkl. marks for the way in which on sixteen! hole mishap.
ONE
It was one commentary, for exam- ple, on the whole thing that the play or in front of Cotton on the course were in no enviable position. Time after time they were engulfed by spectators hurrying forward In droves to places-round the green. The pair, E. E Whitcombe and Bert Gadd, were putting on greens lined with mectators but it was Cotton's advanced, hordes they were playing before,