1939-06-08 — Page 19

THE CHINA MAIL, JUNE 8, 1989.

AMATEUR GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP

U.S. HOLDER

HOLDER THROUGH AFTER A SHAKY

SHAKY START "We Are Pulling For You" Cable From Jones

FIRST DAY'S PLAY

DESCRIBED

Curiosity treatment for his strained ligament, but though still strapped up, played golf that could afford to let up a little in the long game, when it count- ed only eleven putts for the first ten holes.

Hoylake, May 23 about the start which Charles R. Yates, the young bank clerk from far away Atlanta, in Georgia, would make in his defence of the Amateur Championship, which opened here to-day, was the motif that dominated popular interest.

The American, backed by a cable message from his famous fellow- townsman, Bobby Jones, which re peated last year's Troon inspira- tion from the same quarter-"We are all pulling for you"-got over his first hurdle all right, and should

now have to address himself to a more exacting proposition in meet- ing Donald Cameron, one of our Scottish internationalists, to-mor-

row.

We shall see other Americans

Vines To Retire From

11

Lawn Tennis

LONDON, May 19.-Elsworth Vines, former Wimbledon champion,

and now a professional, is to give up lawn tennis and become a golfer. Vines, before going on court to play Donald Budge in the pro- fessional tournament at Wembley last night, said that when he has finished a world tour with Budge, which is to embrace, among other places, South Africa and Australia, and which ends next March, he is

to lay down his racket for good. in

I

action to-morrow, but, so far as can ascertain, nobody has yet seen Ellsworth Vines, who, if he arrives now for his tee call, is going to be under material handicap.

of the finest and sunniest days I have The Championship has begun in one ever experienced on the Wirral Penin- sula, and the course condition is the Weather subject of general praise. and shorter tees made things easier to-day, when the length of the course was down to 6850 yards.

Yates began by cutting his teo strokes, and had Thompson kept his

head he would never have lost the first hole to a 5, but the American

slipped also on a short chip at the The American, who, save for his third after a picture of a long, re- sallow complexion and his Southern covery from a bunker.

After a half States accent, is by no 'neans con- in 3, he looked like losing the fifth, spiculously American, beat Bruce but a five yards putt ran truly for Thompson, a scratch member of the the hole; this saved his skin. Royal Liverpool Club, but did so only this time the holder was beginning to by "turning on the heat," as they say find his direction, and, as in his own country, after a surpris- of fact, his ten holes from the fourth ingly slack start.

inclusive averaged four under 48.

CLEVER RECOVERY

а matter

In his case the clothes do not make

there the American;

was nothing

He looked like being 2 up at the sartorial to distinguish hin from

turn, but Thompson drew applause players you may see on any of the

for a clever recovery stone dead from courses any day in the week. Не

the rough for a half. Yates, how- wore a blue pullover, flannel slacks,

ever, put the screw on after that. and a cap; he wore also a disconcert- With his glorious spoon. stroke lying ed look, at any rate the early six yards behind the flag, his oppon- holes of the match, when he was un- able to steer his drives to the fair-ent pingponged across the green from ways.

for

GIVEN TIME TO SETTLE To their amazement, the crowd, the largest of the day, saw him bunker- ed at each of the first three holes, and Thompson, had he applied his skill and local knowledge to their fullest extent during that spell, might have put Yates thoroughly up against it. But the occasion, I think, got badly into the local player's golf, and Yates was given time and opportunity to pull himself together, and win eventually by 5 and 4.

to-

That was the day's big item, but I think everything that we saw to-day will. pale before the excitements that are now promised for to-morrow. Thanks to a walk-over, James Bruen, the 19-year-old Irish wonder, and the strongest favourite ever known out- side of, perhaps, Bobby Jones, for the championship, was not on view day, at least in a playing capacity. The Irish boy, whose phenomenal scor- ing in practice rounds (everything holed out, too) is the talk of the championship, was on the course as spectator, and he picked the match in which Leonard Crawley defeated Cyril Boulton to watch, no doubt because he has now to meet the English Walker Cup player to-morrow.

Crawley's long game was not im- pressive, I must observe in the pass- ing, but he was nevertheless out in 37, and held a lead of 2 holes. Ob- had viously the superior golfer, he his man beaten by 5 and 4 after finishing in 3 4 3 4 with two specta- cular recoveries with wood from the rough at the twelfth and fourteenth

holes.

Bruen, after watching this match, went away to another course in the district to have a practice round.

"At any rate, that is what I mean to do now," he told a reporter. "I have had enough of tennis, and knocking about the world, and I get a lot more fun out of golf these days. Besides, I have a family, and I want to see more of my little girl.

"Next year I am going into the sports goods business, and I can have lots of time for golf. I shall play as an amateur, and try to make the 'grade' for championships.'

Besides competing in the Wembley tennis tournament, Vines has been practising this week on, London golf courses, in readiness for the British Amateur Championship, in which he is to play at Hoylake next week-end.

"

The fact that Field would

have

und proceed to the next tee. been playing four had he played an-

he

other ball from his bunker makes the penalty look like the extreme penalty here, for the green is the narrowest on the course, and only the low turf dyke separates the putting surface bounds area. The from the out of

who was not in Squadron Leader, By

the ball a long Thomson's class, hit way when it connected with the fair- way, further than Thomson did, but the occasion got him down, and hooked his way all along the outward iourney, except at the ninth, where, for once, he had a wholehearted slice, and went a long way towards the out of bounds across the eighth fairway. By the turn he was five holes down to Thomson, who can play a lot better than he did in this match.

RETORT COURTEOUS rough to rough, and gave up. Yates, Field, however, fortunately falsified now swinging well, also captured the that prejudicial nine holes with his twelfth and thirteenth holes, and the golf coming in, and did himself some end was in sight.

real justice, for he won the tenth, and though beaten at the fifteenth, did the homeward holes in two under 4s, in- cluding halves in 3 and 2 at the eleventh and thirteenth holes respectively. the latter short hole he put down a ten yards putt, and Thomson did the retort But, if brevity is the soul of golf, I courteous with one of seven yards, must preface some of the best Cham-

To-morrow Thomson meets Andrew pionship comedy I have ever seen M'Nair, the former Glasgow golfer with a reference to S. L. M'Kinlay's who, as a youth, was the last-Scot in victory by 7 and 6. This was cur- the Championship played here twelve tailed golf of another and better kind. years ago. Nowadays M'Nair spends on American The Scottish challenge, which runs to part of the winter a round dozen or so, should be inspired courses, and he has been tuning up for by M'Kinlay, who became a flying this week under the tutorship of Tom- Scotsman; did twelve holes in two my Armour in Florida. under 4s, and polished off his man, Stanley Anderson, in exactly ninety minutes play.

The new out-of-bounds regulation, stroke and distance penalty instead of distance only, made in some ways for brighter, if shorter, golf. Can cricket not get an idea out of this I wonder?

+

*

CAER CLARK -CUP FOUND

That which was lost has been found!

The Caer Clark Cup, which was missing on the day of the pre- sentation of Hong Kong Ladies' Hockey Association trophies, was found yesterday. It was in a safe in the European Y.M.C.A.—“Y” Ladies won it last year and again this year.

that he hit the flagstick and lay practi- cally dead, and actually won the hole

in 5.

This turn-up must have shaken his opponent at this critical stage, but it was nothing to what happened at the sixteenth, where Cameron put down a whale of a putt, some 30 yards in length. These two blows were his pass- call- port to another column in the sheet. At E. D. Hamilton, the Scottish cham- pion, beat Denton Guest, a Hudders- field doctor, by 4 and 3, and though the little fellow was more in the Hoy- lake rough than he should have been, he did some grand salvage work, not only with determined recoveries from the tough grass, but specially with a putter that was working very sweetly. His start in three 58 was immediately offset by a 2 at the fourth (six yards putt) and a 3 at the fifth (ten yards 'putt), and if these samples were not enough to convince Guest of what was in his mind, he laid à niblick stroke from the rushes at the seventh about a stymie length from the pin. Four up at the turn, he never looked like letting it slip.

The out-of-bounds comedy. obtruded noticeably in his match to-day, too. Grant Govan. his opponent, was twice at the eighth, and over the railings that was that. The players walked straight to the ninth tee.

M'Kinlay, who has a Glasgow news- paper post, acted indeed like a good journalist, and had the -match all neatly finished in time for their first Other Scots, by their successes, paved editions of the evening papers.

their way to to-morrow's limelight. They will figure in some teethy matches which will compel the tramp of the crowds, even if the weather gets hotter than it was to-day.

a

"What's all the hurry?" fellow competitor asked M'Kinlay. "Have you an appointment?" The answer is that M'Kinlay hit practically every stroke in the catalogue well, and the. match, first off the tee, had a clear

course.

PETERS BEATS FELLOW-SCOT

Gordon Peters had the uncongenial job of heating a fellow-Scot, Cameron Conn, the Hawick solicitor, and pos sibly a distaste for this touch of fratri- cide kept either of them from produc- ing his best "killer" golf. Be that as it may, they were all even at the turn, and the figures made no better sum than 41, but from that point the Walk- er Cup man may have imagined he was playing an Englishman: for he did the next half-dozen holes in three under 4s, and rather squashed Conn by 4 and

8,

Donald Cameron, one of the pillars of the West of Scotland challenge, beat Allan Newey, and will now have to SIX TIMES OUT OF BOUNDS tee up against Yates, but he will have Now for the comic stuff. This to turn out better golf for the Ameri- touched its zenith in the match in can than he did to-day. which Hector Thomson defeated The Scot was two up at the eleventh, Squadron Leader Field by 4 and 3. after a let-off by his opponent at the Whether ground marks. or flares ninth, where a foot putt holed instead of would have given the gallant airman missed would have won Newey the hole. Ronnie Inglis, the young Watsonian, happier landings I do not know, but but the English golfer crashed home a the fact remains that at six of the brassie stroko against the wind close first eight holes he was out of bounds, to the eleventh flagstick, and got a 2 and a small spot of arithmetic will tell at the fourteenth. Adopting the same you just how many strpkes ware in recipe, he laid a long second about four volved by that under the severer dis- feet from the hole at the fourteenth, pensation that has been introduced and levelled the match with a 8. here for the first time.

DEADLY PUTTING TOUCH R. D. Chapman, semi-finalist in the U.S. National. Chompionship of last

A PUTT OF 30 YARDS The Scot, however, gobbled the next year, won his match after a fine start

The situation reached its height of in 4 4 4 3, followed by a wild patch absurdity when both Thomson and his two holes to become two up with two to he hit a long, when he put two balls into the gar- opponent drove into ere at the play. At the fifteenth

bored its way den at the sixth hole. But he struck Dowie, which is the seventh hole of low-flight wood, which tho ball on these well-night perfect 200 yards. Field, from his bunker, through the wind and looked like one

the greens with a touch and deadliness whacked the ball across green, out of the book, but it just caught the which, if he keeps them, will create over the low cop at the back, and off top of a bunker, and was trapped. His trouble for the best.

the course, and Thomson was simply first knock in the sand left the ball Chapman is still under medical | asked to lift his ball out of the sand, there, but he then recovered so well

in

now at Surbition, and probably at 18 the youngest competitor here, brought off a difficult match to win against Jocelyn Walker. Inglis was four up after six holes, which he did 4 4 5 3 4 4, but he lost them all, and the match was even with two to play. The seventeenth was halved in a per- fect 4, and the youngster put down a glorious seven-feet putt to save the eighteenth in 4, and another 4, taken in perfectly orthodox fashion, saw him through at the nineteenth, where his opponent was bunkered. To-morrow he meets M'Innes, of Bournemouth, who won a marathon match at the twenty- fourth hole, to-day;