view raw text
Conrad Gains British Amateur Final Young Texan Eyes Golf Crown Today To Play Thirty-Six Hole Championship Round With Alan Slater of England By PETER TJEBERSAX United Press Sports Writer ST. ANNES, England, June 3. — Joe Conrad, a hardy Texan who enjoys playing in Britains rugged golfing weather, reached the final of the British Amateur golf tournament today, putting an American in the championship round for the 10th straight year. Conrad-, a 25-year-old Air Force lieutenant,- will meet Alan Slater of England in a 36-hole match for the title on Saturday. If he beats Slater Saturday on the Royal Lytham and St. Annes seaside course, Conrad will become the sixth Yank to win the British title in the 10 tournaments since World War II. Defying a steady rairr that soaked the course in the morning quarter-final round and brisk, chilly winds in the afternoon after the downpour had stopped, Conrad stroked his way to easy victories over two tough English opponents. He first defeated Roger Bayliss, 5 and 3, and then beat Phil Scrutton, a British Walker Cup •star, 5 and 4. Slater, a 36-year-old director of a Yorkshire engineering, firm, gained the title round with a 2 and 1 victory over Joe Carr of Ireland in the morning and a 3 and 2 triumph over Art Perowne of England in the afternoon semifinals. Patrons Defeat Surprising Billy Joe Patton of Morganton, N C., and Don Bisplinghoff of Orlando, Pla., both of whose title chances were rated better than Conrads at the start of todays play, were eliminated in the quarterfinals. Patton was given a surprisingly one-sided 7 and 6 beating by Scrutton while Bisling-hoff was edged on the 20th hole by Perowne, 1 up. The weather, which had been sunny and pleasant for the first two days of the tournament, turned "typically British" for todays two rounds. Yet it did not seem to bother Conrad.* "I like this weather," he said after winning in trie morning downpour. "It suits me fine." Then, after winning his windswept afternoon match, he confidently predicted hell win the tournament. "Its just as Ive thought all week," he said, "Im going all the way." Britons among the slim gallery of 776 that paid their way on to. the grounds observed that if Conrad enjoys British weather, hell have more of it on Saturday. The forecast was for wind and intermittent rain. « Oddly, a break on the fourteenth and final hole of the afternoon round helped him clinch his victory over Scrutton. Actually, Conrad did not need the break for he was dormie five at the time. His second iron shot appeared headed out of bounds but struck a woman spectator and landed in -the rough instead. Conrad chipped on neatly and putted out for the halve he needed to clinch the match. Woman Not Hurt He then sought out the woman who had been hit by the ball and asked if she were hurt. She smilingly answered she was not. "Without you, I would have been out of bounds," Conrad said, "but I guess Id have won anyway." Ignoring the trick winds, Conrad played machine-like golf against Scrutton. The American never trailed as he forged a 2 up lead after nine and then won three of the ■five incoming holes. Scrutton conceded the fifth and sixth holes when he had difficulty in the rough and bunkers, going 3 down. Conrad conceded the ninth when he took two strokes to shoot out of a bunker, but did not lose a hole after that. He birdied the tenth by chipping to within two feet of the pin, barely missed a 45-foot putt on the eleventh, and took the thirteenth when Scrutton three-putted. The match ended on the next hole, where the Briton could do no better than match Conrads bogey. In the morning round, Conrad jumped of f to a 2 up lead over Bayliss, but lost the advantage when he bogeyed three straight holes from the fourth to the sixth. However, he swept the next three holes to regain his advantage, shooting birdies on the seventh and ninth holes. He-added another birdie by dropping a wood shot four feet from the pin on the long eleventh and eventually clinched the match on the fifteenth after Bayliss shot into difficulty. Bisplinghoff, whom British bookmakers had made the tournament favorite after his impressive victories on Thursday, complained that he played "lousy golf," particularly on the putting greens. He battled back from a three-hole deficit at the turn and evened the match by winning the eleventh with a birdie, the thirteenth with a chip shot that stopped two feet from the cup and the seventeenth when Perowne overshot the green into a bunker. The 20 - year - "old American would have won the match if he had sank an eight-foot putt on the nineteenth hole. On the twentieth, Perowne chipped from the rough to within two feet of the cup for a four, while Bisplinghoff chipped short out of a bunker and missed a 25-foot putt to wind up1 a five that lost him the match. Patton, .wild off the tee in all his previous tournament matches, was bothered by the rain today. He took off his glasses repeatedly to wipe off the moisture. Pat-tons drives roved far off the fairways, and his short game also deserted him. Scrutton, who had lost to Patton, 2 and 1, on the thirty -fifth hole of their Walker .Cup singles match nearly two weeks ago, played steady golf and was 6 up at the turn. Coming in he birdied the tenth with a 12-foot putt and clinched with a halve on the short twelfth after Pattons iron shot from the tee landed in a bunker. Slater can keep the British Amateur crown in the British Empire for the third straight year, if he beats Conrad. Carr won the title in 1953 and Doug Bachli of Australia won last year, but did not defend. Slater was 2 up over Carr after nine holes of their quarter final, widened it to 4 up after 12, and coasted home. Against Pero*me, Slater had a 1 up lead at the turn, made it 3 up after 12, and made it stand up to the finjsli on the sixteenth.
