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SPORTS CLOSE-UPS By Ira Seebacher New York, May 14. From Mamaroneck, site of the Winged Foot Club where this years Open will be played, comes a story by a diligent digger up of facts, concerning how Bobby Jones scored his second 69 away back in 1929 using only ten golf clubs. Today they are allowed 14 will be packed by each conestant this year. We suppose if we were playing, wed pack 14, too, since, it would be folly to con cede even the smallest edge to any of the others in this rat race. Still, Jones was conceding to posterity exactly four clubs in his tour of 29. Furthermore, although analysis will prove this is not unusual for a player who made his shots with the accuracy that Jones did, Bobby used three of his ten clubs to hit 54 of the 69 shots he took that day. They were divided into 32 putts, 14 drives, 8 spade shots. The spade was the No. 6 iron of its day, a day let us not forget that saw the hickory-shafted club rather todays steel-shafted affair. Of course, a good round doesnt call for many clubs. Obivously a round will see the putter used most, and most probably, the driver next. But assuming there will be about 15 opportunities to use the driver and roughly 36 for the putter to add to 51, it is in the remaining strokes that the average golfer reaches for the rest of his varied assortment. We do ont propose that the game to return to the rake and shovel gag rounds of players like John Montague, but it does seem to us that as difficult as golf may be for the average dub, it has become so mechanized to the experts that giving them 14 clubs with which to play thas taken some of the finer nuances from the game. Wed like to see a trend somewhat in the other direction making it necessary for one club to do the work of several. This was achieved by various methods of hooking and swinging and it called for far more proficiency than there is today. In an all-out swing with a club the angle of whose face has been calculated to be mathematically correct, the face does the work rather than the golfer. There have always been two schools on this and to tell the truth, the majority do not favor making the game more difficult However, such things are relative, n a, game is played with only six clubs, by everyone, it is in many ways more fair than " I if it is played with 14 clubs by everyone. The guy who is out playing every day ; the pro, in other words gains a distinct ; advantage with every additional wrinkle ; added to the game. He has time to master all 14 clubs whereas if golf were played with 1 only" eight clubs, let us say, the duffer the once-a-week golfer has to learn to master but six clubs rather than 14. True, : he has to make six do the work of 14, but somehow we believe the familiarity gained by using a few clubs over and the occaional golfer than is the necessity of learning to become familiar with 14 clubs. But it does seem to us that the attempt to simplify the game with additional clubs ; Continued on Page Fifty-Five I 5 PORTS CLOSE-UPS i By IRA SEEBACHER 1 Continued from Page Two I I has mechanized it but not necessarily simplified it. Any machine is simple to the man that operates it but it is complex to one who cannot. In golf there are now 14 machines for the duffer .to have to operate whereas there were once far fewer. AAA We can understand the reasoning that prompted sending the Rangers and Bruins to Europe on a tour. In recent years, ice hockey has become a widely played game aboard and, moreover, not without marked success. There are very fine teams representing such countries as Czechoslovakia, England, Russia, Poland, Sweden, etc. Nevertheless, this tour that the two clubs are now making is not a particularly successful one. Perhaps it is because when the weather gets warmer, people are interested in warm weather sports. It would be pretty hard, for example, to whip up a great deal of enthusiasm for hockey here in mid-May. Why should Europeans pour out in numbers to see the game, even as played by such sterling teams as the Bruins and Rangers? Moreover, we suspect that hockey is popular in Europe because it satisfies nationalist hungers. Theres rooting for the Bruins of Boston against the Rangers of New York, not when the game is being played in Zurich or some such distant center of hockey. But send an American team to Europe to play one of their teams, and the answer is a sellout. Thus the pros were inveigled into a try that is not going to net them very much. They simply failed to understand how all that hockey money is allocated. Not to touring exhibition clubs in mid-May thats for sure. . x
