Sport: Women’s Western

Gently propelling himself, by means of his large web feet, through the water of a pond on the golf links of White Bear, Minn., a beady-eyed drake moved among his ducks, with the air of a Caliph inspecting a slave-market. He was born in bad temper, for the events of the last two days had been little calculated to sooth a drake’s equanimity. In the first place, the course had been overrun with women. The drake did not know that they were competitors in the Women’s Western Golf Tournament; he was merely concious of the annoyance he had suffered from hard objects resembling eggs, which it was their habit to swish into the air with their long blunt wingbones. For some time these egglike spheres had been dropping into his pond, plop, plop, while the unnatural mothers, struck with remorse, stood squealing at the edge.

Today things had settled down again. Two women had waddled past in the morning, but they were hard swishers; their eggs had flown over. He did not know that these two finalists, Mrs. Elaine Rosenthai Reinhart, small, active wife of S. L. (“Spider”) Reinhart, onetime Yale end, and methodical Mrs. Harley Higbie of Detroit, were playing almost faultless golf; he did not know that the match was so hard-fought that neither had a lead of more than two up at any time; nor did he care that Mrs. Reinhart, on the twelfth hole, made a 40-foot putt for an eagle to win from Mrs. Higbie who had a birdie.

Suddenly, however, he was enraged by seeing the two players, accompanied by a large concourse of their mates, approach the pond and prepare for action. Mrs. Reinhart smote her egg. It whistled over the drake’s head. Ha! he thought, so much for that. Mrs. Higbie smote her egg. It sped sideways, curved down, straight for his midriff. A flutter of furious feathers, a loud baritone squawk—he shunted his frame to one side just as the sphere descended, so close to him that it bespattered his wings with a little carillon of silver drops. He did not know that by that one mistroke, on the 35th hole of the match, Mrs. Higbie relinquished the Women’s Western Championship to Mrs. Reinhart. Glad only that the cawing flock had passed, and that twilight had spread its slow grey wings over the pond, he looked around for his ducks.