Sport: At Cherry Valley

The best girls of Canada and France competed against the best girls of the U. S., and some of them were beautiful—but it was not a beauty contest. They went at one another with clubs, at Cherry Valley, Long Island. Mrs. G. Henry Stetson of Philadelphia, took to the first tee a temperature of 102 degrees (la grippe). She came to the 18th green with a stroke score of 96, failing to qualify, losing her chance to defend the national golf championship which she won last year. Ada Mackenzie, Canadian, broke the women’s record for the Cherry Valley course at Garden City, L. I., with a 77 to win the qualifying round. In the second round Mrs. W. G. Fraser, Canadian, defeated Glenna Collett, twice national champion, 2 and 1. Spectators said that Mrs. Fraser was in form again to win the title, which she held three times as Alexa Stirling of Atlanta. Spectators approved their surmise the next day when the heavily-heralded Mile. Simone Thion de la Chaume, champion of France, champion of England, lost the first three holes to Mrs. Fraser and the match 3 and 2. But something happened. Mrs. Fraser fiddled away her next match to a little-known Kansas City wife, Miriam Burns Horn. Mrs. Horn, once western champion, won 1 up. Meanwhile Maureen Orcutt, whose name (someone observed) sounds like a hair tonic, destroyed the alien Miss Mackenzie—2 and 1 Miss Orcutt is metropolitan champion and the huge gallery did not regard her nervousness, revealed by constantly snapping fingers, fatal to the finals. They pointed to jets of cigaret smoke issuing from the obviously nervous nose of Mrs. Horn. This was no way to win a test of physical skill and mental poise, they reasoned. They saw Mrs. Horn complete her first round with the shocking score of 88. But Mrs. Orcutt had completed the round with an evermore shocking score of 91, and was 2 down. When Miss Orcutt sliced her losing margin to a single hole on the afternoon 18, the gallery shook their heads sympathetically for Mrs. Horn. But Mrs. Horn refused to consider her plight seriously, and, cigarets and all, she took the women’s national championship back with her to Kansas City, the first time it has been west since Edith Cummings won it in 1923.*

*There is no outstanding figure in women’s golf comparable to Helen Wills in tennis. Alexa Stirling dominated ten years ago, winning in 1916, 1919, 1920 (no tournament 1917 and 1918). In 1921, Marion Hollins won the championship ; 1922, Glenna Collett; 1923, Edith Cummings; 1924, Mrs. Dorothy Campbell Kurd ; 1925, Glenna Collett; 1926, Mrs. G. Henry Stetson.