Sport: At Interlachen

The rough and shrubbery of Interlachen Country Club near Minneapolis was last week sowed with pop bottles. Another fatted calf met its death in Atlanta. Throughout the land, professional men shook their heads once more at the thought of the money—$50,000 at very least—which one of them might have made in the next twelve-month if only Robert Tyre Jones Jr., amateur, would not continue to be the world’s most mechanical, most imperturbable, most brilliant golfer.

Interlachen is not a particularly long course (6,672 yd.) but it is perilously trapped. The narrow fairways put a tremendous premium on straight driving. The thick-matted rough seldom fails to cost a player a stroke whenever he strays into it. The greens of Stolon Bent are smooth but tricky to putt on.

At the end of the first round MacDonald Smith, who tied for first in the Open the year (1910) that Bobby Jones was nine years old, tied for the lead with one-eyed Tommy Armour, famed for his iron shots and erratic putting, who had 70. Johnny Farrell, 1928 Open champion, had an eight on the first hole, a two on the third, a six on the fourth, and then made three birdies in succession to keep in the running. Jones had 71, Walter Hagen, back from a tour of Japan and needing practice, had 72 and so did blond, loose-jointed Horton Smith. 21-year-old Missourian whose effortless, powerful swing is stylistically better than any but that of Jones.

On the second day, Horton Smith rolled in a 15-foot putt for a birdie on the second, crashed out an eagle 3 on the ninth for a 33 out, came back in 37 to lead the field with a total of 142. Jones’s 73 on this round might easily have been several strokes better or worse. He took a six on one par four hole, and on the ninth, playing his second to the green, he whizzed a low shot into the pond. Going fast, the ball ricocheted, ran up the bank. Jones laid his next dead for a birdie four.

Most medal tournaments are won in the third round, for the field is apt to be fairly even up to that time and a decisively brilliant score then adds mightily to the strain on other competitors in the final round. Jones especially has depended on his third rounds. His third-round average in U. S. Opens is 73—a half-stroke less than his second-round average, a stroke less than his first-round average, three strokes less than his fourth-round average. That third morning at Interlachen was a little cooler. Jones started by sinking a ten-foot putt on the first green, played par golf to the fourth where he took the first of six birdies. His gallery, stirred to an intent, incredulous tension, saw that he might have a 66 for the round, but he drove into a trap at the seventeenth and sliced his drive into a clump of trees on the home hole. These were his only mistakes in the greatest round that he or any man ever played in a U. S. Open. He did it with his mashie niblick, playing doubtful carries short and laying approaches dead. Though he had nine one-putt greens, the longest putt he sank was his ten-footer on the first.

Five strokes ahead of the nearest pro, Lighthorse Harry Cooper, Jones wavered after lunch, barely stayed safe. He frightened his followers by starting the last nine 4 5 5 5—two over par. On the seventeenth he lost his ball in the water hazard. Then he finished as a champion should—holed a 40-ft. uphill putt on the last green for a birdie it seemed sure he would need.

MacDonald Smith was burning up the course back of Jones. At the eleventh tee he had made up four of the seven strokes he had been behind at lunch. After Jones’s great last putt, Smith needed two birdies and six pars to tie and he fell only two shots short of doing it.

¶ Jones’s winning total of 287 was one stroke worse than the U. S. Open record made by Chick Evans in 1916 at Minikahda.

¶ Smith’s brilliant final 70 gave him the $1,000 first-prize money. Horton Smith had nine consecutive fours in his third round of 76; he finished in third place with 292. Harry Cooper (293) was fourth.

¶ For the first time, a U. S. Open was broadcast hole by hole. A Columbia announcer sat at a portable short-wave microphone back of the eighteenth tee and sent off reports brought to him by spry Boy Scouts.

¶ It was the first Open since 1926 that failed to end in a tie. The morning of the third round signs were posted in press headquarters “playoff, thirty-six holes, 10 a. m. and 2 p. m. Sunday.”

¶ John Goodman, Omaha cowboy golfer who put Jones out of the National Amateur in the first round last year at Pebble Beach, arrived in a car with a trailer, asked a man near the Interlachen club if he could camp on his estate. The householder recognized Goodman, welcomed him, ran his garden hose down to the trailer. Goodman tied with Horton Smith for the lowest first-nine score of the tournament, a 33, slumped thereafter, but finished in a tie for ninth place ahead of Walter Hagen.

¶ In heat of 105° in the shade, big British Cyril Tolley said he lost nine pounds in the first round.

¶ Oldest competitor was Tom Vardon, 59, brother of Britain’s famed Harry Vardon, pro at the White Bear Yacht Club (St. Paul) where National Amateur Champion Harrison R. (“Jimmy”) Johnston is a member.

¶ Next the lockers at the Interlachen Club was a room where players could rest and discuss their scores. The placard over the doorway: “Sobbing Room.”

¶ Said Golfer Jones’s father when told his son was coming to the eighteenth with a chance for a 67: “I don’t think I’ll go out. I wouldn’t be able to see anything anyway.” Said Bobby Jones on being presented with the medal: “I’ve never played anywhere where the gallery was so considerate in getting out of the way.”