Sport: Pre-Titular

On the sedgy, low-lying Sasco links (Fairfield, Conn.) eight amateur golf notables of both sexes held a private pre-championship showing of their wares. They had been lured thither by kind invitations, by promises of silver putters, bronze, silver and golden golf balls as prizes.

Attention centered on three of the women, the Big Three of the National women’s title play that would begin at Providence, R. I., Sept. 1: National Champion Edith Cummings, Miss Glenna Collett (1922 champion), Miss Marion Hollins (1921 champion). Mrs. Quentin Feitner (six-time Metropolitan champion) was the fourth. The men were National Champion Max R. Marston, onetime champions Francis Ouimet and Jess Sweetser, French champion John G. Anderson.

First the four women played together. The Misses Cummings and Hollins routed Miss Collett and Mrs. Feitner in a slow-moving best ball affair. Stalwart Miss Hollins seemed sound and solid in every department of her game; Miss Cummings was brilliant but a touch patchy. Sombre Glenna Collett, either bored by the slow pace or indifferent to the matter in hand, played a casual round.

Then the men “spotted” the women five bisques† each and played them individual matches. As the two National champions went into battle, Miss Cummings was heard to taunt Mr. Marston: “Why, Max, no man in the world can give me five bisques and get away with it!”

She recalled beating Marston in similar matches at Garden City in 1923, at Philadelphia in 1923; and whatever “Indian sign” she had on him then, she still possessed. Confused, Marston topped drives, missed putts, was beaten 3 and 2 with only three bisques used against him. The rest of the men won.

The mixed foursomes were last, “Little Glenna” and “Big Jess” carrying off the golden golf balls. In these matches, where the men and women took alternate shots with the same ball, it was remarked how little difference there is between the best play of crack golfers of either sex. Miss Collett and Miss Hollins, powerful hitters, were pounding their tee shots 215 to 230 yards — far enough for any man. At pitching and short approaches to the pin, all the women were as accurate as the men. Miss Cummings perhaps more so. Her mashie-niblic manipulation is her chef d’oeuvre. Miss Collett’s putting was deadlier than any save steady Ouimet’s.

It was in consistency and in play through the fairway that the discrepancies appeared. No woman can get a man’s distance with brassie or iron out of a cuppy lie. Few women can play as many consecutive good shots as a man without “cracking.”

†A bisque is a handicap stroke given in match play that may be used by its recipient on any hole he elects. Recipient must, however, state his intention of using the stroke before playing the next hole.