Sport: Numbers Racket

For years, bookmakers have been quoting odds on tournament-playing golf pros as if they were race horses. Last week Chicago’s Tam O’ Shanter Country Club went the bookies one better: for its $15,000 Open, it asked the pros to wear numbers on their backs.

For the first two rounds the caddies wore the players’ numbers. Then Tam President George S. May insisted that no player could tee off for the third round without his number. Joe Kirkwood, famed trick-shot wizard who is accustomed to touring the world in regal style, angrily refused. So did Tommy Armour, onetime U.S. and British Open champion. Armour retired; Kirkwood was disqualified.

By that time, all the headliners were sore. They went to the mat with May. When May threatened to “call the whole thing off,” the big shots decided to carry on—most of them flaunting their numbers defiantly on the backs of their pants. After the racket subsided, the tournament settled down to a one-man show—starring Defending Champion Byron Nelson.

Before he teed off for the third round, Nelson had remarked: “I just can’t get keyed up over this tournament.” Then he proceeded to shoot one of the most spectacular rounds of his spectacular career: a 65 (34-31) that equaled the course record. On three successive holes (ninth, tenth and eleventh) he shot five under par—with a birdie, an eagle and a hole-in-one. For the hole-in-one, his iron tee shot dropped within 20 feet of the cup, bounced a few inches beyond it, then spun crazily back plunk into the can.

Next day, Nelson tied with Clayton Heafner of Linville, N.C., with a 72-hole total of 280. Nelson won on the playoff, with 67 (33-34) to Heafner’s 71 (34-37).