Sport: Public Champion

Andrew Szwedko, a Pittsburgh steelworker, put out defending Champion Pat Abbott, a film extra, in the quarter-finals of the U. S. Public Links Golf Championship on San Francisco’s Harding Park course last week. Then Bruce McCormick, a 28-year-old Los Angeles fireman, one-putted on eight consecutive greens to eliminate Steelworker Szwedko in the semi-finals while Don Erickson, a sandy-haired gasworks employe from Alhambra, edged out his fellow Californian, Frank Toronto, a Sacramento truck driver. Beginning the final round, Gas Worker Erickson, who had won the medal with a 36-hole total of 139, was four strokes under par up to that point, Fireman McCormick ten strokes over. But McCormick had beaten Erickson at match play in four previous encounters and was sure he could do it again. He took the lead with a par 4 on the first hole, was 3 up at the 18th, finished the 36th one up, became the new champion and the best U. S. golfer who does not belong to a country club.