Sport: Top Man

Balding Sam Snead, 37, barely missed winning golf’s biggest prize, the U.S. Open. But he won enough assorted other tournaments this year to be far & away the game’s leading money winner, with $30,893. Last week, with the poise of a magician about to perform his tricks, Sam stepped to the first tee of the Pinehurst (N.C.) Country Club for one of the last big tournaments of golf’s fiscal year: the North and South Open.

With most of the gallery tagging at his heels, he fired a par-smashing 68. That put him three strokes up on Gary Middlecoff, the dentist from Memphis who was U.S. Open champion and Snead’s main rival for golfer-of-the-year. In the second round Sam hooked a tee shot into the rough for one bogey, chipped poorly for another, but wound up with a 70. Then Sam finished up in a blaze that left little doubt about who was golf’s man of 1949.

On the final round, while Middlecoff was floundering, Snead treated himself to a 66. By winning the North and South (by six strokes over Runner-Up Johnny Bulla), Sam Snead boosted his earnings for the year to $32,393. Next best: Middlecoff, with $25,354.