The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-09-16
RECORDS SMASHED
BY JAMES BARNES
IN TAKING HONORS
Philadelphia Player Noses
Out Hagen in the Final
Round-New Record
for II Holes

Chicago, September 15.-Breaking all
records for 72-hole open golf champion
ship with a score of 2S3 strokes, James
NJ Barnes of Whitemarsh Valley club,
Philadelphia, today won the western open
championship at Westmoreland Country
club. The best previous championship
score was 2S6, scored by Chick Evans
in the national open last year. and by
Walter Hagen in the Western open last
summer. Walter Hagen of Rochester, N.
Y, 1916 champion, was second, with 2s3,
and Jock Hutchinson of Glenview club.
Chicago, Eastern open champion, finished
third with 2S6. Emmett French of York,
Pa, finished fourth, with 292, and Fred
Mcleod fifth, with 294.
Barnes started the championship route
in the first round on Thursday, scoring
a record of 81, and winning the special
prize for the best Is holes He added Il
strokes on Friday and was in the lead Of
the field of 1856 starters with 1888. He lost
his cunning on the greens in the first
half Of the third round today, taking %
puts for 40, but cut two under par on
the second half for "a, and total of N2,
while Hutchinson, with Il, was 211, and
Hagen with a splendid So was 2lS.
The luncheon interval left these three
players within two strokes of each other
and far ahead OF all other competitors.
Three large galleries followed the leaders
through the last round.
Hutchinson started badly, but with bril-
liant spurts kept to 80 for the first nine
a nd ppn haf far
grand total of 2s6. the previous record for
an open championship, made over shorter
courses.
Hagen, out In So, owing to a trapped
second on the 484-yard second hole, which
cost 5, and mfsadventure on the third
for another 5, came home in another 36 for
par Y and headed Hutchinson by one
stroke. Hagen drove 800 yards on the 525-
yard sixth, put his brassie on the green
and barely missed g. He lost stroke
on the 177-yard fourteenth by failing short
in a trap, whence he barely recovered
on the second, and took two puts for a
4. On the 305-yard sixteenth, Hagen
drove hole high to the blind green and
grazed the cup on his second. Short of
the green at the home hole he hesitated,
changed clubs, fell Il short and took s,
losing his title, as Barnes, playing closely
behind, was coming home with 36 -35-71 to
add to his original lead of one stroke
after the third round.
Barnes had all pars out except ono
and birdie four on the 4S4-yard can
celled that. Starting the final nine with
a birdie three, the Philadelphia equalled
par on the next five holes. On the six
teenth he equalled the feat of Hutchinson
and Hagen by driving the 305-yard green
over hill and holed birdie three, but
after driving 325 yards on the 425-yard
seventeenth and putting mashie second
10 feet from the cup, he overran the hole
and missed the return putt, taking s.
Driving 800 yards down the 453-yard fair
way to the eighteenth. Barnes sliced his
second to the left side Of the green 50
feet away from the cup and took three
puts for par five. which was good
enough to regain the title he took at Min
neapolis two years ago and lost last
year at Milwaukee to Hagen.