Evening star., 1926-06-07

resentativeS. whether foreign-bred {
Many professionals regard Mehlhorn
as the best driver in America. and the
best in the world against the wind.
They say his low irons are unexcelled.
too. and. among the Americans, not
quite equaled. Hence, although
Hagen has won the British event
twice and Barnes has won 1t once,
they rate MehlhOrn as potentially the
strongest member Of the United States
contingent.
or course, circumstances may arise
that will take him off his game.
There is. for instance. the matter of
clubs. Bill has been using the steel
shafted kind. which are not permitted
In the British event. and the change
may affect his sense of balance and
touch.
A Consistent Winner.
Last Winter, in the West and
South. he was the most consistent
money winner in the game. He cap.
tured the Long Beach. Calf; Hot
Springs. Ark. and south Florida
opens. finished first with Macdonald
Smith in the international team
matches at Miami. and was in the
money at any number OF other events
in which the competition was Of the
keenest.
How Mehlhorn at one time lost his
low iron shots to the green and, then.
in the midst of an important cham
pionship. recovered them is an alb.
sorbing golf story. 1t Is also a record
Of an interesting change in tactics
that captured the aforesaid champion.
ship for him.
Bill wanted badly to win the 1924
Western open. played at the Calumet
Club, Chicago. He and Leo Diegel
were dated up for an exhibition tour,
and while Leo had won three impor-
tant tournaments--the Shawnee. Can.
adian and Illinois opens--Bili didn't
have single important scalp a. his
belt. although he had finished third
in the national open at Oakland Hills.
Detroit.
The end of the first days play at
Calumet convinced Diegel that he did
not have much of chance for
victory.
But his buddy. Bill. was leading the
field with 1910 for 1916. So Leo de-
voted all his efforts to pulling his
prospective tealnnate to victory.
Used Pitch Shots.
Finishing early the first day, Leo
went out to watch Mehlhorn play
the concluding holes of his second
round and noted with amazement that
Bill was using pitch shots instead of
low run-up shots at every green.
Now at Calumet the green's, par
ticularly on the incoming nine, were
apt to be crown greens-that is.
greens built up in the middle and
sloping off at the sides. Pitching was
dangerous, for unless the shot was
extraordinarily accurate-in fact. right
on the f1ag-the ball almost invariably
ran away from the cup instead of
toward it.
One could pitch short and trust to
an accurate chip shot to lay the ball
dead for a single putt, but this placed
too much burden on the chip shot.
Nevertheless. this latter was the
method Mehlhorn was using. 1t was
succeeding. too. but only because his
putter was performing in great style.
Leo noticed that on the seventeenth
and eighteenth holes Bill had to sink
l0-foot puts to get his four.
There was another reason why pitch
shots were inadvisable on those holes.
There was a lot of clover in the fair.
ways. Playing from clover is just
the same as playing from wet grass.
The ball takes the most unexpected
curves. which is dangerous, of course.
on high.hit shots. The stunt is to
hit a low ball smartly, missing the
clover.
Had Lost Pet Shot.