The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1927-08-16
ISIS UNLUCKY
FOR BOB JONES
KELLER AYERS
Points to What Happened on
OakmOnt Course at Odd
Numbered Hole
BY O. B. KIELER

There may be nothing in the
thirteen-s:perstition but you would
have a difficult time convincing
Bobby Jones of it's innocuity, il, there
happens to be such q word. Or me,
after the thirteenth hole in the third
round at the 1927 United States open
golf championship at Oakmont.
The short thirteenth hole at Oak
mont busted the worlds champion
he was champion at the moment
-as conclusively as the long. twelfth,
or Ghost Hole, broke him eight years
before in the match with Davy Her
ron on the same course. Well, maybe
not quite SO definitely the Heron
affair being match play, and the
recent business being medal play, in
which Bobby stood up to the thir-
teenth hole with two-thirds Of the
tournament back of him and one
third left to play.
Here was the situation.
HAD Never Been Right From start
Bobby had never been right from
the start on the great Oakmont
course. His first round had been
saved from blue ruin by wonderful
putting, long puts holcd in crisis
after crisis, it might as well have
been an 80 as the 76 he turned in.
His second round was better play
ed, but it had more puts in it-four
more, as | recall it-and the card
the lead, just as he was at SciotO last
year, with SO holes to play. He was
furious with his bad play, but not
disheartened. He was determ med
. and cool and in a fighting mood as
he went to the first tee Of the third
round. His idea was that couple of
rounds Of " would be good enough.
His score would be 207. He felt that
would win.
The idea was @. X. A score of
297 would have won with three
strokes to spare The execution was
not so good. however. ~
HITS Retter
. But Bobby started hitting his shots
. better that third round. He lost. one
stroke to par going out. but picked it
up with = great birdie A on the long
Ghost Hole, No. IL. And as he stood
on the thirteenth tee, level with par.
and hitting his shots at last, he felt
that he would not trade positions
with any other man in the field. He
| told me SO later. He was only a
couple of strokes behind nova
grand position with "a holes to play
and he felt he was hitting his shots
at last.
Personally admit l felt he had
another championship in the bag
He was sitting pretty.
Then he missed the long, narrow
prow-shaped thirteenth green with
a mashie tee-shot and the ball was
so wide on the left that it also missed
the big bunkcrs and stopped in q
narrow ditch. This, as it turned out
stopped the champion. He had ia
hack the ball out Of the ditch and il
stopped in the lee side, of the big
bunker. His curtailed swing could
the bank on the side of the green
One more blast-the ball was on
Carefully Missed Putt
| "Then,' said Bobby afterward
II carefully missed the putt"
It was about seven feet. He had
q CHASTITY 6. He was strokes down
to Old Man Par. He narrowly
missed a birdie 3 at the next. and
fell away to another by trying toe
hard to place his tee-shot at the long
and difficult fifteenth. A 5 at the
par-3 sixteenth merely added insult
to injury. Bobby was through. The
four par-3 holes at Oakmont in that
terrible round of 70 cost him ~
| strokes-seven over par. He was
eight strokes back of the lead as
round began. 80
Nobody fancied Bobby Jones could
shoot four rounds on any course and
not break rs. But he did. Remem.
Der, told you Oakmont was quite
la golf course.