Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-14
EVANS IS JOLTED
FROM GOLF PEAK.
One of Greatest Players of
All Time Fails in Two
Big 1929 Events.

~ NE of the more somber aspects
of the current golf season is
the realization that age holds
~ no magic alchemy to insure
that lettering golf game will
keep on forever We refer to the case
of Charles Chick Evans, affable
Chicagoan, who for two decades has
been one of the outstanding amateurs
of the world, and in the Judgment Of
two of Americas leading professionals
would have been the outstanding anna
teur of the world If he ever had been
gifted with the def touch Of Bobby
Jones on the putting green.
Chicks swan song has not been sung
because he failed to qualify in the
Western amateur championship. He
will come back, but his failure to quail
ify certainly must be weather vane
pointing the way to the crumbling OF
one of the finest golf games ever de.
veloped For Chick also failed th.G
championship, and the two failures
must mean that he is slipping from
the peak.
Comes to Front in 1909.
Evans made his first notable ap-
pearance in big time amateur golf in
1909, when he was a semi-f1nalist In
the national championship at Chicago.
He then was youth of 10. From that
time until this year he has been a
figure in national and international
golf.
Eight times a winner of the Western
amateur championship Chick attained
his first national title in 1916. winning
the open championship at Minikhada,
with record score of 286, which still
stands. He then proceeded to win the
national amateur championship at
Philadelphia in 1916, and held both
titles during 1917 and 1918, when no
championships were played, owing to
the war.
After a lapse of a year, he again
won the amateur championship in 1920
at Roslyn. N. Y, smothering Francis
Ouimet under the power of a game that
has been called the finest exhibition of
match-play golf ever shown.
In those days Bobby Jones was not
the factor he is today. Evans and
Ouimet were the masters, one repre-
senting the Middle West and the other
the East.
Chicks last notable appearance in
the national amateur was in 1922 at
Brookline, when he was beaten in the
final round by Jess Sweetser. But by
that time Bobby Jones was coming
dlO1lk, DJ41l W1U1IOuO q championship OAo
regarded as the uncrowned king Of the
amateurs. Chicks star was on the
wane, but so was that of Francis
Ouimet. The old order had passed, to
give way to the new, Jones, SweetSer
and Won Elm.
Great Battle With Jones.
We never will forget that great
battle between Evans and Jones at
Baltusrol in the amateur championship
of 1926. Bobby beat him by 8 and 2
over the 36-hole route and entered the
final, to lose to Won Elm. But Chick
was the same glorious golfer from tee
to green that he always had been,
and the same sorry figure that had
been unable for Is years to face a 6-foot
putt without trembling. Had Evans
been able to hole the Shooters that
day he would have beaten Jones.
We remember how Chick played 70
holes to win the Western open title
at Beverly in 1910, and never was of
the fairway in four rounds. That is
the way he played golf. But the short
putt baf1ed him, and for time he
putted with a midiron to insure get
ting down in two puts.
played the game than Evans. He Suf-
fered severe financial reverses in 1922
and 1923, but was able to keep his
head above water, and came through
the storm the same affable Chick.
Great as Jones undoubtedly Is, he
never has been able to do what Evans
did in 1915; that is, win two American
national titles in the same year. Jones
won the open in 1928, 1925 and 1929
He won the amateur in 1924, 1925, 1927
and 1928. He now holds both titles
but he never has succeeded in winning
both in the same year. He has the
chance to tie Evans records this year