The Washington times., 1930-06-26
SHOWS
EVEN HE CAN
M|SSSHOT

UIOOO OIEUk
Liverpool golf prophets are
without honor in their homeland
= as a result of Bobby Jones 291
British open aggregate. They had
confidently predicted that 300
couldn't be broken under cham.
!. pionship tension at Hoylake.
- They spoke prematurely, failing
to allow for the flat calm which
prevailed during the open and
the tropical sun that baked the
= fairways as hard as those dried.
lake pans which dot the South
African veldt Such heat and
such MINDLESS weather were un.
paralleled at Hoylake, a climatic
conspiracy enabling eight COM
a:petitors to break 300.
Bobby Jones, whose ostrich
like gOlfing stomach can d.
geSt tenpenny nails, bolted
HOylake raw, though for a
few minutes on that final
lap he showed symptoms of
tummy ache.
His 291 Topped 10 strokes off
Hagen's former record aggregate.
and yet neither Bobby nor his
admirers we're satisfied. They
couldn't forget that blighting Z
on the last round, a 7 which
>, ought not to have been worse
than a 5.
- At the very least, Jones should
have scored 289 at Hoylake, a fig
ure close to his st. Andrews run
away. Seven seems to be Bob'5
unlucky number. 1t was pair OF
s-sevens on the final circuit at
Winged Foot. you may remember
/ which cost Jones an outright win
! and gave AL Espinosa the looph Die
needed to force a playoff. A loo
of good that did Espinosa! He
would have been better off If he
had finished a stroke behind the
: Albanian instead of being shown
up so mercilessly in that one-Sided
play-off duel.
=" At Winged Foot Jones had legit-
, innate excuses for his spasms Of
g seven. On the eighth hole. for in
stance, Bob played battledore and
= shuttlecock from one cavernous
pit to another on the opposite
flank of the green. At the fif>
Z feenth hole his wild slice off the
, tee left him stymied by trees in a
dismal jungle.
There was no excuse, save
nerve strain, for his sloppy Z
at HOylake's eighth hole.
Here he lay just below the
knOlI.top green after two lusty
bangs with the wood, only to
waste five strokes negotiating
the next 40 yards.
Bobby flinched on runeup, a
flaccid, weak-knee effort which
didn't climb the knoll crest. His
chip was equally faint-hearted and
he capped the climax by care
lessly knocking an eight-inch putt
past the yaWning cup.
Hoylake, with it's premium on
long approach shots, proved
more searching test of what we
Americans cell golf than did st.
Andrews. The Royal Liverpool
layout measures 6,750 yards-400
PAGES longer than Sandwich and
200 more than st. Andrews. Hoy.
lake approximates Winged Foot's
yardage. and though less savagely
bunkered, puts similar emphasis |
on hair-trigger irons,
Bobby Jones tied AL Espinosa |
at 294 on the Mamaroneck lay
out, a SO on the first lap. bal
ancing weakened 70 at the
finish. Fairways baked to rusty
brown conspired to produce an
aggregate which does not ade-
quately reflect the arduous ma
ture of Tillinghast's trapping.
Walter Hagen, reeling off a
~ par So on HOylake'S last nine
(called the hardest finishing
stretch in Britain), captured
the 1924 British open with a
. 3O1. Contrast ; this figure
with his 292-the victorious
total at both Sandwich and
Muirfield, If you want an
idea of HOylake's rigOrs in the
wind.
A characteristic feature of Hoy
lake is it's omnipresent out-of-
bounds area-forbidden tracts of
ground walled off from the fair
ways by peculiar looking grassy
dikes which the natives call
"cops"-a term derived from the
kopjeS of Boer war memory.
There is not another links so
continuously flanked by out-of-
bounds territory as is Royal Liv-
erpool. One is menaced by the
terrible stroke and distance pen
atty at the first, third, fourth,
sixth, seventh. eighth, thirteenth
and sixteenth holes. Golfers will
appreciate what strain this spe-
cific type of hazard imposes upon
anxious to conserve
every shot. At any moment
hook or slice may cost them two
precious strokes and spell their
Co0n1