The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-07-13

Putty" Burkowski. the slight h. tie Lithuanian boy from City Hill street, filled all these jobs in help ing to support his immigrant par ents. But no matter where he worked to supply bread for the fam fly table, Putty's eyes turned long, ingly toward Naugatuck's nine hole golf course where more fortunate folk trotted from green to green in weird pursuit of little white ball.
 And the youth who latter was to become Billy Burke, National Open Champion. wouldn't be cheated of the golf he had learned to love as a caddy. He desperately seized on the few daylight hours after work to play a few holes and practice. Waterbury Friends Come Through
 The age of 16 found him cham pion of the local course after he had beaten Naugatuck's best play CTS. He apparently was a natural born golfer"-and the town was ready to back him when, at IS, he wanted to enter his first out-of town golf meet, the Connecticut amateur tournament at Groton.
 Though Billy was equipped with naural ability that entitled him to compete, three practical obstacles stood in his way. He had no knick- ers-and what was golfer without knickers? He didn't have good clubs. He didn't have the entry fee.
 However, two friends-business men from nearby Waterbury for whom he had caddied-made up for these lacks and sent young Burkow- ski happily to Groton.
 Many looked curiously at the bash ful, freckled youth invading a tour nament where few except wealthy Naugatuck and Waterbury friends who had watched him, as a nar- row-shouldered little caddy, drive balls to distances they never could achieve the sink puts that were be- yond their fondest dreams, weren't surprised when he won round after round in play against the states best.
 Topped by Topping
 The scene at the first tee in the final round must have been the most amazing of all. On the one hand, proud in his carefully pressed knickers, was this wouldn't be-
 
 grant family. On the other was Connecticut's best known amateur Henry J. Topping, crack golfer, mill lionaire sportsman and manufac- turer.
 This meeting, on the common ground of golf, between poor boy and rich man, prodigy and veteran. was to be one of the most importa mt events in the career of the future winner of the National Open.
 It was the first real test in com petitive golf for Burkowski who now had taken the name of Burke. Novice and veteran fought bitterly point for point. The lead changed at nearly every hole.
 One the final hole, they were tied. Then experience counted most and youthful nerves, unaccustomed to days of steady playing before hushed galleries, gave way under the strain. Burke missed not very difficult putt while Topping sank his, and victory went to the veteran, one up. But from the congratulations tha, were showered on the 18-year-old loser, it appeared Burke had won the match.
 It was Topping who in later years became Burkowski's best friend and who helped him to build up the career chmaxed with the victory at Inverness the other day.
 When Billy Burke. disappointed at having fallen just short of glory in his first big tournament, returned to his job as a coremaker in Nausa- tuck. it was Topping who was to lift him out of the obscurity of the Iron foundry and start him on the high road to world fame as golfer.
 TOMORROW: Billy Burke's one romance and his sensational rise to golf stardOm.