Evening star., 1932-04-09


here to California and intt
the Pacific Northwest, anc
I get more real kick-more
real thrills-out of this course thar
1 get from any other. For sheer
diversity of shots and the pure
thrill of gambling what little skill
I may have against the odds i'm
posed by man and nature, I think
our little course has 1t on them
all"
The speaker was Gen. James A
Drain, former national commander ol
the American Legion, with q distin-
guiShed war record, one of the best
one-armed golfers in the amateur ranks
and a man who has Travelled as far
and played as much golf in his travels
as any golfer around the Capital. Gen
Drain Is former president of the
Washington Golf and Country Club
and the course of the Washington Club
was the one to which he referred
Yes, sir. If I miss a shot I know II
will get in trouble, and If 1 happen
rewarded" he added.
THAT'S the way most Of the men,
l. bers Of the Washington club feel
about the tricky and testing lay
out over in Virginia, where greening
fairways and hillSideS fast turning from
the brown of Winter 10 the green of
Spring are beckoning many scores of
the club golfers nowadays. Washing
ton will not hold an invitation tourna-
ment this year, but it has no less an
appeal for many hundreds of Wash
ington folk, who see in this course
over In Virginia one Of the most beau
tiful Of spots for Springtime golf
There's an old saying about the grass
growing greener in Virginia, and the
violets growing bluer,, and 1t seems
to be true at Washington. On those
hillsides where SO many fine shots
come to grief if not played in the right
spot, the golfers pleasures are keener
and his woes more woeful, for Wash
ington is not a course that will respond
to halfway measures. Over there it
is whole hog or none. The shot is
either good or bad. No halfway meas
ures about it, for there is too much
trouble of the natural and man-made
kind to let your golfer get away with
a badly hit ball.
A golf courses go, this layout about
n which Gen. Drain speaks is not
long. 1t measures only a shade
over $500 yards, and to the slugger who
can pilot golf ball on the straightest
line between two points it ought to be
a lead-pipe cinch. Yet for some reason
there are fewer real low scores made at
Washington than at most of the leading
golf courses about the Capital. The
best score ever made on that rugged
layout is 66, made five years ago by
Maurice ]. Mccarthy. the ex-George-
town lad, who was really a long hitter
in his college days. Many scores below
70 have been made, but that Sc still
stands as the course record. The par
of the layout is 10. Columbia, which
has a par of 70, has been done in 65 ;
Chevy Chase, which has a par of SO,
has been done in 64 Indian Spring,
against a par of II, has been done in
65; Congressional, with a par of 73, has
been done in 63; Burning Tree, with a
par of 70, has been done in 66, and
SO on.
But Washington, which has had all
the crack players of this sector of the
land whacking a golf ball around its
ditch-bordered fairways, has a course
record of only below par. This not
withstanding the fact that Bobby Jones'
Tommy Armour, John Farrell. Gene
Sarazen, Archie Compston and many
other crack golfers all have had a
whaek at the course.
VXIHAT makes this layout so hard to
w score on when 1t ought to be a
set-up for first-claSs golfer? In
our Judgment, the real reason is the
tightly guarded green's and green's
which, II missed with the tee shot or
second shot, offer so few opportunities
for recoveries. At many golf courses If
you miss the green a little bit a well
hit chip shot will retrieve your par
But not at Washington. Suppose you
miss the green at the first, for ex-
ample. You either play your second
shot from a bunker or you have a pitch
up a steep bank. And suppose you miss
the green with your tee shot at the Sec
ond. If you do you play your second
shot from bunker or you have an al
most impossible pitch up steep bank
to a fast green. The same thing is true
at the fifth, sixth, seventh, tenth, thir-
teenth, and so on. If you miss the
green with the right shot, you'll have
terrible time getting your par. That, to
our mind, is the real reason why lower
scores are not made at Washington.
And the greens are none too big, either
Then, again, take holes like the third
eleventh and seventeenth. You don't
have to be far off the line at any of
these to find your ball in ditch, which
means whole stroke lost beyond recov-
cry. That doesn't help the scoring sit
uation at all. Birdie opportunities are
not lacking, however.
HOLES like the first, fourth, NTH,
i l. fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth,
are all made in better -than-par figures
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