Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1935-07-09

1r.. of Pittsburgh IN the recent
national open golf champion
Il ship may mark the beginning
of q new era in big-tirne golf-the
invasion of the college-bred man into
the ranks of professional golf. There
are not many of them around today,
but the time may come when the old
university Of golf (the caddie-shedD
will be supplanted by graduates Of
our leading educational institutions:
trained men who know the mechanics
of the game. its physical laws and
the reasons golf balls act as they do
when struck in certain ways.
You could count today the univer-
sity trained men among the ranks of
the top-notch professionals on one
hand To be sure, there are lots of
obscure pros who have left colleges
and universities to take up golf as a
means of livelihood. But among the
top-notchers there are not many of
them. Parks, who captained the
University of Pennsylvania team and
played in matches here at Indian
Spring against George Washington, is
the leader of today. Other men who
left college to take up the teaching
of buffers as their life work are Craig
Wood, the Blond Bomber from Deal
N. j., who schooled at Clarkson; Ro-
land R. Mackenzie, a student at
Brown University, when he played in
the intercollegiate championship. and
Tommy Armour and Bobby Cruick-
shank, a pair of Scottish boys at
tending the University of Edinburgh
when the war called them to military
service All of these men have be-
come golf pros and have gone far in
the profession.
Get Into Big Money.
RUT today most of your golf pro-
fessionals are graduates of the
caddv ranks or are amatuers who
have made a local reputation and
have hoped into the professional
game for living Such men as Sara
zen, Hagen. the TurneSas and many
others of the top lines never had the
advantages of a college education
Graduates of the caddy ranks, they
grew up in that toughest of golf
schools, where their early living de-
pended on their ability to pitch and
putt better than their rivals. But
Parks victory may be the opening
wedge of a new career for college
men, that of professor Of golf. And
1t isn't such a bad living when you
consider all angles. If you are
top-notch golfer you can pick up
anywhere from $4,000 to $4,000 a
year. depending on how good you are
and how hard you work at it. Plenty
of college men would like to nave IN
comes like that and healthful at
mosphere in which to work.
Time was when the golf profess
sional almost exclusively was man
from Scotland or England, with a
burr you couldn't cut with a knife.
a wearer of tweeds, a good golfer and
a disciple of the St. Andrews swing.
Then gradually there crept into the
game the young American homeored
pros, products Of the caddy ranks
almost without exception.
Youngsters Dominate Game.
TO-DAY the game is dominated by
- these young Americans. 1t has
been many a year since a Scottish or
English born pro won the open cham
pionship. Tommy Armour's victory
in 1927 and Cyril Walkers win IN
1924 are the ones that come quickly
to mind.
Who knows but that the victory OF
Sam Parks will spur on more college
men to take up golf as a profession?
The pickings are good. the life is
fairly easy and man with oack-
ground suffers no social stigma.
A boy like Ed White Of Texas. who
won the intercollegiate champion
ship at Congressional few days ago,
could do far worse than get into
game where he can make decent
living provided he is good. So could
lots of other college lads with golf
regulations. Parks did just that.
Graduating from Penn he took up
golf as his livelihood. He didn't have
to, for his family is fairly well of.
But after he had looked around he
decided golf was his meat. He has
done fairly well for a boy only three
wears out of the class room. So has
Roland Mackenzie.