Evening star., 1938-07-03
CHAMPION Of 81
HAVING BIG YEAR
Withdrawal of Little and
Sarazen Leaves America
Unrepresented. i.
BY BERNARD DARWIN

LONDON, July 2.-The British oper
golf championship, whose qualifying
rounds begin Monday at Sandwich, ir
Kent. will be domestic tournament
as far as American invaders are con.
cerned- The Walker Cup team has
gone home long ago, and Gene Sarazen
and Lawson Little, after entering, de-
cided not to compete
We have two formidable profes-
slonal invaders from South Africa in
Sid BreWs. who was second to Henry
Cotton at Sandwich in 1884, and Bobby
Locke, the precocious young amateur
who now has crossed the Rubicon and
become professional
Brews unquestionably is fine play
er, but somehow I fancy that that
second prize of four years ago repre-
sents his high-water mark of achieve
rnent and am inclined to be more
fightened Of Locke. 1 can imagine
his winning. though I hardly think he
Us quite mature enough yet. Certainly
last year he seemed to be taking toe
much out of himself by going flat
out at every stroke. However, he
has such a brilliant game in him that
he might do anything.
The four Australian amateurs who
are touring the country also will be
playing, and they are capital players,
but not seriously to be reckoned with
IN a professional field.
Course Is Switched.
or our own players, first interest
naturally centers around Cotton, the
title holder. This championship was
to have been held at Deal, but it suf :
tered from an. inundation of the sea
IN the spring and the long drought
that followed made it impossible to
get the course into good enough con-
dition. So the neighboring club, the
Royal st. George at Sandwich, took
over the burden, and this ought to
suit Cotton's book.
Not only has he pleasant memories
OF the course, having won his first
championship there. but it will, I
think, suit him for a particular rea-
son. Sandwich has an inexhaustible
supply OF water and so can afford to
water its fairways as we'll as its greens.
No doubt it will be verdant paradise,
and that is what Cotton likes. He is
not very skillful in stopping the ball
on fast, hard greens.
Cotton is bound to have a great
chance, and yet I do not quite see
him winning. He is hitting the ball
beautifully. but does not seem to be
IN the right mood.
Perry in Winning Stride.
I am disposed to prefer Alfred Perry.
the champion of 1885, who has won
two major tournaments already this
summer and oeen we'll up in the
others. He is playing with great
confidence and, moreover, is not a
highly strung man of moods and
lenses, but a solid, unimaginative
golfer-certainly not the golfer that
Cotton is, but always quite likely to
beat him.
Unfortunately, Perry was not play
ing in new form of tournament, the
Penfold league" recently held at
Sandy Lodge. There were dozen of the
leading professionals, and for five and
half days they played 1S-hole matches
against each other, so that each man
met all his competitors once. Two
points were given for a win and one
for a halved match. In the end
Percy Alliss. who is. appropriately, our
reignlng "match-play champion" won
with is points Reginald Whitcombe
and Gsdd came next with IS apiece,
and Cotton could amass only II.
Whitcombe Plays Best.
do not think Alliss played the best
golf from the scoring point of view;
that honor I should give to Whit
combe, who never went over As, but
Alllss nearly always was playing we'll
enough to win his particular match,
Moreover, ne was holing puts. If he
could have putted like this in past
open championships, he must have
been champion long ago, but now he
is Al, and that is just little old,
suppose. for the long test in which
there can be no letting up.
Whltcombe was second at Carnoustie
last year and clearly is full of golf,
and Alfred Padgham struck me as
coming back to his form of 1896.
1t may be that I have left out the
winner, but 1 should expect to find
him among those have named.
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