Evening star., 1938-07-17
PAUL'S |RONPLAY
UPSETSSLUGGER
Longer.Hitting Sam Takes
Only One Hole From His
Sharpshooting Foe.
BY WALTER McCALLUM,
Stan Correspondent Of The Star.

SHAWNEE-ON-DELAWARE, Pa,
July 16.-Outranged by as much as
IS yards on the big shots from the
tee, skinny little Paul Runyan Of
White Plains, N. Y. las pounds Of
fighting linksman, today won the
Professional Golfers Association
championship, beating Betting Sam
Snead of White Sulphur Springs. w.
Va, and 7, in the most one-sided
final in the 22-year-old history of the
paid clans match play tourney.
Runyan, a model of meticulous ac-
curacy, and a sharpshooter with the
irons, allowed the husky Snead to
take only of the % holes of the
match, which the winner played in 8
shots under par
On hole after hole, the smiling Rur-
yam, outdriven by scores of yards,
punched iron shots so close to the
cup that the putt was practically .
formality.
He wound up 1876 holes of tourna-
ment play over the Shawnee course.
heralded as one of the toughest, "a
strokes under par. He saved his finest
exhibition Of uncanny iron play and
matchless chipping and putting for
the final round, bewildering the help
less Snead by the pin-splitting ac-
curacy Of his long irons and the way
he saved hole after hole by chipping
close enough to hole the putt.
Runyan One Puts IL Greens.
THAT little fellow is going to beat
Snead," said Fred Mcleod. veteran
Columbia Country Club pro, last night.
He'll have Sam groggy after the
first nine with his iron shots and his
putting" And so it was, but Fred
didn't see the finish. He was out
playing when Runyan canned the g.
footer on the twenty-ninth green
that ended for this year the national
championship aspirations Of Sammy
Snead. the heralded boy wonder Of
golf, who at Is Is billed as the un-
crowned champion.
1--WE got to hole this one" grinned
snead as he stepped up to a 12-footer
for birdie at the twenty-ninth. The
ball brushed by the lip of the cup.
II lost to a great champion" Sam
said a few minutes later over the
radio, "a champion who outplayed me
from every angle-and man with
red-hot putter."
But Snead told only half the story.
The real story was that. only twice
was Runyan out Of the fairway. He
had II one-putt greens. while gone
were Snead's puts that knocked over
Hines and Nelson. Snead's putter was
as cold as Runyan's was hot and
Snead looked a man with muscles too
tense to function properly. Only when
the tide of battle had definitely turned
against him at the fifteenth hole Of
the morning round did Snead give vent
to his emotions. He three-putted the
green and tossed his putter into a
bunker, half in disgust and half in
anger.
Snead Is Bewildered.
Runyan was merciless in his ac-
curacy and unfaltering in his preci-
sion. He played golf like Willie Hoppe
used to play billiards, all but flaw
lessly.
Time after time Paul laid approach
shots far inside those Of Snead, who
played his worst round in a week and
couldn't be blamed. Only an iron
OK could have stood up against the
merciless pounding of Runyan, who
won this title in 1884 with much the
same sort of golf and against Craig
Wood, another mighty mauler from
the tee
The little man, aptly named Little
Poison" of the fairways, touched off
stick Of dynamite under Snead with
a S under par card Of 81 for the first
IS holes. After that it was Just q
question Of hanging on.
But Runyan, keen as a 16-year-old
and hot on the trail of his first big
tournament in four years, won the
twentieth and twenty-first to put the
quietus definitely on any rally by
Snead.
Even Sam, the phlegmatic guy with
the courage of lion. seemed to give
up then. He had one of those be-
wildered looks on his usually dead
pan. A sort of when is this guy
going to crack?" look
But Runyan never cracked. He kept
pushing those second shots UP for
inside Of Snead. forcing Sam to play
the odd and making the big hitter
from the mountains look a novice.
Paul Fourth Money Garner.
Snead, with his $500 prize money,
stays on top in the chase after dollars
among the pros, but Eunyan, with 81,
100 won here, steps into fourth place.
Snead now has won S7,13283, while
Runyan's winnings total $5,058.16.
Only once was Runyan seriously
pushed in the tourney. Ray Man.
grum took him to the thirty-seventn
hole in the third round.
Qualifying with 14l, Paul licked
Levi Lynch in the first round; former
open champion Tony Manero IN the
second, Mangrum in the third. Horton
Smith in the fourth, Henry Picard in
the fifth and Sam Snead in the final,
|