Evening star., 1938-06-17
PLAYING GRE|NER,
winner OF MEDAL
Pitt, Shooting Best Golf in
Year, Figures as Storing
Crown Threat.
Bx WALTER McCALLuM.

ShA1t1OA 6o v LILLE, va, June ~.
The luck of the draw tournament in
golf is screwy thing, any way you
ngure 1t. Here, in the thirty-fourth
tfiddle Atlantic championship, we find
Billy Shea, the defending champion,
who isn't strictly on his stick, paired
with the hottest golfer in the tourna-
ment, the guy who won the medal It
all happens in the first round of the
title tourney won last year by Shea,
and smack in the very first round we
may find the champ tossed out on his
ear. Or we may not. 1t depends on
how Billy strokes the ball today
against Otto Greiner. the long hitting
lad with the Cliff Melton ears whom
the Baltimore golfers claim is the best
golfer in this territory. Which also
may be more or less proven in his
meeting with Billy Shea. who happens
to hold. in addition to his Mid-Atlantic
title, the District of Columbia cham
pionship.
Drawn strictly by the United States
Golf Association numerical seeding
draw the pairings find only two Wash
1ngtonians meeting in the initial
round of the championship, out of the
six scattered through the first flight.
Greiner. the medalist, who knocked
out form fitting 72 over the rain
drenched course yesterday, meets Shea
in the top and probably the big match
of the first round Harry G. Pitt of
Manor, the guy who should have won
the medal and didn't. clashes with
young Bobby Brownell of Indian Spring
in the only all-Washington match In
the top fight.
On Nutty Side.
But you never know how pairings
are going to work out, and it's alto
gether on the nutty side that Shea, the
champion. should play with Greiner,
the medalist, in the opening round.
In other matches J. o. Bergelin of
Kenwood C74 matched shots with
Richard Hamilton, jr. of Richmond,
who got in via the play-off route in a
tie at 49, Russ Hollebaugh, the portly
gent from Kenwood, clashed with Vir-
ginia State Champion Dick Payne and
Martin Mccarthy of Beaver Dam
crossed clubs with Bill Tomlinson of
Richmond.
Two Washingtonians were in the top
bracket and four were in the lower half.
which almost automatically eliminated
the possibility of an Washington
final. The first flight included a flock
Of hot golfers. You don't have to 20
further than the record of that soggy
medal round to find that out. When
guys like Leroy Sasscer take 90, and
Clarke Lea takes 49, and gents like
Frank Goodwin and Ralph Quinter of
Congressional and Chevy Chase can't
make the top flight it becomes quite a
golf tournament. That's what has
happened here. An all-day rain and
drenched putting green's may have had
something to do with it, but at the
same time Dick Payne, playing
through the worst of the downpour,
shot 73. In all 20 Washington
golfers turned in cards and were
paired in the match round, scattered
through the five flights in the tour
ney, whose match rounds got under
way today.
Shea Unimpressive.
Offhand and as good as Billy Shea
Is, he hasn't looked to be winner here.
The young man from Congressional
has been having trouble with his big
shots, hitting the fairway only at rare
intervals, and he hasn't been putting
too we'll. Greiner may lick him today,
but Billy has way of playing at his
best in the tough spots If he wins
from the hot Baltimorean he can win
the tourney again, although 1t will
probably be the toughest assignment
he ever has faced in his short career
as a tournament golfer. You can't
overlook Harry Pitt in this mans
tournament. Harry is playing better
than he has played in a year. II hit
flock Of fairways yesterday" said
Harry this morning You know I
don't usually do that. I fooled those
narrow holes by driving with a spoon,
and I kept the ball pretty near the
middle"
1t will give you all idea of how hot
Harry is when We tell you that he
needed par on the last two holes for
a II, and finished three over for "A.
three-putting the seventeenth and
eighteenth green's in a row, which also
isn't usual. Maybe the Manor Moose
Is on the way to comeback He won
1t at Congressional by whacking a 40
foot putt in for q birdie across the
nineteenth green. Perhaps he can do
1t again.