Evening star., 1939-05-23
By WALTER McCALLUM.

You wonder, looking at Sam
Snead, what it takes to win the
national open golf championship.
You wonder, looking at one of the
great athletes of this or any genera
ton pound a golf ball at 300-yard
ranges with needle-splitting ac-
curacy, whether any man in the
world can play better golf than this
172-pound, 26-year-old from White
Sulphur Springs, w. Va. Yet Sam
never has won a national champ
ionship, even though he has been
the man to lick for three years. The
experts tell us that Ralph Guldahl
is the top man in the game today.
He may be, but there can't be any
great gap between Robot Ralph and
Seeking Sam. Certainly not enough
to call one a better mashie mauler
than the other.
Sam has two big tournaments
coming up before he starts in the
national open jamboree of 1899.
He'll play in the metropolitan open
and the Goodall match-play affair,
and then he'll swing into the big
show Of the year-the only one
with national medal-play crown
hanging on the cup end of a 4-foot
putt. And If there is better golf
player in that tournament than the
taciturn better from the Virginia
hills a lot of people who have
watched Sam perform over the last
three days at Congressional will
settle for Snead and let the other
fellow carve his own divots.
Snead 16 Under Par.
All Slamming Sammy did was
play four rounds of that par 70
layout in 272 strokes, or a total of
Is shots under par. Discounting
the conversation about Congress
sional being championship course
tit couldn't be without letting the
rough grow and narrowing those
expansive fairWays), Sam did quite
piece OF golf in scoring 81, 66, IA
and IS. That last round, shattering
the course record by a mere five
shots, came with the heat on, when
Sammy needed perfection and
nothing else, in the stern test of
competitive medal play.
There's lot of talk around Con-
gresSional as to whether that round
Is a greater round than the So shot
by Tommy Armour over much the
same course in 1927.
1t is greater round, and you can
bet on it. For whereas Tommy had
seven on the par four l4th hole
now the l5th) his round wasn't
played under competitive medal
play conditions. 1t was a friendly
round with nothing but a few dol
lars riding on the shots. Sammy's
round came when he needed 1t
badly, for he had opened the So
hole sectional test for the open
championship with ragged a. AS
he teed Off in the afternoon he
realized he had to shoot the works,
for another round like that of the
forenoon and he wouldn't go to
Philadelphia for the big show start
ing June 8. And did he shoot the
works, and take the wraps off?
Has Seven Brides.
All he did was bag seven brides
and play the remaining II holes
in even par to bust Andy Gibson's s
record of 10 by five shots. That's
the kind Of guy you can lay to, a
fellow who knows what he has to
do and steps out and does it.
You know already that Sammy
led the field in the sectional quail
flying rounds for the open. with a
36-hole total of 139. topping Leo
Walpers 14l. But you didn't know
that Sammy was a worried boy as
he stepped out for the matinee en-
gagement. His putting had been
sour, his second shots had been
missing the greens and all in all he
had had a pretty bad time Of it in
that opening "a. So what? So he
simply took the course apart with