Evening star., 1940-02-11
Series Is Suggested
To Determine D. +.
Open Links King
Contests 3 Years Aqo
Drew Big Galleries
At Dozen Clubs
BY WALTER McCALLUM.

BY WALTER McCALLUM.
The golf professionals around
town, in winter when they've been
confined to little else than arm
chair conversation, are figuring on
reviving the pro exhibition matches
this year.
Those matches three years ago
carried major slice of gallery in
terest and probably, in so far as fig
ures are available, drew something
like $4,000 people to dozen clubs.
No admission fee was charged, but
each club kicked in with a contribu-
ton, most of which went into a pot
for the District of Columbia open
championship.
Last year the pros held an early
meeting, the purpose of which was
to line up the talent for the team
matches. They met, had a bite to
eat and started wrangling about the
way they would play, who would
play and so on. Altogether it was a
silly exhibition by group of men
whose livelihood depends on promo
tion of the game of which they are
an important part
Pros Couldn't Agree.
The golf pro, you know, is the
little father of the game at his club.
Every duffer looks up to him as the
patron saint and walking encyclo-
pedia of golf But the pros, without
two or three of their more level
headed associates to whip them into
line at the meeting, couldn't get to-
gether, the exhibition matches were
abandoned, the District open cham
pionship was cancelled and pro golf
around Washington in 1899, in so far
as competition was concerned, didn't t
amount to much.
Now they are talking about re-
Viving them. Those matches can do
pro golf a world of good, if only in
the item of getting people out to see
them and the added item of setting
up fund for the District open
championship.
Pro golf is not in tailspin around
Washington and probably won't be,
but the pros aren't as active as they
are around other towns in tourna-
ment way. There is a feeling among
the Washington pros that their Bal
tlmore associates do no cooperate
with them.
Title Series Suggested.
But there's also a disposition on
the part of some of the local pros
not to play in many of the little pro
affairs and perhaps a setting up of
cllques among them. All this doesn't
do the pros or the game any good.
Why not series of 10 exhibition
matches spaced throughout the
summer, with the pairings to be
arranged by some disinterested
party and with carefully kept scor-
ing averages?
At the end of this series, the pro
with the lowest scoring average over
10 courses would be the District
open champion and would pull down
the major slice of a purse to be
put up by the clubs, together with
an added entry fee by the pros
themselves
Suppose, as probably would hap
pen, that two or three of the pros
went into the last two or three
matches with fraction of point
separating them. wouldn't every
putt mean something, and wouldn't
gallery interest be spread out for
quite while?
And the thing might go right
down to the last putt in the last
round.
Chip Shots.
DR.. John Monteith, the erudite
head of the active work of the
United States Golf Association green
section, vowed them at the green
keeping superintendent meeting in
New York. Monteith knows his
grasses from root to shoot and back
again, as few men in the world
know them.
Did you know that if all the golf
holes in the land were laid tee to
green they would make a highway
5000 miles long and $50 feet wide,
capable Of accommodating 16 auto
mobiles on stretch that would run
from New York to Boston, to Seat
tie, to Los Angeles, back to Phila-
delphia and New York? That's a
lot of territory. Wonder why the
duffer can't find it with his tee
shot.
And did you know that 1000
square miles of turf are under cul-
tivation for golf course putting
greens? Or that $724,OO0, 900 (con-
servatively) is invested in land,
buildings, furnishings and equip
ment for golf clubs and that j. @.
Duffer and his boy and girl friends
spend $40,00O,0OO on golf annually?
Does that make Gene Sarazen' S
idea of getting a dime a piece from
every golfer for major tournaments
sound so ridiculous? Gene really
has something there. With pot of
100000 some really big tournaments
for big dough could be staged
Washington will not have a repre-
sentative in the championship of
club champions at st. Augustine
later this month. Robert E. Jones
of Baltimore will represent Hillen-
dale.
Page Hufty of Chevy Chase, run
nerup in the 1889 Mid-Atlantic
championship, is whacking divots at
Palm Beach.
Again the U. S. G. A. carefully
Is looking over the good fields in
the women's tournaments in the
South. The solons don't want 'em
to cuff" their hotel bills.
That District championship of
1910, if carried out on the sug-
gested amplified lines, will be a
WOW. But they won't get 200 en-
tries with fee of three bucks. His
tory shows that when you put an
entry fee on the field, it drops in
size.
The record for an entry fee tour
ney locally is the 150-odd who en-
tered the Middle Atlantic of 1882 at
Columbia.
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