Evening star., 1940-01-21
u. 5. Amateur Of 1889
Draws Only $751;;
Open, S12,681
Gotes Might Be Helped
By Keeping Classics
From BIose Cities
By WALTER McCALLUM.

oy AZ GAS AvASSfAA/AOAvAs
e Golf never will become the great
spectator game that baseball and
football are, for the reason that
golf cannot be seen from comfort
able seats in a mammoth stadium.
To see a golf match you still have
to hoof it, and take your chances
with the crowd and the gallery
marshals.
But it is depressing gate" pic
ture the United States Golf Asso-
citation paints of the receipts from
admission fees in the major tourna-
ments during 1899 For game
that is played individually by some
5,000.0 900 Americans, golf as gate"
card hardly measures up to single
good hockey game, and it falls in
so far as the take is concerned, far
below baseball and football. What
golf needs is another Bobby Jones
or a headlined performer like
k1dSCll, wiz Sdll pun CAAC S1OWuo
at the championships.
Amateur Draws Only 81 $3.50.
The take at the gate in the ma
tional amateur championship last
year at Chicago was $1,82250. Any
local hockey game usually runs
more than that. The gate at the
National Open at Philadelphia,
which included two-day playof,
was $1268150, while the gate at
the women's national championship
was S1,76025. Put 'em all together
and you have the unimpressive total
OF s16,46425 taken in at the gate for
the three major championships of
the United States Golf Association.
The last championship in which
Bobby Jones played-the amateur
at Merton, in which he completed
the 1880 grand slam-dreW a gate of
more than $4,000. 1t makes you
wonder whether people are count
ing their dollars more carefully
nowadays, or whether the game
could get along with another Jones,
a guy who could lick the pros at
their own racket. The Redskins
Detroit Lions football game here
last fall drew a gate of more than
$4,000.
Entry fees from competitors in
the three major championships, at
IS a head. drew more than Sl1 900
into the well-padded Golfers of the
United States Golf Association. But
the public didn't respond at the
gate.
Declares Fees Too High.
Some years ago the late Eddie
Conlin, a gent who knew his way
around in the inner circles of big
league golf. cracked that gate fees at
the major title tournaments are too
high. why should any one pay
$3.50 for the privilege of being
showed around by flock of over
jealous gallery marshals and the
probability that he'll hardly see
more than half a dozen shots hit.
You can see a very good show for
that price, save shoe leather and be
seated in a comfortable seat in
theater protected from the weather.
Eddie had something there. The
price of seeing major league golf
is too high, in the first place, and
the facilities for seeing the top
notcbers are not good enough. Yet
golf remains\ the one game played
by more Americans than any ether.
While the open championship final
rounds were being played at Phila-
delphia last June, with the finest
finish in years coming up Gncluding
the Snead tragedy, Philadelphians
thronged the other courses of the
city and passed up the open cham
pionship. Why? I don't know,
unless it is the fact that there is no
outstanding figure around to be
licked. Or some glamour hoy anna
teur like Jones. who can spot the
pros their year-round competitive
schedule and still lick 'em.
Should Avoid Blase Cities.
Part of the answer, from the gate
angle, is that the U. S. G. A. should
avoid the big cities and concentrate
its championships on smaller towns
The big-town folks are blase about
golf. But to residents of the smaller
cities, such as those of Denver, which
turned in a big gate for the open
championship of 1898, the Guldahls
Sneads and others are new heroes
History shows that the bigger gates
have come at the smaller towns. A
championship in Texas, for example
where a major tourney never has
been held, would draw away up in