Evening star., 1941-05-11
Veterans Tuckerman
And Smith Joined
By Mackenzie
Further Hearings Due
On D. c. Public Links;
4-BoII TiIts on Top
By WALTER McCALLUM.

Burning Tree Club has no mo-
nopoly on the better amateur golfers
around town, but it has one dis
tinction owned by no other club
around this hot links village.
Burning Tree is the home club
of three men who have been semi
fnalists in the National Amateur
championship. The three men and
the years in which they reached the
penultimate round in the national
are: Bruce D. Smith of Chicago,
1903; Walter R. Tuckerman, 1910,
and Roland R. Mackenzie, 1927.
Mackenzie, of course, is one of
the better club swingers anywhere
In the land. Roland had an inter
lude of about 5l2 years as a pro,
and under U. S. G.. A rules cannot
resume his amateur status. If he
could come back as an amateur the
31-year-old Mackenzie could and
probably would cut a wide sWath
among the amateurs. as he did back
in 1927, when he went to the semi
final in the title tourney at Mini
khada, losing to a big birdie putt
across the 37th green by the re-
doubtable Chick Evans of Chicago
Walter Tuckerman, chairman of
the Greens Committee at Burning
Tree, doesn't play competitive golf
any more. But both Tuckerman and
Bruce D. Smith know their way
around any golf course.
Pair of Real Veterans.
Thirty-one years ago Tuckerman
won his way to the semifinal in the
amateur championship at Brookline.
Mass, losing by a tWo-hole margin
to Warren K. Wood, a crack Chi
cago simon-pure. Wood lost in the
final to w. c. Fownes, jr., of Pitts
burgh, father of Mrs. Roland Mac
Kenzie.
Smith goes away back in golf, and
doesn't compete any more in tour
naments, but 40 years ago he was
a hot golfer, a man to be feared
In any tournament.
Modern amateurs have no hotter
competition than had Smith in his
day, with Eben M. Byers, Walter
Travis and Jerry Travers to lick.
Or as Tuckerman had in his day,
with the same three, plus Chick
Evans, FoWnes, Warren Wood and
Mason Phelps Mackenzie reached
his peak as an amateur during the
hottest period of amateur golf. All
Roland had in his path to the cham
plonshlp were such men as Robert
Tyre Jones, jr.; George Won Elm,
Chick Evans. Francis Ouimet. Jimmy
Johnston, Maurice Mccarthy and
Jesse Guilford. That was a hot
links crowd-the best group of anna
teurs in the history of the game
IN this country.
Seven members of the Washington
Golf and Country Club have been
elected to the club Board of Gov
ernors, and will meet with the rest
OF the board later this month to
choose officers. Chosen to the board
were Dorie c. Gruver, vice presi-
dent; V. Manning Hoffman, John
r. Myers, Henry P. Branson. DR..
j. N. Bradley, J. M. Barker and
James E. McCabe.
Links duos from four local coun-
try clubs will compete this after
noon at Indian Spring in the second
series of matches for the MARYLAND
state Golf Association four-ball
championship. Remaining in the
tourney are two teams each from
Columbia, Indian Spring and Ken
wood, and one from Bannockburn.
Members of the Early Birds
Breakfast Club, an organization of
Washington businessmen who meet
at frequent intervals at the Willard
will stage golf outing and dinner
Tuesday at the Washington Golf
and Country Club.