The Wilmington morning star., 1945-12-31
Fair Enough
Nv wEsTBROOK PEGLER
copyright, 1915, BY King Features Syndicate

name of Byron Nelson appears to have reason
to hope that he might have grounds for
belief that he may have made rather dis
tinguished record as a golfer in the season
of 1915.
Those sports reporters!
Those emotional phrase-makers!
Those superficial thinkers!
Let us not be too hard upon them for they
write but to entertain and glamorize and
worship heroes OF their own creation.
The truth is, of course, as between us the
intellectual ilk in the privacy of our circle,
that this Nelson has only just appropriated
the best score of magnificent but scandal
ously modest amateur by name here super
scribed.
The name, my peers, is Pegler.
Oh yes but yes, golfer of the utmost
spendor at times whose aggregate refinement
over a course of, let us say Is years, in all
a casual career, has equalled, at least and
on information and belief has excelled Mr..
Nelson's minimum of &C.
There was an occasion years ago at the
Pelham Country Club where at that hole
with the big dog-leg, Gene Sarazen, in his
youth, flouted convention and local supersti-
ton to shoot his drive high and far over the
trees to the green to win the hole from Jock
Hutchinson, the home professional, in the
national open. The occasion of which I speak
was not the incident Of the Sarazen shot to
the green. Pegler's master-stroke occurred a
few years later, few holes beyond. This
Pegler up to then was about eight over even
mines but, of sudden, he rose to an eminence
which the sports-writers, Of whom then was
aspiring to be one, sometimes called the
heights
Pegler was IS yards from the green with
three for a ten. Could the boy keep out of
those traps, those woods, those garbage trucks
on the road to the New Rochelle incinerator
hard by? Could he even hit the damn thing?
There it lay, cuddled in the horse-hair and
bottles and cane, enwrapped, ensnared, en-
meshed, ensnarled, enmired and, not to put
too fine a point upon a doleful situation, en-
wrong. Surveying these perplexities, our hero
shut his eyes, not, as sportsWriter might
have said, in prayer, but In stupid abandon,
hauled off with an iron which he always
called thing" reared back and socked it.
The rest is posterity's treasury.
1t sailed to the green, straight and true and
sweet, dumped nicely two yards from the
cup, jumped, ran joyously and dropped for an
even eight!
Robert Bender, God rest brave and heart
ening soul, rushed up to congratulate an
opponent who, by this incompatible feat of
nerve and fighting spirit, had won from him
a hole on which he always granted handi-
cap OF par t1meS TWO.
How did you do it?" He desired to know
if that was not restricted information. 'Just
how did you hold your hands? In what posi-
ton were your feet? Did you chop or swing
through? And were your ears any closer
together than, normally, you hold thenl?''
Does Gimbel tell Macy? Does Montgomery
Ward tell Sears Roebuck? Did Sarazen tell
Hagen?
Pegler gave him some noncommital reply
and then went forward and Robert never
knew the secret of the miracle shot of the
Pelham Country Club.
There was that No. iron shot on that
course at Clearwater, Fla, about 1927.
Tommy Armour was there that year and
he, poor, amiable but rather patronizing wight,
had been encouraged to fancy himself as a
rather fair man with the hoe. Pegler was $50
yards away here and miraculously tufted on
brush of dry grass. He was shooting for
an eight and feeling rather puny after a
night Of stone crab and song and Cuban grog
at annual rejoicing Of the baseball set,
offered, as an established festival by Al Lang,
winsome lover Of his fellow-man.
Pegler according to his method and style.
again blinked, raised his forefoot, pulled up
his head and jerked with his down swing like
man hacking snakes with a machette.
No, MOI Don't anticipate me! Peglers shot
did tremble and halt on the very lip so
that even Pegler, on his next essay, couldn't
fail to drop 1t.
Egad men. Had this Nelson made such
stroke in great tournament, the anthologies
would be full of it. But Pegler is modest
fellow
There was time, too, with Tunney and HON.
er Cummings at nice, bosky little place call
ed something like Mushwoode.
Up to the eighteenth, our Pegler had been
doing a morose job and it seemed that five
dollars, all hands around sat heavily upon
his weary shoulders when they teed up for
the final pitch.
Mr.. Tunney ripped off blurt of Twelfth
Night and nice drive straight down the
conventional course. Mr.. Cummings, our At
torney General of the hour, busted one, neither
deviating from the true direction, to place
beyond the trees. on the left, whence he
might reach the green in two
Mr.. Pegler, however, that bonnie one who
never hit hook in his life again, by that
superb and secret method which has amazed
the pros and all his opponents, with something
which those others took for nonchalance,
quietly slapped one off the little red stick
which curled to the left, above and far beyond
the trees and lay on the rim of the green
in precisely one stroke, gross He was down
in six to lose, indeed, but splendidly in an
uphill rally.
This Pegler's aggregate lifetime, best-stroke
score has been lost, the pity is.
It is we'll for those who shoot golf for their
livelihood.
| Live and let live
| RHyrnn No1c &c 4ox, y; 5osJ