Inevitable

The mills of the gods of golf ground out some long-awaited grist. After eight fairly patient years of waiting, Robert Tyre Jones Jr., of Atlanta, last week won the national amateur championship.

Pink of cheek, blue of eye, modest of demeanor, he stood upon the 10th green of the Merion Cricket Club's West course at Ardmore, Pa., and received the cheers of 5,000 or more galleryites, the handshake of George Von Elm, youthful Los Angelist, whom he had defeated 10 and 8* in a ruthless final.

Golfdom had known that some such scene was inevitable, sooner or later. Ever since his first try for the championship (1916, also at Merion), Jones had stood close to the head of the title-waiting line. Last year golfdom's estimate of him as the leading U. S. amateur medalist was verified when he won the open title. Last week, golfdom's shadow of doubt about him as a match-player was dissipated when he beat W. T. Thompson (Canadian champion) 6 and 5; D. C. Corkran (Gold Mashie winner, tournament medalist) 3 and 2; R. E. Knepper (onetime Princetonian, demon putter) 6 and 4; Francis Ouimet (onetime amateur and open champion, clockwork putter, inexorable match-player) 11 and 10; then Von Elm.

Max Marston, defending champion, survived until the semifinal. There Von Elm trampled him, 7 and 6, into his native sod. W. L. Hope, of Turnberry, Scotland, was longest-lived of the British entrants; but it was in the second round that Dexter Cummings, intercollegiate champion, did away with him.

*All matches in a National Amateur Championship are at 36-holes.