At Roehampton

The second hole in the golf course at Roehampton, England, is a bad hole for golfers who do not hit a long ball. On an April day, when the turf is moist and a bright wind is blowing off the tee-flag into your nose, the second hole is not an easy hole at all. Abe Mitchell knows this. Until that hole he had been doing very well in the Roehampton invitation--the first British professional tournament of the year. Rugged and jaunty after a hibernation at St. Albans (where, under the patronage of a wealthy enthusiast, he has been pursuing his studies), he had dealt nonchalantly with various examples of spring exuberance--with young W. B. Smith, whom he defeated 4 and 3; with Archibald Compston, by the same score--and now he was about to measure drives with his ancient, closemouthed, companionable enemy, George Duncan. He drove; Duncan followed him. Before they had walked up to their balls the chatter of the gallery informed them that Mitchell's lay some 20 yards beyond Duncan's. They played their second shots; Mitchell put his on the green, Duncan was short. Mitchell took a four.

Mitchell had done well until that second hole. But after his four, a brilliant performance considering the wind and the state of the earth, he played as if he had suddenly become a machine adjusted to make holes in even fours. On the 16th he was a stroke under fours and Duncan, with three ragged fives, was three holes down. There, without dramatics, the match ended. Mitchell had won the Roehampton Club's prize of 200 pounds with an ease that made Britishers beam happily above their pipe-bowls in the bar that evening and lend their tongues to prophesy: "Wait till he meets the American. . . . Wait till he meets that Hagen chap, , . ,