Champion Gobert

On the lush golf links of La Boulie, close to Paris, an exceptionally tall Frenchman, swinging his clubs like a clock, led a smaller Frenchman around 36 holes and strode in to the refreshment room. There the smaller gentleman, Andre Vagliano, twice amateur champion of France, drank the health of his tall friend, Andre Gobert, new French champion. M. Gobert had prevailed in the so-difficult but so-enchanting final of the tournament 5 holes up and 4 to play.

Internationally famed for his Davis Cup tennis play, Champion Gobert took up golf not ten years ago. So large and well proportioned that he is seldom taken for a Frenchman, he mastered golf after the mechanical fashion followed by most muscular men who investigate golf after other games. His drive is long, usually low, mathematically straight. He faces his ball squarely, swings with arms quite stiff. He putts with his feet together. Having been much in England he understands golf etiquette far better than most of his countrymen; takes reverses and good fortune alike with the good humor of a cosmopolitan sportsman. Popular among Parisians, he is of a humor that appeals strongly to the many foreigners with whom he transacts business.

Characteristic at once of his politeness and capacity for practical jokes was an occasion upon which, out early at his golf club with no partner, he was asked by the professional to play with a young American who sought a match. They played nine holes "in French," the American wringing his slender vocabulary to sustain a conversation.

On the tenth hole a member of a passing foursome hailed M. Gobert: "Hallo, Andre! How's your game?"

"Not," M. Gobert called back in perfect English, "so frightfully good today."