Smith 278; Jones 279

Last year about this time, at Pensacola, Fort Myers, Jacksonville, Miami Beach and Pinehurst a young pro named Horton Smith, whom no one had ever heard of before, began to win tournaments. He went abroad with the Ryder Cup Team, and on May 22 -- his 21st birthday -- won the professional championship of France. People were saying then that within a year or two he would be National Open champion, but Horton Smith, not flustered by the publicity he was getting, kept going from one club to another, playing golf. In the last 16 months he has won 13 major tournaments, and two of them were last week--the Savannah Open, and the Central Florida Open.

The Savannah Open was an important tournament for Smith to win. Bobby Jones, who does not play much golf in the winter, was in it, warming up for the spring events. When Jones plays in any tournament, even if he is only out for practice, he usually wins. To beat him would mean a lot to Smith. Jones was very cordial when they met--seemed pleased that they were going to share the same room while they were in Savannah. Whether they talked much about golf when they were in that room alone together nobody knows--possibly it was as well if they didn't, for at the beginning of the third round Smith was five strokes up on his roommate. That morning Jones broke the course record with a 65. He drove the 270-yard second green and got down in two putts for a birdie. He laid an approach dead for another birdie on the fifth. On the second nine he made every hole in four except two that he made in two. In the afternoon he made one mistake--he took a six on the seventeenth. Smith, who was playing up behind him, heard about it as he started for the sixteenth tee. He knew that three pars were all he needed to beat Jones. Other golfers have been in this position, and have taken three eights, but Smith just did what he wanted to, and saw his name put up in first place when he posted his score--Horton Smith, unattached. His score was 278, Jones', 279. Four days later, at Orlando, he won the Central Florida Open, beating Mike Turnesa and Harry Cooper by two strokes apiece.

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