At St. Andrews

Because the British amateur championship was the only major golf event which Bobby Jones had never won, because he privately admitted that to win it was his keenest ambition, because no matter how things might come out he was obviously the best golfer entered, critics in their despatches and sport followers in their talk discussed last week's tournament from a standpoint of "Jones against the field." But few experts figured that he was sure to win. Even the greatest golfer in the world must have a bad round now and then, and in any tournament where five days of 18-hole matches lead up to a 36-hole final chances are high that one of Jones's mediocre rounds will coincide with a spurt of brilliance by some opponent. Short matches have bothered Jones badly enough in the U. S. amateur, in which only the highest 32 qualifiers are allowed to start. In the British Amateur there is no medal play elimination and the winner may be someone who, whether a good or middling golfer, happens to have a long streak of luck. The excitement was to see who would put Jones out, as in previous years. Anxious to be on hand when this happened, prodigious crowds swarmed over St. Andrews day after day. People pushed each other into ponds and bunkers.* Stewards shouted and waved red flags. Three times it took more than five minutes by the clock on the tower of the Royal & Ancient Clubhouse to clear the 18th fairway for the final hole, and each of these times the mob had come over in response to the news that Jones was in danger. The first time was when Jones was playing big Cyril Tolley, last year's British amateur champion, reckless, huge-shouldered, one of the longest drivers in the world. They were all even at the turn. They won holes almost in alternation to the 18th. Both were slipshod around the green and unsure in the pits, with Tolley driving farther and hitting the ball harder, but taking many chances, as golfers usually do when playing Jones. Tolley could have won on the 18th if he had sent his putt down. On the 19th Jones laid him a dead stymie.

The next time the 18th fairway was hard to clear was when Jones finished against Harrison R. ("Jimmy") Johnston, the U. S. amateur champion. Jones was four up at the 13th. After the 17th he was only one up and seemed to have forgotten how to play. He had to halve the 18th to win, and did.

The last time Jones was pressed was when playing lean, impassive George Voigt, best iron-shot maker of U. S. amateurs but a short driver, whose amateur standing was once questioned by the U. S. G. A. on the suspicion that he was giving golf lessons to his Washington, D. C. employer. Jones missed a five-foot putt on the 8th, another at the 10th and cut his drive into a whin at the 12th. Voigt was two up. Here Voigt began to slip. He drove out of bounds and lost the 15th. At the Railway Hole he played into Principal's Nose, famed bunker. Suddenly Jones found his putting touch. Needing a long putt for a half at the 17th to avoid going home one down, he sank it. It was his most important shot of the day. Voigt was weak climbing out of the Valley of Sin (swale in front of the 18th green) and Jones won this hole and the match.

The final was almost pure formality, but very pleasant. Lanky Roger Wethered, champion in 1923, is one of those easygoing, impersonal British sportsmen who consider it bad form to show their desire to win. His sister Joyce, British women's champion, who trounced her brother in a practice foursome with Jones before the tournament, followed the play as though it were just a rather specially jolly match, with an inevitable conclusion, between her brother and a friend. After a good first nine, Brother Roger went, as usual, erratic. Jones stayed at top form. Four up at lunch, he ate a fruit salad, drank a glass of milk, went out and finished off match and title, 7 & 6.

*U. S. Walker Cup players trying St. Andrews for the first time were amazed to find how primitive and ungroomed the Royal & Ancient course really is, with its public pathways worn by people crossing it on the way to the beach, its rough greens and sheep-cropped fairways, its gorse and hummocks and vague stretches of ground neither rough nor fairway.

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