Inverness

If you had tried to pick out the two most contrasting personalities in the field of 144 golfers who were playing in the U. S. Open tournament at Inverness last week, you might have selected the two who tied for the championship after 72 holes. One was George Von Elm, a trim blond haired little man with self confidence so noticeable that it approaches conceit, who played in the Open last year as an amateur. A few months later, describing himself as a "business man golfer" he set about playing against professionals for money prizes, made a good business of it by tying John Golden in the $25,000 Agua Caliente Open. Five years ago he beat Bobby Jones in the finals of the Amateur. He might have been a favorite at Inverness except that his right thumb, badly pinched in the door of an automobile, had been protected by an aluminum cast until the day before the tournament started.

The other was William Burkowski who started to call himself Billy Burke when he gave up being a puddler in a steel mill and became golf professional at the fashionable Round Hill Club in Greenwich, Conn. A ponderous, muscular fellow, he smokes large black cigars when golfing, observes few of the niceties usually appreciated by onetime caddies whose golfing proficiency has enabled them to know nice people. Before the Open started, theorists spoke well of Burke's chances. The week before, in the Ryder Cup matches, he had kept his wooden shots straight, a trick that would be valuable on a narrow, well-trapped short course like Inverness, where Ted Ray won the U. S. Open in 1920.

The Burke-Von Elm tie came about as a result of a typically exciting situation in the last round. Von Elm, eighteenth on the first day, got back into the running by shooting a second round of 69, two strokes under par and the lowest score of the meeting. He started the last round two strokes ahead of Burke, who had played three rounds consistently a stroke or two over par, with few birdies and one eagle on the long ninth hole. Burke, playing ahead of Von Elm in the last round, finished with a steady 73 for a total of 292, took a shower and amused himself by standing naked in the middle of the locker room and playing pitch shots into a spit. toon, while waiting for Von Elm to finish.

Von Elm, out in 36, needed only a 38 on the last nine holes to win. Knowledge of his apparently impregnable position made him nervous. He had a six at the twelfth, a five on the fifteenth. Needing three par-fours now for a tie, he dubbed a twelve-inch putt on the sixteenth, took a five instead of a four. This blunder, which would have destroyed the poise of most golfers, appeared to invigorate Von Elm. He played the seventeenth in four, put a mashie shot 15 feet wide of the pin on the eighteenth green and sank the putt, almost angrily, for the birdie and a 292 to match Burke's

Ties in the Open are decided by a 36-hole playoff. When Burke and Von Elm came to the 36th hole the next day, Burke needed a four for a 149; Von Elm, a stroke behind, needed a three. Confident in the assumption that miracles--and a birdie on a tricky 325-yard last hole in the strain of an Open can be described as a miracle--never happen twice. Burke drove well, put his approach 30 feet from the pin, his approach putt three feet from the cup. Von Elm's pitch shot was twelve feet from cup. He studied the green, tapped the ball with the air of a man accustomed to miracles, watched it drop for another birdie, another tie.

Von Elm had wired his good friend Oilman Silas Newton COULD WIN IF YOU WERE HERE. Oilman Newton and a gallery of not more than 250 came for the unprecedented second 36-hole play-off the next day. Burke played an erratic round, his first, in the morning, but Von Elm was shaky too. They had 77 and 76. In the afternoon, both played beautifully. When they came to the 36th tee, Burke was two strokes ahead. He hit his ap proach too hard and it scampered across the low platform of the green 15 feet beyond the hole. Von Elm's ball went a foot further. He leaned over to putt and then looked up; the whirling of a camera had disturbed him. There was a reverent silence as he tapped his ball, watched it curl slowly toward the cup, and stop, unmiraculously this time, a yard beyond it. Burke, with three putts for a win, signalled to the cameras to take his picture. Obliging, he putted three times, won the U. S. Open after 144 holes, 589 strokes to 590.

Third in the Open, two strokes behind Burke and Von Elm, was green-eyed Leo Diegel. On his second round, he had sunk his tee shot at the 13th hole, the first hole-in-one made in an Open since 1922. Fourth was Gene Sarazen, dapper little ex-caddy who won in 1922.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.