Old Bostonian

It would be ridiculous to call Francis Ouimet old. He is 38, walks with a limber stride and the voice in which he speaks with a clear Bostonian accent has not yet begun to crack or quaver. Nonetheless, there was more justification than usual for the exaggerations of sportwriters who last week would have considered it a breach of etiquet to use his name without calling him a ''veteran" and whose descriptions varied in opprobrium from "hoary warrior" to "old trapper." Ouimet was the oldest qualified contestant in the national amateur golf championship at Beverly Country Club, in Chicago. He had won the same tournament once before, in 1914, the year after he made himself famous by beating Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in the U. S. Open. Since then, he had been a semifinalist often (six times in the last eight years) but a finalist only when he lost to Chick Evans in 1920. His opponent in the semifinals last week was a thin, childishly blond youth from Richmond, Va. whose age--19--was the same as Ouimet's when Ouimet won the Open. Though Billy Howell's years, and the fact that he had been an entirely unheard of golfer when the tournament started, made the drama of the situation almost too obvious, it was the best match of the tournament. Ouimet, outdistanced by Howell's tee-shots, was more accurate with his irons. He sank a 20 foot putt on the 35th hole to win.

Howell, son of a Richmond, Va. sporting goods dealer, seldom beat his father at golf until two years ago. Intersectional qualifying rounds, tried for the first time this year, had brought many a golfer, who might otherwise have felt diffident about entering, to Chicago. Half a dozen favorites failed to qualify in the last medal rounds at Beverly--among them onetime British Champion T. Philip Perkins, one- time U. S. Champions Harrison Johnston, Charles ("Chick") Evans and Jesse P. Guilford. Three players--one of them ponderous, loud Arthur ("Ducky") Yates of Rochester, N. Y.. football tackle for Yale in 1914, for Princeton in 1916--tied for the medal. Cried Yates: "Don't forget, boys, they never broke ground on my wing. Ducky Yates always held them. . . ."

Next day Ducky Yates held and defeated Charles Seaver. a medalist this year and semifinalist in last year's amateur, George Voigt, now 37 and often spoken of as the ablest U. S. amateur, lost to an unseeded player. The matches were followed by a gallery which seldom exceeded 2,500. Bobby Jones carried a red umbrella on days when rain flooded the course. Actor Frank Craven got hit in the leg by one of Howell's shots.

While Ouimet was playing Howell in the upper half of the draw, the most surprising upset of the tournament occurred in the lower half. Maurice McCarthy Jr., son of a professional golfer and golf course architect, who earns his living by working in a copper mine, lost to a Chicagoan named Jack Westland who has won the Chicago amateur for the last three years. Westland had astonished the gallery by wearing a grey felt hat through all his matches and by his frightened demeanor when putting.

When Ouimet and Westland went out to play the finals on the anniversary of Ouimet's victory in 1914, there was a general feeling that Ouimet would win. Ouimet won the first hole, stood 4 up at the turn. He holed a 15-foot putt on the 14th, missed an 8-foot putt on the 15th, holed a 25-foot putt downhill for a half on the 16th, finished the morning round 5 up. In the afternoon, a strong wind quartered the fairways. Westland left his felt hat in the clubhouse and, apparently more at ease, won the 18th hole. But he made the mistake of playing the course instead of the weather. Ouimet faded and hooked his shots to keep them in the fairways. On the 23rd, Ouimet sank a 20-foot putt which put him 7 up. They played eight holes more, Ouimet solemn and quiet, Westland peering and stooping over his putts in an eccentric, futile drill. Ouimet was still 6 up at the 31st tee and when they halved that hole the match was over.

In 1916 Ouimet was suspended by the United States Golf Association for starting a sporting goods store. This episode was long forgotten last week as Ouimet, now a Boston cotton broker, attributed his victory mainly to "good fortune in having my putts drop. . . ." He had little to say before starting back for Brookline, Mass. Not so his 70-year-old mother Mary E. Ouimet, who, unlike most old ladies, seemed to know something about golf. Said she when she heard her son had won:

"Of course I am glad . . . but I am worried about him. I know just how much such a tournament takes out of Francis. . . . He has gained 18 pounds in the last year. . , .

"When he was four years old, he whittled out a golf club and practiced with stones. A prominent golfer . . . patted him on the head and said, 'Keep it up son. You'll be a champion if you practice long enough.' That's just what Francis did. . . .

"Francis thought he would have no chance against Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, but he entered, and played so well that he finished in a tie with those two great Englishmen. ... I will never forget the playoff.

"Our house faces the [Brookline] country club's 17th fairway. I was waiting for them to come up to that tee and when they did Francis told me he was two strokes up on Vardon and that Ray was far behind him. . . . Francis picked up another stroke on the 18th for a 72, Vardon took a 77 and Ray a 78. Ever since that day the 17th has been called 'The Vardon' for that was the hole that gave Francis his first championship.*. . . ."

* Mother Ouimet exaggerates. Not the whole hole, but a sandtrap on it into which Vardon went is called "The Vardon."

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