Winter Golf

The winter golf circuit starts at San Francisco, moves down the coast to Pasadena and Agua Caliente for the richest ($15,000) tournament in the world. Then it jumps to Florida for Open tournaments at Belleair. Fort Lauderdale, Miami, St. Augustine and usually the La Gorce Open at Miami Beach, for which the $15,000 prize money has not been posted this year. It ends in March with the North & South Open at Pinehurst. Obscure young Eastern professionals often club together to buy an old car for the tour of Florida's tournaments, hoping that luck and the urgent need for a new set of tires will help them win a slice of the prize money, but they seldom care to risk the trip across the Rockies where more celebrated practitioners start the money season.

In the list of qualifiers for the $7,500 Open Match Play Championship at Lake Merced near San Francisco, last week, were most of the best known U. S. golfing names--Billy Burke, Sarazen, Horton Smith, Cox, Diegel, Von Elm, Kirkwood, Golden, Olin Dutra and two San Francisco Espinosas, Romie and Henry, less famous than their brothers Abe and Al. Johnny Farrell had given up golf for a honeymoon. P. G. A. Champion Tom Creavy was there but he had a bad knee. Tommy Armour failed to show up. Walter Hagen, Amateur Johnny Dawson, Aubrey Boomer (British pro from St. Cloud, France) failed to qualify.

Horton Smith won the qualifying round with a record 68 and a competent 75. Then he went motoring with his friend Joe Kirkwood. Coming back, he put out his right hand while Kirkwood was parking the car, had it jammed against a post. Next day, his broken wrist in a cast, Horton Smith saw Burke go two extra holes to beat Tomekichi Miyamoto, Japanese champion in 1929 and 1930, who had come over for the winter season with two other crack Japanese pros, Rakuzo Asami and Kokichi Yasuda.

Burke went out in the third round. So did Diegel. In a driving rain Wiffy Cox got a 5-hole lead on George Von Elm before the match was postponed at the 18th. Next day the best Von Elm could do was to hold his own until the 31st, when Cox laid, him a stymie two inches from the cup. Von Elm used his niblick, missed, and Cox's par 5 won the match, 6 & 5.

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