Sarazen at Sandwich

Gene Sarazen did this spring what few professional golfers think is worth the trouble: he went into training. By eating vegetables and drinking water he removed 15 Ib. from his stumpy little figure. He was training to win the British Open, so he practiced on windy days at seaside courses because he expected bad weather abroad. When Sarazen went out to qualify at Sandwich last week, there was scarcely a breeze. He got in comfortably with a 149, a few strokes back of Tommy Armour, the defending champion.

At the top of his sure, perfectly rounded game, Sarazen played his first round in the championship on another windless, sunny day. A bunkered drive on the 18th cost him a shot but his score, 70, was four under par and only one above the course record. Next day he came to the 18th with a chance for a 68. He changed clubs for his second shot, pressed, took a five for a 69 His two-round total was a low record and he was three strokes ahead of the field. After shooting another smooth, effortless 70 he said: "Anyhow, that's far better than my usual 78 for the third round of a championship."

Starting his last round after lunch, Sarazen, as far as anybody knew, was eight strokes ahead of the field. Jaunty and gay, he fingered the lucky necktie, decorated by a question mark, which his wife had given him. He had just reached the turn in 35 when a runner from the clubhouse brought him astounding news. Arthur Havers, who won the British Open in 1923 and is the only Englishman who has done it since 1920, had finished his third round in 68, a new course record, leaving him only four strokes behind. Rattled by the news, Sarazen took a nervous five at the loth. At the nth he mistimed his drive and the ball landed in the one clump of grass in an ugly wilderness of hazards called the Himalayas. He recovered for a par and the Prince of Wales watched him sink a 20-ft. putt for a birdie on the 14th. At the 18th he needed a 4 for a 74. He smashed a perfect drive and asked his caddy, Ernest Daniels, "What club?" Caddy Daniels gave him the No. 3 iron. This last crucial shot was straight and safe. Two careful putts gave Sarazen a 72 hole total of 283, two strokes lower than Bobby Jones's record 285 in 1927.

Arthur Havers, playing against a posted score, needed a 70 to tie. When he went out in 37, his gallery began to see he would not get it. He finished third with 289 for four rounds, a stroke behind MacDonald Smith.

When he won the U. S. Open at Skokie in 1922, Gene Sarazen was the second caddy-bred U. S. professional of other than Scotch or English descent to reach the top. He was raised in Bridgeport, son of an Italian contractor. The first man was Walter Hagen, son of a German greenskeeper in Rochester. Now the U. S. tournaments are full of Ciucis, Espinosas, Kozaks, Turnesas, and the U. S. open champion is Billy Burke, born Burkowski, son of a Lithuanian steel worker.

In 1922, aged 20, Gene Sarazen was so pleased that he carried the big championship cup everywhere he went and once, when the top fell off, had to jump out of a taxi to get it. Neat, slick, sunburned, Sarazen was just as pleased last week. When he got a telephone call from Johnny Farrell, U. S. Open champion in 1928, he said: "Oh, boy, am I excited! . . . How are they taking it in New York?" Two days later, carrying the British Open Cup which he said he would defend next year, Sarazen sailed for the U. S. to play in the U. S. Open at Fresh Meadow Country Club, Flushing, L. I., his home course from 1926 to 1930.

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