Match Play

At Pittsburgh, the Alex Smith Memorial Trophy for lowest qualifying score went to solemn young Byron Nelson of Reading, Pa., whose 139 for 36 holes topped the field by three strokes. . . . Officials of the Professional Golfers Association were pleased when three of the players they had selected for the Ryder Cup team that will play England this month and four others named as eligible for it were in the round of eight. . . . British-born Harry Cooper last year broke the record for the U. S. Open by two strokes, lost the title when Tony Manero broke it by four. Last week when Cooper and Manero played each other in the quarterfinals, Cooper was 4 up with nine holes to play. Manero won, i up.

Hardest tournament in the world to win --composed, after the qualifying rounds, of 18-and 36-hole matches between the ablest golf professionals in the U. S.--the Professional Golfers Association Championship at Pittsburgh last week was a serious, businesslike affair. To contestants, it was important not only because of the $10,000 in prizes. The prestige of doing well in the P. G. A. is likely to enlarge a professional golfer's income from other sources. Contestants indulged in no disputes or blunders of behavior. After five days of play, four of the young men whose names appear regularly near the top of the lists in major U. S. open tournaments went out to play the semifinals. They were Tony Manero and Denny Shute, Ky Laffoon and Harold McSpaden.

Because Shute was the defending P. G. A. champion, his match with Open Champion Manero might have been the climax of the tournament. It ended on the 34th green when Manero, who had never been less than i down since the third, just failed to hole a 20-yd. chip shot he needed to keep the match alive. The match was not the climax of the tournament because the final the following day, between Shute and McSpaden, who had nosed out Laffoon, turned out to be as bitterly contested as any engagement in the P. G. A.'s earnest and efficient history. McSpaden led by three holes after the first five, Shute by three holes after the first 1 8. In the afternoon, McSpaden worked his way back to a lead of 2 up with three to play. Shute evened the match on the 35th green. On the 36th, needing to hole a 4-ft. putt for the title. McSpaden watched his ball graze the side of the cup and stay out. On the extra hole. Shute had a putt of the same distance for a 4 to his opponent's 5. He holed it to be come one of five professionals who have won the P. G. A. title more than once.*

At Sandwich-- To get to Royal St. George's Club in time for his first-round match, Brigadier General Alfred Cecil Critchley, London sports promoter, sailed from New York on the Normandie, took a speedboat to the dock at Southampton, chartered a plane, flew to the course, waved at the starter to identify himself, landed at a nearby airport, rushed up to the first tee. He arrived three minutes after the match had been awarded to his opponent by default.

Playing onetime Champion Cyril Tolley in the second round, 59-year-old Michael Scott, who won the tournament in 1933, came to the 17th green thinking he was 2 down, picked up his ball instead of putting for a half, and said, "thanks, pleasant match." Officials pointed out that he had been only i down, ruled that he had lost by picking up.

In the fourth round, Major A. J. Evans, whose famed book The Escaping Club tells how he got out of a German prison camp during the War, failed to escape from Wilford Wehrle of Racine, Wis. All square after being 3 down, the major needed a 12-ft. putt to halve the 18th hole. Addressing the ball, he moved it too slightly for anyone but himself to see, picked it up, conceded hole & match.

Enlivened by politely exciting incidents like these, the British Amateur Golf Championship proceeded amiably last week at Sandwich, England. U. S. sports pages, which used to regard the British Amateur as their private property, ceased to ROBERT SWEENY He sank an Ulsterman. do so when Bobby Jones and Lawson Little ceased playing in it. Last week they had a hard time reviving their excitement even when it became apparent that an American was going to win. The American was Robert Sweeny, 25. a long-legged, wavy-haired Oxonian, who learned his golf in England where he has lived for ten years. Watched by his friend Cinemactress Merle Oberon. Sweeny put out Wehrle in the round of eight and a Staffordshire miner named Charles Stowe in the semi-finals the same day. Next day a hard-fought 36-hole final against a 50-year-old Ulsterman named Lionel Munn ended on the 34th green when Sweeny sank a 20-ft. putt for match & title.

* Others: Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagen, James Barnes, Leo Diegel.

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