Winning Guests

The all-American finals at Wimbledon (see above) were just one more indication that England's guests this summer were making themselves right at home. To a country which prides itself on taking its games more seriously than its battles, the situation was beginning to look a bit too one-sided. The London Evening Standard's Columnist Hylton Cleaver seriously suggested last week that all foreigners, including horses, be barred from British sport for two years so that the home product might recover its lost confidence. The Observer's Editor Ivor Brown was more philosophical about it: "We can play second fiddle happily enough so long as we do indeed play. . . ."

Last week's events called for the philosophical approach:

At Liverpool, England's best hope of winning the British Open golf championship died when haughty Henry Cotton took a second-round 78 and stormed off the green in a huff. One London paper consoled its readers: "For a welcome change, the Americans are not in the van." In fact, most topflight U.S. pros, including Defending Champion Sam Snead, did not even show up.* The winner: jaunty little Ulsterite Fred Daly of Belfast, who grinned and said: "It's lucky to be Irish."

At Wimbledon, besides winning the singles, Kramer teamed with Hollywood's Bob Falkenburg to win the men's doubles. Both the women's singles and doubles (with Queen Mary and Prime Minister Attlee watching in the stands) were all-American finals too. Singles winner: San Francisco's Margaret Osborne, over Miami's Doris Hart, 6-2, 6-4. In the doubles, Doris Hart and Mrs. Patricia Canning Todd beat the defending champions, Miss Osborne and Louise Brough.

At Henley-on-Thames, the crew of Jesus College, Cambridge, won the big event--the Grand Challenge Cup--in which no U.S. crew was entered. Another race, for the Thames Challenge Cup, went to a U.S. schoolboy crew from Connecticut's Kent School. Kent's brawny crew (average weight: 174 Ibs.), which brought along its own supply of peanut butter and cooking fats, won easily by two lengths from Massachusetts' Tabor Academy.

But the biggest news of the 108-year-old Henley Royal Regatta was the victory of 20-year-old Philadelphian John B. Kelly Jr. In the same race 27 years ago, Kelly's father, a champion Olympic sculler, was denied the right to compete because he had once done manual labor (as a bricklayer during a college vacation). The rule had since been repealed, but Kelly Sr., now a Philadelphia contractor, vowed that a son of his would one day win the prized Diamond Sculls. Last week he was one of the thousands on shore who saw his son finish eight lengths ahead of Norwegian Carl Fronsdal, said: "I've waited for this day for years."

* Most were playing in Chicago's raucous, $36,390 Tam O'Shanter tourney, which carries no prestige but is worth $7,000 to the winner, against $600 first-prize money in the British Open. Snead, who tied for 16th at Tam O'Shanter, said that the trip to England to win the British crown last year left him $400 in the hole.

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