The Case of the Borrowed Putter

At 37, a ripe age for big-league golf, Samuel Jackson Snead was burning up the courses like a Virginia grass fire. He shot hard and accurate golf to win the Masters Tournament in April, and he was red-hot last week as he stroked his way to the P.G.A. championship at Richmond's Hermitage Country Club. In between times, Sam was warm enough to scoop up seven other prizes, boosting his winnings for the year to $12,610, tops in the trade. Unless something put the fire out he figured to have the biggest of all tournaments, this week's U.S. Open, at his mercy. And all because of a borrowed putter.

It is an undistinguished steel and brass implement, hammer-headed and weighing 16 oz. It has been causing Sam some embarrassment, because the name of the manufacturer stamped on it is not that of the Wilson Sporting Goods Co., for which Sam works. But to Sam, that putter is the difference. He borrowed it from a Chicago pro, Stan Curtis, in Tucson last February, and it cured his tendency to tighten up on the greens.

After beating Johnny Palmer (3 and 2) in the P.G.A. final last week, Sam was hugely enjoying his new eminence as current king of the links. The car bringing him to the Celebrities Tournament at Washington's Army-Navy Country Club was duly escorted by motorcycle cops. As he changed into working clothes (electric blue slacks and yellow T-shirt), a fellow competitor, General Omar Bradley, came over to shake hands. "I've been reading a lot about you," grinned the general.

Sam, who has never smoothed off all his hillbilly edges, wriggled with shyness, protesting: "Aw, naw, general. But I've been reading a lot about you." After posting a 131 in the Celebrities Tournament, Sam struck out for Chicago.

There the established stars and the survivors of 1,302 lesser golfers who spent last week qualifying* would fight it out in the U.S. Open, the tournament Sam Snead called "the daddy of them all." Whatever happened (in two other years he had fallen apart on the greens after having the big prize within his grasp), Sam was certain of one thing: Stan Curtis would never get that putter back.

* At Detroit's Plum Hollow, Pro Ray Maguire made history of a sort by sinking two holes in one in 36 holes of qualifying play, then failed to qualify.

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