"That Damned Seventeenth"

Emmett Gary Middlecoff, the golfing dentist from Memphis, sank his final putt for a 286 and began his deathwatch. In the pressroom at Medinah Country Club, 23 miles from Chicago, he dragged alternately at a cigarette and two double-Bourbons with Coke. His wife, Edith, was weeping with excitement, and a friend was prematurely pounding him on the back and burbling, "Boy, you're the champ . . . what a homecoming Memphis will put on for you." Reporters were dispassionately batting out new leads about the biggest golf tournament of them all--the U.S. Open.

It was not over yet. Still out on Medinah's tough, narrow-waisted fairways, and needing only even pars to tie Middlecoff was Sam Snead. The grapevine buzzed that Snead was hot. "He's burning up that last nine," snapped Middlecoff nervously. "I'm betting I won't win. I'll bet you $10 right now that Snead ties me or beats me." Somebody took his bet.

At the next to last hole--Medinah's infamous xyth--balding, slope-shouldered Sam Snead stood on the elevated tee and squinted at the postage stamp green 193 yards away. Snead's tee shot was long, landed in inch-high grass on the apron. It was a simple chip shot, but Sam reached instead for the borrowed putter that had revitalized his game (TIME, June 13).

That time it was the wrong club. He banged the ball eight feet beyond the hole, missed the putt coming back for a one-over-par four. When Sam got no better than par on the 18th, he gave a horde of newsmen one glum look: "It was that damned seventeenth that did it." Gary Middlecoff just grinned and paid off his $10 hedge-bet. With a $2,000 first prize and the prestige that goes with being U.S. Open golf champion, he could well afford it. Snead had tied for second place with North Carolinian Clayton Heafner at 287.

It had been a topsy-turvy tournament, played over a killing course in heat up to 96DEG. Six former champions (including Gene Sarazen and Byron Nelson) could not place among the first 51 at the halfway point and were eliminated. So was Jimmy Demaret, usually one of big-league golf's deadliest men. Middlecoff's winning 286 was two strokes over par, a rarity in this par-smashing age. The tall (6 ft. 2 in., 180 _lb.) Tennessean pro, who looks a little' like Baseballer Ted Williams, had won by playing safe; he was in the rough off the tee only four times in 72 holes.

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