Making an Honest Buck

From Australia last week, terrible-tempered Butch Buchholz, 20, and Barry MacKay, 25, dealt another blow to U.S. amateur tennis. Having barely finished throwing the last racket, raising the last locker-room rumpus and blowing the last match to the Italians in the Davis Cup eliminations (TIME, Dec. 26), Buchholz and MacKay announced that they were fed up with the "hypocrisy" of amateur tennis and were turning pro.

With contracts from Pro Tennis Promoter Jack Kramer guaranteeing them $50,000 apiece over the next three years, Buchholz and MacKay declared that they had been making money right along as amateurs--and hating every minute of it. It wasn't the money they objected to; it was the principle of the thing. Said Buchholz: "All our lives we're taught honesty. It gives us a dirty feeling to take money under the table as amateurs. I feel wonderful for the first time."

Conceding that some money does change hands at supposedly amateur tournaments, Vice President Ed Turville of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association remarked dryly: "If a player wants to take money under the table, by his own act he is showing his dishonesty." The defection of the tantrum twins would almost surely impair U.S. Davis Cup prospects for two or three years to come, but Turville was clearly reflecting the considered opinion of many U.S. lovers of the game when he added: "I am pleased that they are turning professional."

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