For a couple of days the toughest competitor in the National Open championship at New Jersey's Baltusrol Golf Club seemed to be the course itself: its dipped and rolling greens, its narrow dogleg fairways, its devilish rough. Patient and unforgiving, it took on the nation's best golfers.
Billy Joe Patton, the bold and nerveless amateur who did so well in the Masters, got off fast with a field-leading 69. one under par. Next day he was far off the pace, with a 76. Sam Snead, great golfer and perennial money winner, still trying for his first Open title, was in trouble from...
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