Sport: College Golf

Last week, Watts Gunn of Georgia Tech, playmate of Robert Tyre Jones Jr., went four times around the Garden City (L. I.) Golf Club course in a total of 302 strokes. Had he been alive to do this in 1902, he would have won the U. S. Open Championship by five strokes.* But, at 22, his reward was the qualifying medal of the national intercollegiate golf tournament.

Consistently but not brilliantly, Golfer Gunn battered his way to the finals where he found the other favorite, Roland Mackenzie of Brown University, his good friend, with nerves set for a 36-hole struggle.

Beginning at the fifth hole of their first round, Golfer Gunn went stark, staring golf-mad, made six birdies, used only nine putts on seven consecutive holes—putts varying between 35 and 12 feet—sunk with a borrowed putter. His score for the first 18 holes was 69, breaking the course record by two strokes. After that it was only a matter of time before Mr. Gunn won match and championship, 10 up, 9 to go.

Another figure in the tournament was John D. Ames, blond son of Knowlton L. (“Snake”) Ames (sinuous Princeton quarterback of the strenuous ’90s), who lost to Watts Gunn in the second round but was elected president of the Intercollegiate Golf Association.

* Runner-up would have been Lawrence Auchterlonie who, as it was, won with 307 strokes.