GOLF
It was no trial at all for well-bred Britons to keep a stiff upper lip all the way through Dunkirk, the Blitz and Suez. But through eight straight losses to the U.S. in the Walker Cup—now really, chaps, that was a bit much to ask. Englishmen take their golf seriously; after all, they practically invented the game. Actually, it was the Scots—but surely the Empire still stretches that far?
This year the British decided to go after the Walker Cup in earnest. They scheduled the matches for Ailsa, a 7,025-yd. course at Turnberry, Scotland, whose massive bunkers and cement-hard greens were sure to give U.S. golfers fits. Then they picked a team of strong young amateurs who could match the long-hitting Americans drive for drive. And, finally, they prayed for rain.
Last week, as the two-day Cup matches got under way. an icy wind roared off the Firth of Clyde, dumping rain and sleet on Ailsa. "I'd heard about this Scottish weather," complained one U.S. golfer, "but I never believed it before." The Americans blew skyhigh. U.S. Amateur Champion Labron Harris lost to Ireland's David Sheahan, one up. California's Richard Davies, the 1962 British Amateur champion, blew a three-hole lead to England's Mike Bonallak. When night finally fell, the upset-minded British took a 6-3 lead with them into the clubhouse bar. U.S. Team Captain Dick Tufts called a meeting. Said one player: "He really swung the old cat-o-nine-tails."
The sun finally broke through next day —and so did the penitent Americans. In the morning, U.S. golfers swept all four Scotch foursomes (in which the two men on each team take turns hitting the ball) and led by the score of 7-6. By midafternoon, they had added three straight singles victories. On the 16th green, two up over England's Mike Lunt, New Jersey's Bob Gardner, 41, was surveying a tricky, 4-ft. putt when Captain Tufts whispered in his ear. "Bob," he said, "this is the one we need." Gardner calmly stepped up, sank the putt—and with it the British hope for a Walker Cup upset.
TRACK & FIELD
"Let Them Try"
"Frankly, I don't understand all the fuss about this meet," said New Zealand's Peter Snell, 24, on the eve of the California Relays at Modesto, Calif. Lounging beside a motel pool, arm in arm with his bride of two weeks, the world's fastest miler (3 min. 54.4 sec.) hardly looked like a man facing the sternest test of his career. He dismissed his chief competitor, the U.S.'s Jim Beatty, a 3-min. 56.3-sec. miler, with a scornful shrug: "This Beatty doesn't hold any decent record at all." He snorted at the suggestion that Beatty's teammates from the Los Angeles Track Club might try to box him in during the crucial run to the tape. "Let them try," said Snell. "Maybe it will make me run better."