GOLF NOTES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 13, 15 July 1937, Page 24

GOLF NOTES

THE OPEN' TRIUMPH

BRITAIN'S YEAR

IS GAIN PERMANENT?

Cotton's win in the British Open championship is, if nothing else, a British triumph, but it is more than that, as the scoring showed the bulk of the Americans outclassed. They have never felt as a team as happy under British weather conditions as in their own country, and the fact that the last round was played in truly abominable weather, even for England, may have led to their discomfiture. The changes in position were remarkable, but even prior to that the Americans had not put up their usual invincible front. The change from their supremacy in the Ryder Cup, played also in England on this occasion, may be partly laid to the difference between match and stroke play, but it is as knights of the card and pencil that they formerly shone, and were,, in fact, unchallenged seriously for years. The members of their Ryder Cup team were, however, further up in the British Open than some of the /most fancied British members in that contest, while some of the leading British professionals in the Open were not included in it. Was the Ryder Cup team well selected? Byron Nelson, one of the youngest of the U.S.A. team, had £o take fifth place as the first American in the Open, six strokes behind Cotton. The aggregate is, moreover, a high one. To this weather and. course probably contributed their combined effect. Carnoustie as lengthened is a long and stiff course, and when soaked must have been a tough proposition. The heartening effect of Cotton's win and of the placing of R. A. Whitcombe, C. Lacey, and C. A. Whitcombe ahead of the invaders should leave its mark on British golf. It often only needs such a marked success to encourage all other players in a team, and the result may be a permanent improvement in British professional golf. The going seems to have been too hard for the amateurs.