BRITISHERS GO DOWN.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 260, 2 November 1935, Page 4 (Supplement)

BRITISHERS GO DOWN.

; THE RYDER CUP CONTEST.

How the Play Went in the Foursomes.

For the third time in succession the British professional golf team failed in the Ryder Cup international series with U.S.A. professionals in America during September. America won three of the four foursomes and five of the eight singles, while two were halved. Thus Britain had only two wins ill the twelve matches to America's eight wins.

British Ryder Cup golf teams come and go every four years, but at the halfway stage in the matches with the United States professionals they all look alike, writes a Xew York golf critic. As it was at Worcester in 1927 and again at Columbus in 1931, the score was 3 to 1 in favour of the United States the foursomes closed at the Ridgewood Country Club, New Jersey. Three of the British teams went down .heavily, and it remained for Charles Whitcombe, the team captain, and his brother, Ernest, to pull out the only point garnered by the visitors. This was achieved in a victory at the home green over Olin Dutra and Ky Laffoon. The count was 1 up, the margin gained when the British squad commander, Charles Whitcombe, who never has lost a match in Ryder' Cup competition in this country, laid a magnificent No. 3 iron shot seven feet from the pin on the 36th hole. By their victory the Whitcombes, the only members of the team who had participated in Ryder Cup competition in the United States, left a ray of hope for the British as they faced the singles. At that, the odds against a British victory were long. Hagen Trounces British Champion. Showing much of his old lustre and teaming to perfection with Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagen, in the No. 1 position, showed the way to his cohorts by trouncing the British open champion, Alfred Perry, and Jack Busson by 7 .avid 6. Henry Piekard and Johnny Revolta defeated 'Alfred H. Padgham and Percy Alliss, (i and 5, and Paul Runyan and Horton Smith swamped .William J. Cox and Edward W. G. Jarman by 9 and 8. After that holocaust a victory of 1 up was most acceptable. The only danger to the British is that the heavy artillery "barrage of the first three teams may have taken their morale. With the exception of the veteran Whitcombe, the Englishmen all seemed to have left their form on the practice tees. t The weather man did his best to make the British feel at home. Only for the trees and lack of wind the men of Johnny Bull might have fancied they ■were peering out across the North Sea from some British seaside links. A clammy Scotch mist or New Jersey drizzle, which possibly are about one and the same thing, settled over the lanscape .before even the Ridge wood Country Club's workmen were abroad cntting the holes. When they started the dew lay thick as frost. Never for one minute during, the day did conditions change. Approaches and putts rippled across the greens, throwing off tiny jets' of spray and leaving a clearly defined track. Footprints were as clear as if made in snow. Weather Didn't Beat Visitors. But it wasn't the weather that caused the crack-up of the first three British teams. It was the steady hammering against par by the clubs of the American team that caused the trouble, that and the rather desultory games played by the visitors.

Talking it over after the match, Alf Padgbarn said that the day was no different than many through which he and his' compatriots have played at home. "Of course," added this stylist of the invading squad, "that water on the green did ma.ke,the putting difficult." Then Padgham laughed: "Our opponents had the same conditions to contend with. So, in the final analysis, we who have comported ourselves so ingloriously can attribute our defeats and our position to only one thing. We took too many shots." Hagen, who had intended to stand down from the foursomes, won the appla.use of his gallery for a consistent, powerful and skilful exhibition of shotmaking. The old warrior was never seen to better advantage. He and Sarazen had to weax down Perry "and Busson, T>ut once they had their opponents on the run, the American Xo. 1 pair kept them going. Coming back in 34 for a sub par of 71, Hagen and Sarazen led by 5 up at the end of the morning play. They had been only 1 up at the turn. British Pair Never in Front. The British champion and his twenty-three-year-old partner, Busson, the baby of the team, never got their noses in front, they did square at the fourth after losing the second hole, but they lost the seventh and became 2 down at the tenth, when Hagen ran down a Afteen-foot putt for a birdie 3. The American pair carried off the twelfth in par and ' they were down in perfect figures to claim the thirteenth when their opponents were short. On the seventeenth Sarazen pulled over to the right on his tee shot to give Hagen a clear shot between the traps, and with unerring aim the home leader laid his ball within a few feet of the cup for an almost certain birdie. However, Sarazen did not have to putt. Perry slung his approach to the right, landing in the bunker, and had to dig the ball out himself eventually after Busson had failed. Carrying their advantage of 5 up into the afternoon rotmd, Hagen and Sarazen lost ground when the latter drove into the water ha-zard. Perry bunkered his third shot on the second hole, but the American pair failed to take advantage of this, Sarazen leaving a. forty-five foot run-up ten feet short and Hagen missing. They halved in a bogey 0. On the third, Hagen and Sarazen were home in two for a. par 4. whereas their opponents scored a 5 in consequence of Perry's second to the rough. Halving the 519yard fourth in another 0, the British pair won the short fifth in par as Sarazen dropped his tee shot into a bunker. Capturing the seventh to regain their lead of five holes, Hagen and Sarazen proceeded to close out their opponents in three more holes. Hagen holed a fifteen-footer to a birdie 3 at the tenth. At the twelfth Sarazen sank a similar putt. A Stiff Neck Handicaps Alliss. Padgham and Alliss laboured under a disadvantage from the start, Alliss having contracted a stiff neck which prevented him from getting around on the longer shots. As a result of this, Padgham played many of his seconds from the rough. And that was giving a team such as Kevolta and Picard too -;im,qqh- of. an advantage. Playing an

even par to the turn the An-rican pair were 4 up, the British winni.ig only one hole, the third. Picard and Revolta took four in a row from the fourth, playing these in 2 under par. They also captured the eighth and moved forward to 5 up at the twelfth as Alliss again sent a tee shot into the rough. Coming home Revolta and Picard were 2 over par. Ever, so, the British had nothing wherewith to combat this. Instead of regaining ground they slipped further behind until another bad drive by Alliss on the home hole loft them in a hopeless minority of 7 down. With a birdie on the opening hole of the afternoon round Padghara won their second hole of the match. ' They lost the second, won the third and then dropped three in a row as Revolta and Picard reached their high-tide mark of 8 up. Capturing the eighth and ninth, the British pair were 0 down at the turn. Thereafter they made no progress, being closed out four holes later, following a succession of halves.' Starting a streak at the tenth in the morning. Kunyan and Smith played eighteen holes in 08 and nineteen in 72. That sort of golf simply turned the British combination of Cox and Jarman inside out. The Britons were only 1 down at the morning turn, but they were 0 down by the time they came off the home green. Kunyan and Smith had a total of 72 for the eighteen holes, one over par, after being two over at the turn with a 38.

' The rout really started when Jarrnan dropped his approach for the tenth into a bunker. It was well under way when Runyan ran down a 15-foot putt at the eleventh. The other holes captured by the National P. G. A. champion and his partner were the thirteenth, fifteenth and seventeenth. And in the afternoon there was no respite for the harassed British pair. They lost the third to be 7 down, won the sixth, but then dropped three in a row to stand 9 down with nine to play. A half in par at the tenth sent Cox and Jarrnan down to the heaviest .defeat sustained by any team during: the day. The Whitcombes were square with Dutra and Laffoon at the first turn and also at the end •of the round. The British were 2 down going to the fifteenth, but pulled in the slack wlisi: Ernest sank an Bft putt at the fifteenth and a Oft at the next, both for birdies. There was rio letup in the give-and-take nature of the match in the afternoon. Dutra and Daffoon won the second, lost the fourth and fifth and captured the sixth to square. Playing from the back of the ninth green Dutra struck the ball twice, so his side lost the hole. Squaring at the tenth, the Americans were 1 up at the thirteenth. After Laffoon had missed his second shot at the fourteenth Dutra played a long shot to within eight feet of the pin, his ball running through a trap. Holding their shots down to a par the British everted the match. Once more the invaders proceeded to go ahead when Ernest Whitcombe holed a putt for a birdie. Charles Whitcombe missed a Oft putt on the sixteenth, and with two holes to play the match was square once more. Charles Whitcombe put his brother, in a trap at the seventeenth, but Ernest recovered almost dead to the cup to helve the hole. Then came the break, a drive hooked by Laffoon for the home hole, and hooked so badly among the trees that Dutra had to play out safe. Laffoon's third stuck on the fringe of rough close to the bunker at the right of the green. Meanwhile, Charles Whitcombe had laid a grand second with a Xo. 3 iron 7ft from the pin. Dutra studied the terrain, hoping to hole his chip, but as the ball came off the ridge, leaving its track in the dew, it swung to the left and missed the cup. Ernest Whitcombe putted a few inches from the cup and so Avon the match, giving Great Britain its only victory of the day.