BRITISH OPEN GOLF Nagle(65)And Snead In Record-Breaking Form

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29871, 11 July 1962, Page 6

BRITISH OPEN GOLF Nagle(65)And Snead In Record-Breaking Form

(N .Z J’.A.'Rettte^—CopurigM) TROON, July 10. America’s co«favourites for the British Open golf championship, Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus, faced anxious moments when the second and final qualifying round was played today.

While a fellow American, Sam Snead, and an Australian* K. Nagle, were breaking course records in the first qualifying round yesterday, Palmer, the title-holder, and Nicklaus, the L .S. champion, struggled to score two-over-scratch 76’s on the 7045-yard Troon course.

Today, both changed to the shorter Lcchgreen '"scratch 71) course, knowing that anything than a 71 might prove disastrous to their hopes of qualifying for the 72-holes championship proper which starts on Wednesday. Palmer had the additional handicap of playing with a strained back. Snead, who won the title in

1946. set the record fashion at Troon with a 69, later equalled by E. C. Brown, of Scotland. Hotter Pace However. Nagle, the 1960 winner, set an even hotter pace at Loch green, where he scored a tremendous 65. This broke the El-year-old record of South Africa’s A. D Locke by three strokes.

Nagle. foresatoig his usual straw hat for a pin* cap, made brilliant use of his light-weight putter and had 11 single putts. He had an inward half of 31, containing five threes, three of them birdies. On the same course. M. G. Christmas, the brilliant young British Walker Cup golfer, lowered the amateur record by three strokes, with a magnificent 66 (33-33). Birdie Putts

Sr.ead holed putts of four yards and five feet an the first two greens for birdies. He fell from grace only once,, taking six fcr the long sixth, and immediately recovered his par-making accuracy over the remaining 12 holes.

Nerw Zeeland’s left-hander. R. J. Charles, started as if he would break Snead's record. With birdies at the first and fourth holes, he reached the tarn in 35. Then, where Sneed had gone A 5. 5, from the tenth, he went 4, 3. 4. including a great eagle 3 at the difficult 485 yards eleventh. Lost Chances

But he lost his chances at the short fourteenth and seventeenth holes, where he was over the green each time to take fours.

G. Player, the South African winner of the title in 1959, was in danger when he took 39 for the first nine holes on the easier Lochgreen course, but he came home in a magnificent 32 for a 71, and said: “I'm feeling happier now.”

After today's second qualifying round, a maximum of 120 players will qualify for the championship proper.