MONEY IN GOLF

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1935, Page 9

MONEY IN GOLF

SARAZEN’S' ESTIMATE. Gene Sarazen thinks that golf professionals of the future will not visit Britain in search of the big cash prizes, but will go to Australia and Japan (writes “Fair Field” in the London “Daily Telegraph”). “There is no money in the British Isles for the professionals, and purses are always small on the Continent,” he says. “But Australia, Japan and New Zealand are taking an interest in golf. I feel certain the day will come when there will be bigger purses in the lands bordering on the Pacific.” So far as prize money goes, the American is right. Yet it would be timely to advise Sarazen that —as yet —there is no prospect of the British Open being held in Japan or Australia!

When Sarazen won the British Championship at Sandwich in 1932, the £lOO in prize money just about paid his hotel bill. Qn the other hand, the cash value of the title to the American was in the region of £lO,OOO. With his victory in the American Open later in the season he was able to get a £25,000 a year under a two-year agreement with a sports promoter. Sarazen “cashed-in,” as Americans put ’ it, very, handsomely on his two titles.

Indeed, when he got that contract he became the world’s highest-paid sports performer, topping the salary of "Babe” Ruth, then the reigning baseball “king” by £lO,OOO.

As it is, Sarazen’s tune to-day is vastly different from what it was tlnoe years ago. “Think of all tho joy and the -kick’ I will get out of winning the world’s proudest and greatest title,” he said after his triumph at Sandwich. “To me, that is worth all the money in the Federal Bank.” Times change. Last year, Sarazen finished in the 16th place and 20 strokes behind Henry Cotton in the British Open.

His stocks slumped badly. He only attracted a £4O “gate” at an exhibition match in Ireland.

Truth is, Sarazen is embittered by the sudden turn in his fortunes after his failure here last summer. Yet I dare saj' that we shall see him here again in the coming summer. Like- every other professional on the other side of the Atlantic, he realises that rich rewards await the winner of a championship which, for all its meagre prize money, is the biggest “plum" in the world of golf.

And with all his talk of the cash to ho secured “in the lands bordering the Pacific,” Sarazen’s share of the prize money secured by the syndicate cf Americans playing in Australia was only £500!