AMERICAN GOLF PROFESSIONALS

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 27 October 1934, Page 8

AMERICAN GOLF PROFESSIONALS

. • - • > ..." v . - •- ; . vt.„ ..... - Brief personal sketches of the. official team are as follow: Gcaig Wood, born New Jersey, 1902. International Ryder Cup player. Tied in 1933 British open, but lost in replay. Finished third in 1933- American open. .Densmore Shute, born West Virginia, 1901. Won amateur championships of Virginia and Ohio before turning professional. Runner-up in American P.'G.A. championship, 1931, and won the 10,000-dollar Miami open event in 1932. Twice Ryder Cup international, and won British open championship in 1933. Leo Diegel, born Detroit, 1899. Won American P.G.A. championship, 1928, 1929. Twice runner-up American open championship. . Won Canadian title four times. In British open, second in 1930, third ini 1929, and equal third in 1933.

Harry Cooper, born London, 1906. Won Texas championship twice. In 1926 won 15,000 dollars in two tournaments;-: In .1927 . tied" with ‘ Tommy Armour for American open bub lost replay. Third in 1934 American open title. . . Paul Runyan, bom 1908. Reigning professional golf champion of America., and biggest winner of the last, winter tournament circuit. 1 > V; : Ky Laffoon, the baby of the; .team, aged about 23 and considered one of the rising . young stars in American golf * • :. •’ THE AMERICAN CAPTAIN.

Craig Wood is a huge, loose-limbed blond giant, and smacks somewhat of the matinee idol in appearamx*—or rather until he -addresses a golf ball. Probably the proudest moment in bis life was when he finished on level terms jvith Dtensmore Shute in the 1933 British open, and the saddest, when in the replay, he duffed his second shot into the Swilean Burn, and, doffing shoes and stockings waded into a stroke .disaster from which he never recovered. Returning to America, he came third in the U.S.A. open, three strokes behind the winner, with rounds of 73, 74, 71, 72 on the hard Glenview course, Illinois. That year he became the terror .of the professional trail in his home State of California.

He was rated among the really long drivers long before he. suddenly arrived as a “big shot.” Strangely enough, he attributed his success to voluntary curtailment of distance, not through ah effort to shorten his swing or restrain his hitting power, but through the use of a brassie, -with more loft ,from the tee, instead of the straight-faced driver. “I suddenly realised,” Wood explained at the time, “that golf is simply a game of targets. Each shot should Be-played with the same definite object in, mind. Too many play-ers-—and I was one of them—seek only to gain distance off the tee. They think - that as long as they belt one out from 23Q to 270 yards, providing that the hall stays on the fairway, that the shot has been a Success. That is not true. The tee shot is not a perfect shot unless it is so placed as to" open up the hole for'the next shot. The second shot Usually determines whether the player is ;to ptltt fdr a birdie or fight for a par.” ' Wbod ; is rated as one of the longest hitters in golf today. Standing over six, feet, and Weighing- about.-14 stone, with powerful hands aqd forearms, he can bring tremendous physical power into the stroke, and yet, without accurate timing, that; power would be of little use ,as the cases of innumerable big, husky players,- still struggling to break 80, go to 'show.

BRILLIANT DENSMORE SHUTE.

RThe _son of an old Westward Ho 1 professional who sought fame and fortune in America, Shute played as an pr amateur, and won several State championships* while a student at Ohio University. In the grip of the golf fever, I he threw up a business career, much in the same way as Henry Cotton had doqjs, and turned professional. Tall and lanky, Shute takes his golf so seriously that he will complete a full round without uttering a single word. To him golf is a business which permits no frivolous ot extraneous conversation. "In order to play well," he says, "you must concentrate solely on the matter in hand, and that is impossible if you fall into the silly practice of chattering to all and sundry. I have yet to meet one of these links parrots who can play good golf." , Apart from the question of concentration, Shute is one of»the most con-sistent-performers among the world’s distinguished players. What ’ better piece of evidence could there be. than his four rounds—each of 73—in -last year’s championship at St. Andrew’s? The conditions were widely, different each day; yet Shute’s score remained precisely the same—one over fours per round. Returning to America as . British open champion, Shute said ; "The stroke saver over there is the real mashie-niblick pitch that is helped by the wind, in. combination with the kind of fairway you play from. You see,, the ground is tfery hard, and the lies are clo.se and fifm. So it is much easier to scoot the ball up with a fade, or give it a draw: After you have been at it- a while, : you begin pushing and pulling the face of the club across the ball; and it is really lots of fun, even if you are playing in a championship." LEO DIEGEIL—QUAINT PUTTER By >- Hard as nails, and not unlike Walter Hagan facially, Leo Diegel is equally famed for >his brilliant golf and quaintly unorthodox putting. On : ‘the greens he braces his legs and bends his body into a toe-touChing at-, titude. Then, with the hall right unI der his nose, so to speak, he grips | the putter with both forefingers, ;; equidistant down the handle, and i makes the stroke with mechanical exactitude of a pendulum. It is said

to look exceedingly funny to all but > his adversaries. Walter Hagen had won the American P.G.A. championship for four successive years onwards from 1924, when Diegel ended • the long reign, himself to don that coveted crown in 1928 and 1929. Brilliant at any time, Diegel is always

UNLUCKY TO LOSE

A Formidable Team - Part Played by Superstition - LaffopnCarries Rabbits Foot - Runyan’s Four Rounds in 273

apt to become inspirational, as many course records in the low sixties bear testimony. The number of major titles in America and England that he has lost by a stroke or two brands him as one of the-world’s-most unlucky players. Though in his 35-th year, he is one of the fittest men- in the States. Diegel has a pet abomination —needless sloth from tee to green. He has threatened to take concerted action against “tournament tortoises,” all by himself if need be. RUNYAN’S WIZARDRY.

Paul Runyan has had a year of dazzling success. A cool £loOO came his way from tournament prize money alone, let alone fees for exhibition matches, and the multitude of other ways in which an American professional can enlarge his bank account. His most noteworthy victory was in capturing the 1934 National professional championship from Craig Wood. The fight went to the 38th green,' where Wood missed a putt that measured exactly seven inches. If Runyan can reveal his wizardry in Australia, course record- after course record will be shattered. Here are two of his winning efforts against the full muster of American big guns this year: Won Charleston open tournament with 69, 72, 67, 65, total 273; won Cavalier open ,at Virginia Beach, with 69, 68, 66, 67, total 270. Runyan neither smokes nor drinks. The first he considers just a foolish habit, and the second he considers a vice any firstclass golfer must avoid like a plague. During ar championship his favourite form of relaxation is a picture show, and he insists upon nine hours sleep at night. In a big match, if he cannot get a bowl of soup for lunch, he just goes on playing.

Harry Cooper, who has been in the first flight of American golfers lor many years, finished in third place, only two strokes behind Dutra, in the

recent American open championship at Merion. A short while before he had won the Western open tournament. After 72 holes he and Ky Laffoori tied with 274. In the play-off they tied again with 67, and in the additional 18 holes Cooper won with a card of 66. Laffoon will go down in history as the man who registered scores of 68, 69, 69, 68, 67, and 69, and yet lost a championship. !/%,. KY LAFFOON. Ky Laffoon, who probably had the distinction of playing more sensational golf and being nosed out of more first prizes than anybody else in the game last summer, is a pretty colourful youngster. He tied Harry Cooper twice in the Western Open, tied Cooper and Revolta in the St. Paul Open, gave Horton Smith the worst beating any one man ever took in a National P.G.A. championship, made a powerful splash in the Canadian Open to finish second —and' has nothing much but reams of head-line space to show for it. * "Laffoon/’ writes Charles Bartlett in the Chicago Tribune, "is a native of Miami, Oklahoma, is one quarter Cherokee Indian, So years old, and one of the few practising professionals who never played as an amateur in any way, shape or form; for hf» became a pro. when lie was 15. During the last winter he won more than 2009 dollars, taking the Utah, Phoenix, Atlanta, Metropolitan, and Park Hill open tournaments, the la.st named with a score of 266, twentytwo strokes under par. He was placed second among the pros, in the gold rush.”

One day at the pros.’ big party at Buffalo, Ky turned out in bright blue shirt and stockings and on the follow- > ing day in. a glittering outfit of canary yellow—and was hailed as Walter Hagen’s most probable successor in the field of showmanship. He drew the galleries, all right. Horton Smith says Ky likes to play before a large audience, that crowds stimulate his

ciL any iiiumcut.' play anCe that this emotional response to applause is Jfc valuable competitive asset. Ky is of the rabbit foot school, carries one in his left hip pocket during every tournament. Whether it is a left hind foot of a rabbit caught behind a graveyard of a Friday night on the dark of the moon we can’t say; but that is tho kind that works best, as has been proved many times over.