COTTON’S CHAMPIONSHIP

Northern Advocate, 15 September 1934, Page 2

COTTON’S CHAMPIONSHIP

HOW GOOD WAS HIS GOLP?

COMPARISONS WITH R. T. JONES,

The story of T. H, Cotton’s great win in the British open championship at Royal St, George’s, Sandwich, has been told —how he went from a brilliant (i 7 in the first round to a recordbreaking 65 in the second, added a good enough 72. for the third round, and after tearing his supporters’ nerves and his own to tatters up to the 12th hole, in the final round pulled himself together to finish with a 79, winning the . championship., by five strokes, and with a total of 283 equalling the score made by Gone Sarazen at Princes, Sandwich, in 1932. So the championship was won and then the discussion started. The two questions everywhere asked were: How ,good really was Cotton’s golf? and, Would he have beaten Bobby Jones? Well, it is useless for anj'one to attempt to detract from the brilliancy of Cotton’s golf. His first two rounds were absolute perfection. In them ho was the complete master. Only once before had anybody succeeded in playing a round of 97 in a British open championship—never before had anybody scored a 63—nor had anybody ever scored 132 for the first two rounds. And no one could have got the figures more easily or more impressively than Cotton. But it must go on record that the conditions were as perfect as they could humanly be. “Admittedly,” .Mr Darwin wrote, “the golf was as easy as it ever can be, The Royal Bt. George’s Club has its own supply of water, so that it can drench its fairways as well ns its greens when It has the mind. The result was a verdant, carpet, almost woolly in places, and the ball tossed high in the air stopped of its -own accord on the greens.” The easiness of the golf is proved by the fact that scores of 156 and 157, which were good enough to qualify in other years, were not nearly good enough at Sandwich, where the

highest qualifying score was ,152. Then glance at the scores in the championship table and' note that there were fifteen scores better than 300. That, lias happened before, but very seldom, and it goes to show that not only was the course playing.easily but that the weather was favourable to low scoring. Then Cotton was extraordinarily lucky: with the weather on the first two days.. There was both wind and rain on those days but Cotton missed them. The first ,-two rounds were a runaway for Cotton. Discussing the prospects for the second day, Mr Darwin said: “Bad luck in weather, and he has so far had good luck, might conceivably make a finish of it.” Well, the weather changed on the last day and made a much stronger demand for skill and steadiness, and other players in the field, notably Brews and Macdonald Smith, put in much better scores than Cotton. Still, as Mr Greenwood said, Cotton was labouring- under the immense' strain of winning his first championship, Always temperamental, Cotton has had a long and bitter struggle to get the bettor of himself, and in the last round, when he seemed to he on the point of collapse, so far as his game was concerned, he pulled himself together and finished like a champion. Nothing can rob him of the credit due for that mighty effort, nor can the glory of his first two rounds be decried, even allowing for the perfect conditions. Other competitors enjoyed these conditions also, and he left them far behind.

As to the second question—there is no more eloquent testimony to the absolute pre-eminenee of Bobby Jones in the empire of golf than the fact that lie provides the standard by which the best achievements in the game are invariably When Lawson •Little woit Iho British amateur championship at Prestwick 'with a phenomenal round the question was at once raised: ‘‘Would he have beaten .1 ones ? ” or/' ‘ ‘ Was' .Little’s final a greater round than Jones ever played?” So with Cotton at Sandwich. The question was: “If Jones had been in the field how would lie have fared?” it is essentially a silly question, since nobody can supply the answer, but it is interesting enough to follow the discussion. Mr Greenwood in the “Daily Telegraph’’ was fairly guarded. Ho wrote: —“Comparisons are being made between Cotton and Bobby Jones, but; iu my opinion it is too early to form any definite opinion as to who is the better player. However, it can he said without fear of contradiction that dories throughout the whole of his wonderful career never in a championship accomplished anything like* this.” With all respect to .Air Green wood it may be commented Unit there is not a vast difference between Cotton’s 283 at Sandwich and Jones’ 285 at St. Andrews in 1.027, and at St. Andrews only nine competitors had scores better than 300 as against fifteen at Sandwich, which indicates that the scores wore harder to get. Furthermore, Jones

won by six dear strokes. Cotton’s margin was five. In the “Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News” (London) “A Roving Player” writes;—“l have been asked hundreds of times how Jones would have fared had he been competing at St. George’s. In answer, I think it is safe to say that after Cotton's two superb rounds of <l7 and (55, Jones would have been a good way behind, but it is also safe to say that he would not, as in the case of Cotton, have taken 79 for the final round. It is all very speculative, of course, but I am inclined to think that .Tones would have drawn desper-

atcly close, though without completely closing the gap. ” Jones himself had a word to say. In its enthusiasm tho London “Daily Telegraph” rang Jones up at his Tome in Atlanta to tell him of Cotton’s great performance in the first two rounds and Jones said: —“It is hard to believe! It must, have boon a • perfect performance. But Cotton had it coming to him after the superb game ho lias shown since the championship started. I well remember the trickiness of the Sandwich course. I could never break 70. I wish I had been there, but against, that kind of golf maybe it is just as well I am safely at homo!” That is characteristic of Jones, who throughout his career always had more to say of the other man’s ,golf than of his own.