Masters of Golf

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 986, 31 May 1930, Page 15

Masters of Golf

HAGEN-JONES RIVALRY 0 Prospects in British Open

THE prospects of the world’s two greatest golfers meeting in the British open championship are discussed in the following article. In it, an English authority expresses the opinion that if it came to a clash be tween Bobbie Jones ant Walter Hagen, the amateur would win.

There vis something just a little mysterious about the future plans and movements of Walter Hagen, the British open champion (says an English writer). It has been stated that he will not defend his title, but a private message received in London from Australia where he has been touring with Kirkwood, states that there is every likelihood of the champion being at Hoylake. This view is confirmed by George Duncan, recently returned from the South of France, where he has been playing with the Aga Khan and teaching his Highness’s young bride the elementary principles of the game Duncan is quite emphatic about the matter. He says that Hagen will turn up at Hoylake for the simple reason that he cannot keep away from a championship, which, in (.he past eight years, has brought so much valuable grist to the Hagen mill. The American has admitted that the winning of the British title has put thousands of pounds into his pocket, the position of virtual world’s champion being one which only he knows how thoroughly to exploit. And one must agree with Duncan that a British championship without the presence of Hagen, the greatest showman golf has I ever known, would lose a good deal of j its glamour

Last year, on the eve of his departure for America with the British Cup again in his possession, Hagen told me that he would not be at Hoylake because of his engagements in other parts of the world. “1 am sorry,” he said, “because I dearly love coming to England where everybody is so wonderfully kind; besides, the fight for the championship seems to inspire me, and I generally contrive to play my best. However, the task of keeping the title for the United States must be left to others, among them my old friend Bobby Jones, who,” added Hagen.” will take some stopping.” We do not need to be told of the danger from this quarter; it is obvious to everyone, including the American professionals themselves who, in recent years, have had every cause to remember how this lone amateur has repeatedly crashed unceremoniously through their preserves. In view of what has happened in Australia, I am not surprised to hear that Hagen is considering curtailing his programme. The tour has not been the financial success which he had been led to expect, a number of irritating circumstances having arisen to take the gilt off the gingerbread There was considerable delay at the star* owing to the ship being placed m quarantine, then trouble arose owing to the selling of tickets for some of

/the exhibition matches a t bait the price originally fixed. Further, the public have not flocked to see Hagen in sufficient numbers to make the enterprise worth while, and matters have not been helped by the cancellation of the New Zealand part of the programme. Altogether, the Napoleon of golf has been unlucky in his first campaign in the Antipodes.

In these circumstances, it is scarcely a matter for surprise that Hagen should contemplate returning in time to have another tilt at the British championship. Should this turn out to be the case there will be the intriguing spectacle of Bobby Jones attempting to wrest the championship from Hagen, and of a host of British and otner American players endeavouring to capture the title from both. The great duel, of course, will be between Jones and Hagen, and if the results of past encounters are a reliable guide, then Jones should prove the master. In the last British championship in which the two met—at Royal Lytham and St. Annes four years ago—Jones won. with Hagen four strokes behind. But the results of the last seven United States championships are more startling still. Jones being directly concerned in five of them, while Hag«*n has never once been in the picture. However, the fact must not be overlooked that it was at Hoylake where Hagen, after a collapse which appeared to put him out of the running and then a miraculous recovery in the last nine holes, achieved one of the most remarkable and spectacular championship triumphs of all time. At the end he needed two 4’s in order to beat Ernest Whitcome by a stroke. Hagen’s 4 at the seventeenth was a classical effort. He had pushed his drive into the rough, and was left with a highly dangerous shot to a green guarded and shut out on all sides, an out-of-bounds area eating its way into the green on the right. Taking more care over the shot than of any other I have ever seen him play Hagen eventually decided upon a mashie-iron, a deep-faced club which has proved a faithful ally in many a desperate situation. Hagen thumped the ball on to the green, 175 yards away, carrying all the obstacles, and was putting for a 3 from three yards. Missing the putt he had then to get a 4 at the last hole to win. Standing on the tee facing a vast crowd stampeding down the course, Hagen, the calmest person in all that mob inquired what Whitcombe had done Hagen wanted to be quite certain. and when told that it was necessary to do a 4 he said, with the suspicion of a smile, “Is that so?” Hitting a mighty drive, almost on the 300-yards mark Hagen took a mashieniblick and put the ball over the green in semi-rough. Incidentally, that same mashie-nibljck is now in my bag.

Hagen presenting me with the elm. as a memento of an historic occasion Hagen chipped the ball back on t« the green two yards from the hole, * nasty, uncomfortable distance with z championship, and all that goes will it, hanging in the balance. Withou any of those absurd microscopical inspections of the line of the putt, inspections which are only an index ol the players* doubts and fears. Hager walked up to the ball, and without r second’s hesitation, tapped it smartlj into the back of the hole. Out of the seething, cheering crowd ran a woman—Hagen’s wife —and in the middle of the green they kissed and embraced. No such scene has ever been seen, and no such human note has ever been struck at the close of a British championship.