A WIZARD

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20762, 24 June 1937, Page 10

A WIZARD

WHO IS MONTAGUE? AMERICAN WRITERS ARE INTRIGUED He drove a golf ball 50 yards further ■ than Bobby Jones. He could put an | approach shot within ten feet of the ; pin from anj’ distance up to 200 yards. He bet he could knock a ball threequarters of a mile in five shots and won easily. He said he could beat Bing Crosby at golf using a shovel, a rake and a baseball bat, and did it. These, says a writer in the American magazine, “Time.” last summer, were a few of the wild rumours that were going the rounds about a mysterious denizen of Hollywood, who called himself John Montague, refused to let himself to photographed, told no one where he came from or how he made his living, and never entered golf tournaments where he might attract publicity. The rumours were so wild that even when benign Sportswriter Grantland Rice, who is too serious about sport to hoax his public and much too wise to be beguiled by Hollywood hoaxers wrote a column in which he called Montague one of the world’s greatest golfers, no one took him very seriously. When Westbrook Pegler labelled Montague a combination of Paul Runyan, John Henry, Popeye the Sailor, and Ivan Petrovsky Skoyar, it gave the story more colour than credibility.

Photographed Last week Mysterious Montague descended abruptly from fiction to reality. At Los Angeles’ Lakeside Club, freelance Photographer Bob Wallace trailed him on to the golf course, hid in a clump of bushes, snapped him twice with a telephoto lens, as he was putting and as he was marching down the fairway, niblick in hand. After taking the pictures, photographer Wallace handed the film to his brother, popped a dummy magazine into his camera. Golfer Montague, who had heard the shutter click, ran over to photographer Wallace, took the camera away, removed the dummy magazine, and destroyed it.

Used Rake as Putter

With the existence of goiter Montague proved, there remained last week the glamour of legend about most of his doings Since he never appears publicly, all accounts of his prowess come from his friends. If available reports about golfer Montague are accurate, columnist Pegler was last summer guilty of serious belittlement. Montague ’ore:

When he bet actor Bing Crosby that he could beat him with a baseball bat, a shovel and a garden rake, the match ended after one hole because Montague started off with a birdie, using the rake as a putter. With golf clubs, he almost never scores ’bove 60's. His best score is 61, made at Palm Springs, where he lowered the course record every day for four days in a row. Two years ago golfer Von Elm said he had played golf with Mysterious Montague for a month without seeing him score above 66. In Private Life Mysterious Montague’s private life is modelled on his golf game. He lives inBeverley Hills with comedian Oliver Hardy (2841 b whom he can pick up with one hand. When not in residence with Hardy, he is “somewhere in the desert” where he is supposed to own a silver mine or gold nine. He has two Lincoln Zephyrs and a supercharged car, specially geared for high peed. He is about 33, sft lOin, 2201 b. He is built like a wrestler, with tremendous hands, bulldog shoulders, and byceps half again as big as Jack Dempsey's. His face is handsome, disposition genial. He can consume abnormal quantities of whisky. He frequently stays up all night and recently did so five nights in a row. He is naturally soft-spoken and dislikes hearing men swear in the presence of ladies.