FOUR TIMES CHAMPION AT TWENTY-SIX.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10916, 4 November 1913, Page 4

FOUR TIMES CHAMPION AT TWENTY-SIX.

1 MR TRAVERS'S VICTORY. • FINE PLAY WITH RUSTY IRONS. I (By A WANDERING PLAYER.) NEW YORK, September 12. Mr Jerome Travers, " the wizard of American golf," is,, at twenty-six years of age, amateur champion ot his country tor the fourth time and the second year in succession. He beat Mr John Anderson, a young Boston schoolmasin the final to-day by 6 up and 4 ; I§r Gravers was a hot favourite from the beginning jnd is idolised by the golf publio of the Western States, but despite his victory he did not rise to his best form this week, being con- ■ spicuously weak in his approaches. But his easy victories showed his remarkable superiority over other American golfers. This is displayed in the 3 steadiness and straightness of his driv--3 ing with an iron club, his fine putting - with the. Sclieneotady putter, ana, 5 above all, his splendid fighting matcht play temperament. . Some other American golfers may he more accomplished in strokes, but Mr 1 Travers is by far the hardest man to beat. In to-day's game Mr Anderson, 1 a plucky golfer, 6tood up sturdily 5 against him. Mr Anderson won the first hole, "hut Mr Travers took the next three, yet the Boston man was 1 r up at the turn, his play in the middle part of the round being exceedingly steady and good. He was 2 up .it the thirteenth, but Mr Travers took three of the next four. He had bunker experiences at the home liole, which en- . abled the match to be . squared at the interval. Mr Anderson's fate was strongly influenced by a shocking had start in the afternoon, both players muddling the hole. Mr Anderson putted into the • bunker guarding the green, and Mr Travers, with the hole at his mercy, then did the same. Mr Travers made a far better recovery and won a bad 3 hole in 6 to 6. 1 Mr Anderson promptly lost the next ) hole, and though he remained at 2 1 down for a little while, Mr Travers's grinding persistent pressure and force of temperament began to make them--1 selves felt, just as in the final against -Mr "Chick" Evans last year. Mr s Travers was three up at the turn and won the match five holes later. The biggest golf crowd ever seen in America, between ,3000 and 4000 people, witnessed the match, and the only time Mr Travers smiled was when he said to, Mr Fred Herreshoff, the eminent amateur, who acted as his caddie, that it was like being at a prize-fight. A FAMOUS IRON. Mr Travers is one of the most interesting characters in the whole world of golf. He made a three-hole course for himself in his father's garden when a little boy and practised persistently - to lower fiis own record on it. His s course had no holes, but trees to be a struck instead. The champion is r strongly individual in his methods. In gripping the club for a drive he crooks up the first finger of the left i hand and keeps it clear of the haudle, t while for putting he interlocks tho little finger of the right hand with the first finger of the left. His driving with an iron is astonishing in length and accuracy, but I am doubtful if it would pay so well in England owing to the higher and longer carries and tho shorter run on the ball. The driving iron with which Mr Travers does it all has become the most famous club on the American oontinent. It is a plain, straight-faced j iron with a round Lock, and is heavy, - weighing sixteen ounces. It has a 1 long shaft and a very rough leather grip and was forged at St Andrews. ' This and his other irons are kept 3 permanently rusty. •He carries very - rew clubs—five irons, Schenectady putter, a brassey, and a driver—but, as Mr Herreshoff says, the two wooden clubs are for the sake of appearances. They are hardly ever used to-day. ENGLAND NEXT YEAR. _ I interviewed Mr Travers,- who is a little man with keen, sharp, thin fear 7 tures, on the likelihood of his coining s to our championship at Sandwicn next e year. "Well, it's this way," he said, 3 "I very much want to go, and I think I will go. But at present I can only putt with the Schenectady, which is 1 illegal in England. Right now I am 0 gqing' to begin practice with other i. putters. I will try every putter there is and give them all a gcod _ chance, and if I can find one that suite me I 1 will be at Sandwich. I will find one - all right." , I asked him what about his wooden 1 clubs and he answered: "Oh, I will r chance that." All golfing in America t believes he is good enough to win and ' entreats him to cross the Atlantic a again.