STRONG GOLF FIELD.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20480, 5 December 1934, Page 11

STRONG GOLF FIELD.

E. Whitcombe’s Exceptional Performance. (Special to the ** Star.”) LONDON, October 18. A new golf competition for a prize of £SOO brought together an unusually strong field of professionals. All the men who had filled the leading positions in the championships and firstclass tournaments were invited to play, and they represented the cream of British golf. Henry Cotton, the open champion, came over from Belgium to compete, and among his rivals were other title-holders the war. It was hoped that the famous triumvirate, Vardon, Braid and Taylor, would turn out, but they are now all over sixty years of age, and the strain of four consecutive rounds is too much for them. I am afraid that we have, in fact, seen the last of them in open competition. Vardon has not played at all for some months owing to heart weakness. The event took place on the new course at Walton Heath. It is considered to be two strokes round harder than the old one, and it was stretched to the fullest possible extent for the occasion. It measured only a mashie shot under 6700 yards, and the par score was 77. In the circumstances the test was severe, but the professionals made light of it. Indeed, out of a total of eighty players only fifteen of them did not equal par. An extraordinary pace was set by the winner, E. R. Whitcombe. lie

broke the record with 69 ir. his first round, and he equalled it on his second. Next day he did even better, returning 68. At this point he had outdistanced the field, although the scoring all round was exceptionally good, and with one round to go fie was as many as eight strokes ahead. The prize was already won. Up to this stage Whitcombe had played with a sustained brilliance which had never been equalled in this country, but, as so often happens in these circumstances, a reaction set in. He did not play badly on the final round, but he began to slip strokes as if his power of concentration had snapped, and he finished in 77. Whitcombe is the eldest of three professionals. all of whom played at Walton Heath, and it was notable that Charles kept pace with his brother in returning 69 in the first round. The Whitcombe family come from Burnham, in Somerset, where J. H. Taylor held his first professional appointment, and the latter undoubtedly had a big influence over their play.