Ladies in England

U. S. women golfers had a good excuse for not winning the British championship a few years ago. They had to play against Joyce Wethered, indisputably the ablest lady player in the world. Since Joyce Wethered has stopped bothering to win ladies' championships, U. S. women have had a chance. The chance seemed better than ever last fortnight when Maureen Orcutt won, with a 151, the medal in the first qualifying rounds ever held before a British Women's amateur championship. Six other members of a U. S. team that had beaten England the week before qualified for match play.

Even when Medalist Orcutt and U. S. Champion Helen Hicks lost their first round matches (TIME, June 6) three of the ablest women players in the U. S. were left in the tournament. But Glenna Collett Vare lost to the defending champion, Enid Wilson, while Virginia Van Wie was getting beaten by Susie Tolhurst, champion of Australia, in an amazing match that ended on the 210-yd. 19th hole. Miss Van Wie took 8 to her opponent's 6. That left only Mrs. Leona Pressler Cheney of Los Angeles, who started to play golf seven years ago when she married her first husband, a Los Angeles professional.

Mrs. Cheney's game, less powerful than clever, was well suited to the peculiarly pinched fairways and hard little greens of the course at Saunton. In the third round she put out Jean Hamilton, who had beaten Miss Orcutt. Next day she played Beryl Brown, won 3 & 2 for the chance to play Enid Wilson.

Clearly this was the match that would decide the championship. Both of them knew it. Mrs. Cheney, who makes a habit of not speaking to her opponents, wore a long rabbit's foot attached to her belt. Miss Wilson carried a shooting stick and sat on it, examining her man-sized shoes, while Mrs. Cheney played her shots. Good rolling approaches to greens that were too small and fast for niblick shots saved Mrs. Cheney three holes on the out nine; but Miss Wilson was outdriving her by 50 yards on nearly every hole. On the 14th, already one down, Mrs. Cheney dubbed a brassie and lost the hole. When she dubbed another on the 16th, it cost her the hole and match.

After beating a Miss Clem Purvis-Russell-Montgomery, onetime Scots champion, 7 & 6 in the 36 hole final, Miss Wilson said that her father, a Derbyshire doctor, had promised her another trip to the U. S. to play for the women's championship in September. Last year, Helen Hicks beat her in the semifinal.

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