At Cincinnati

In the qualifying rounds for the U. S. Amateur Golf Championship at Cincinnati's Kenwood Country Club two extraordinary things happened last week. Willowy young Johnny Fischer, who last year tied the qualifying record of 142 set by D. Clarke Corkran in 1924 and equaled twice by Bobby Jones, went out and broke it with 72-69--141. Twelve able golfers who had sighed happily that day when they posted handsome cards of 150, next morning found themselves on the first tee at 8 o'clock to play off for the last eight places in the field.

The low qualifying scores and the large number of ties were not to be explained entirely by the fact that Kenwood, a 6,780-yd. course with three phenomenally long par fives, was not quite so taxing as it looked. In golf, as in tennis, there has sprung up a crop of serious-minded, well-conditioned young players whose virtuosity, on their best days, is as brilliant as the best play of the old masters. In the 18-hole matches of the Amateur, anything may happen among such contestants, for the muscular or psychological difference between a 69 and a 75 defies detection.

Medalist Fischer, who lives in Cincinnati and knew the course better than most of his rivals, promptly lost an 18-hole match to young Sidney W. Noyes Jr. of New York. Harry Chandler Egan, 49, who won the Amateur in 1904 and 1905, put out Johnny Goodman, this year's Open Champion, then lost to an 18-year-old Hill School sixth former named Jack Munger. Canada's Charles Ross ("Sandy") Somerville, the defending champion, beat Chick Evans on the 21st green and went to the 20th before he could dispose of Ernest Caldwell. These two close calls did him no good. Playing in a downpour the next afternoon, he lost to Lawson Little, 23-year-old Stanford senior. Noyes's match with curly-haired Max Marston, title-holder in 1923, seesawed to the 26th hole, where Noyes made an extraordinary blunder. His ball was in a road. Near it lay a pear. Noyes tossed the pear aside. His penalty--loss of the hole--was critical. He lost the match finally on the second extra hole.

In match play, one way for a golfer to win an occasional hole is to play for stymies: in approaching, to favor the side of the green where his opponent's ball is lying and, when putting first, to be careful not to overrun the cup. When Marston beat Sweetser for the championship in 1923 he laid stymies on both the extra holes. Last week in his semi-final against young Munger, his son's "adviser" at Hill, Marston laid his opponent four stymies in the course of the match, three of them in succession on the last nine. As his ball rolled into position one time, he exclaimed, "That's perfect!" He won 6 & 5. It was not a popular victory. Colyumist Joe Williams of the New York World-Telegram wrote: "He [Marston] will win--and has won--many golf cups, but no loving cups." Young Munger, well aware that stymies are an important part of match play, was more polite: "I was beaten by a man who simply knows too much golf for me."

Marston's opponent in the final was the player who, with the exception of Goodman, had done most to distinguish himself from the rest of the group of young U. S. amateurs this season. George Terry Dunlap Jr., son of a Manhattan publisher, reached the semi-finals of the British Amateur last June, lost to the Hon. Michael Scott who won the tournament. A frail (135-lb.), good-natured young graduate of Hill and Princeton, he learned golf at Pinehurst, where he won the midwinter tournament seven times in eight years, perfected a masterly pitch-&-run game to make up for his short drives. He had entered the U. S. Amateur five times before but never got beyond the second round. Early last week it looked as though he would fail again. Like Marston, he squeaked into the tournament in the qualifying playoff.

Too courteous to talk much with his opponent in a match, Dunlap likes to chat with officials, friends, members of the gallery. On the 13th tee in his morning round with Marston, he said: "Do you know what I'm trying to do? I'm trying to get a 68." Walking down the 17th fairway, Dunlap had a chance for a 67 to tie Bobby Jones's record for an Amateur final. Said he: "I'm afraid the alarm clock will ring and wake me up." At the 17th green, after Marston sank an 18-ft. putt which first curled around the cup, Dunlap missed his from five feet. That was almost the only error in a 68 that left him seven up.

In the afternoon, Dunlap won the 19th, then the 22nd, with a characteristic chip shot, five feet from the pin. Gravely and courageously trying to avert a humiliating score, Marston held his game together for a birdie 2 at the 23rd. Dunlap's ball knocked his into the hole at the 24th. At the 26th he made a fine recovery from the pear orchard for a 4 to Dunlap's 5 but that was the end of his rally. Still six up at the 29th green Dunlap needed only one more half. When he got it with a 4 on the 31st, he had the match and title, 6 & 5.

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