Polo Handicaps

The Board of Governors of the U. S. Polo Association, the men who rule U. S. polo, last week gathered in a smoke-filled room in Manhattan for a solemn annual task. Gravely they passed about typewritten sheets of paper, studied them, made penciled notations. Then the names of ranking U. S. polo players were called off, their past and present handicaps noted, their recommended handicaps voted upon.

Handicapping U. S. polo players started in 1888, twelve years after Publisher James Gordon Bennett brought polo from England as a pastime for his wealthy friends, and two years before eight teams of moneyed Easterners got together and formed the U. S. Polo Association. Some of the best of the association's 86 member clubs are in the West, but until this year the East has had complete control of U. S. polo. When Robert Early Strawbridge Jr., a seven-goal player, son of the vice president of Philadelphia's Strawbridge & Clothier department store, became chairman of the Polo Association two years ago, he noted that the handicapping job was growing too big for Eastern riding breeches. Forthwith, the U. S. polo realm was divided into six parts (Northeastern, Southeastern, Central, Northwestern, Southwestern, Pacific Coast), and each part was permitted a representative on the Board of Governors. This year, for the first time, the recommendation of handicaps for its own member-players was taken over by a local committee in each section. Final approval of handicaps remained, however, with the Board of Governors.

Last week's important handicap changes:

P: Upped Texas Cowboy Cecil Smith from a nine to a ten-goal (highest possible) handicap. Other ten-goalers: Tommy Hitchcock Jr., Stewart Iglehart.

P: Upped Long Island's Mike Phipps from eight to nine. Only other nine-goaler: Great Britain's Captain C.T. I. ("Pat") Roark.

P: Downed California's Eric Pedley to eight, one below his 1937 rating.

P: Downed California's Elmer Boeseke Jr., onetime (1934) ten-goaler, to seven, one below 1937.

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