Negro Open

Of the 12,000,000 Negroes in the U. S., about 50,000 play golf--either on public links or on 20-odd private Negro courses.

Northern Negroes, settling in large cities, rarely know a brassie from a mashie until they have become prosperous enough to enjoy the game as a pastime. But in the South, where country clubs use Negro caddies in great numbers, many moppets learn the fundamentals of golf along with their ABCs.

Last week, on the Palos Park (public) golf course just outside Chicago. 135 of the country's top-notch colored golfers (including 16 women) met for the 13th annual Negro championships of the U. S. Thirty-four played for money. 101 for fun. Some carried their own clubs, others paid white caddies $1 a round. All were extremely courteous to the lone white competitor, a local enthusiast named Charles Hlavacek who entered the tournament because he disliked to interrupt his habit of playing daily on the Palos Park course.

In the opening round of the Men's Open, most of the gallery followed the favorite, Robert Patrick ("Pat") Ball, Chicago grocer who had won the title three times. Others with a lively following were dapper John Dendy. defending champion who works as a locker boy at North Carolina's fashionable Asheville Country Club; and Hugh Smith, a Thomastown (Ga.) office boy who recently shot a 263 in a southern tournament and was forthwith sent to the national meet by his boss (for whom he caddies weekends).

After the first round, however, the greater part of the gallery of 300 trudged around after lanky, woolly-topped Howard Wheeler of Atlanta--watched him tee up on the edge of a match folder, shuffle along the fairways in a Stepin Fetchit gait, plop down on the greens while waiting his turn to putt. A onetime professional whose occupation has been "just walkin' round" since he lost his job at Atlanta's Lincoln (Negro) Country Club in 1933. 29-year-old Howard Wheeler proved last week that he could still teach folks a few golfing tricks. With a minimum of effort, he got results that would please many a top-flight white golfer: rounds of 68, 73, 72, 71-- on a tough, hilly course he had never seen before. His 284 not only won the tournament and first prize of $200 but set a new record for the Negro championship--just three strokes higher than the all-time U. S.

Open record set by famed Ralph Guldahl last year.

With this accomplishment, Howard Wheeler took his place alongside Bobby Jones, Charley Yates and others who have made Atlanta a starred spot on the world's golfing map.

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