Public Linksters

Of the 9,900 golf courses in the U. S., 6,500 are public links--municipally owned or privately operated on a daily-fee basis. Last week, at Detroit's magnificent Rackham Golf Course,* 190 public linksters, survivors of an original entry of 2,601, teed off in the annual U. S. Public Links Championship, world's largest golf tournament.

Eighteen years ago, when the first national public links tournament was held at Toledo, only half the contestants owned golf shoes, most of them played in suspenders and knew no more about golf etiquette than to duck when they heard the word "Fore!" Last week the public linksters looked as natty as their country-club cousins. And they played as well, if not better.

At the end of the 36-hole medal round, the 64 low scorers who qualified for match play had shot 149 or less--lowest qualifying mark ever chalked up in an amateur tournament sponsored by the U. S. Golf Association. If that were not distinction enough, two youngsters--husky Worth Stimits of Colorado Springs and Edward Furgol of Utica, N. Y. (handicapped by a crooked left arm)--turned in 138, to break by one stroke the U. S. amateur record for a qualifying round.

At match play, the red-hot medalists gradually cooled off. Left to fight it out in the final were Michael Dietz, an unemployed Detroit auto worker, and Robert Clark, St. Paul dental-supply salesman who had put Furgol out of the tournament.

Lean, long-necked Clark, a better-than-average bowler as well as St. Paul municipal golf champion, split the narrow fairways with his long drives, chipped dead to the pin, took the starch out of jittery Dietz who tried hard to make a good showing before his home-town folks. At the end of the morning round, the match had become a rout, ended on the 30th green, 8 & 6.

*Given to the city by the late Millionaire Horace Rackham, original attorney for the Ford Motor Co., who wisely took Ford stock instead of cash for his early services.

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