The Babe in Britain

The British had never seen anything quite like Texas' wisecracking Mildred ("Babe") Didrikson Zaharias. "She must be Superman's sister," one spectator whispered after the Babe whacked a whistling drive down the fairway last week in the British women's amateur golf championship at Gullane, Scotland. The Babe nearly always outdrove her opponents by 50 to 100 yards. On one nine, she came in two under men's par. Between rounds she entertained galleryites with trick shots and her impressions of the highland fling.

A few tweedy old ladies in the gallery were horrified. One remarked to Scotland's Helen Holm, one of the quarter finalists, that the Babe was "altogether lacking in refinement." Golfer Holm cut her off: "You're speaking of the finest woman golfer that has ever been seen here." "And what if she does clown a bit?" asked the father of Golf Pro Jimmy Thomson. "That's just her way, and only an old tabby would object to it."

By the final round last week, nobody felt like objecting. Britain's sports pages were full of the Babe. They called her "Tough Babe," used such adjectives as "spectacular" and "phenomenal." They told Britons what most Americans already knew: that the Babe was also no slouch at javelin throwing, hurdling, swimming, shot-putting, baseball, high jumping, tennis and basketball, and that she had won 15 straight U.S. golf tournaments before crossing the Atlantic "for the only major women's golf title I have left to win." The British women's amateur was also the only major British golf title not already in the possession of the U.S.

Lucky Pants. During the morning round of the finals, Britons had a burst of hope. The Babe, dressed in a "refined" sweater and culottes, was wild on her long game, and London's Jacqueline Gordon, who had learned golf from Henry Cotton, was putting with deadly accuracy. At the end of the eleventh hole, the Babe was two down for the first time during the tournament. Said she: "I should have kept my lucky pants on."

After lunch, Jacqueline Gordon was still playing hard. But the Babe had changed to her old blue corduroy slacks, and she had her game under control. She cinched the championship on the 32nd green. As she went into a victory jig, a bystander asked her the inevitable question about the secret of her success and got a far-from-inevitable answer. Cracked the Babe: "I just loosen my girdle and let the ball have it."

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