Golfer's First Try

Frank Stranahan, 30, of Toledo, golf's itinerant millionaire, spends most of his waking hours thinking or playing golf with grim-faced concentration. Harvie Ward, 26, of Tarboro, N.C. spends a good part of his time at his stockbroker's job, plays golf with a more happy-go-lucky air. A onetime intercollegiate golf champion (1949 for the University of North Carolina), boyish Harvie Ward plays in big tournaments now & then, but he was still without a major victory when he teed off with Stranahan in Scotland last week.

In the third straight all-U.S. final, Stranahan and Ward were the only surviving contenders for the British Amateur championship. Stranahan was aiming to be the first American ever to win it three times; Ward, surprised at finding himself in the final round, was just aiming to win.

Both had played fine golf to reach the final over the famed Prestwick course. But in the first part of the final, both lapsed into a duffer game. Stranahan repeatedly pounded into the rough, got into half a dozen bunkers and four traps. Jittery Harvie Ward unhappily flubbed his chances by missing six putts of less than five feet (one an 18-incher) in the first nine holes.

Two down through the 13th, Ward got hold of himself. He began shooting some of the most dazzling golf of his life, four under even fours--the golfer's yardstick of excellence--for the next 14 holes. The spurt stopped Stranahan, who was still not playing the game that made him the world's top amateur. Ward, who wistfully "always wanted to play in this tournament," won it on his first try, 6 up and 5 to play.

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