Ladies' Day

After a winter of high winds and rain-soaked, skittery greens wherever they played, the leg-weary lady golf pros straggled into Augusta, Ga. last week for the $5,000 Titleholders championship, climax of the Southern campaign. Their luck was still bad. The weather would have discouraged a Marlboro man.

The temperature dropped and the breeze freshened. Rain was all that was needed to turn each tightly trapped, tree-shrouded fairway of the Augusta Country Club into a sea of trouble--and the rains came. Newcomers to the brooding pressure of the tournament circuit knew the jitters that separate the golfers from the girls. "I know how they feel," said Veteran Fay Crocker, 43. "When you know you've got to make that putt if you're going to eat, the cup just closes up on you."

The tension told in the first round. Young challengers fell fast, and suddenly the old pros seemed to be playing by themselves. California's Beverly Hanson, a lanky, bespectacled stylist, snuggled into her candy-striped long Johns and shot a surprising par 72. "I'm a hot-weather golfer," drawled Beverly, "but thanks to this dandy underwear, I've had a very good winter." Right behind her, only a stroke off, plodded the broad-beamed champion herself--affable Patty Berg, 40, seven-time winner and still favorite despite a painful trick knee.

If distaff pro golf is rugged on the course, it is not much fun off the course either. There is no time for home or family, no real opportunity for the single girls to find male companionship. Spare moments see the shared motel rooms fringed with drying laundry and the corner table swept clear for a pale respite of gin rummy. Sometimes movies will help kill the evening if local enthusiasts do not come through with a cocktail party--but always for the ladies, the 19th hole is the toughest.

And only the front runners reap reasonable rewards. Such pros as Patty Berg and Louise Suggs have profitable contracts with sporting-goods manufacturers, and their tournament winnings (as much as $20,000 a year) more than cover their expenses. But once they start losing, they, too, will have to start scrambling for cash.

The meager prospect of reward left no room for fun or friendship last week as eyes watered and red noses ran from the cold. Bev Hanson hesitated for one nervous afternoon in the second round and dropped to fourth, came back next day to grab the lead. She finished with a 72-hole total of 299, coasting home in her dandy underwear to her first Titleholders title, five strokes in front of Texan Betty Dodd, eight ahead of Defender Berg.

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