Booggrrr

For three years Walter Hagen has held the professional golf championship. Last week, at Garden City, he won it for the fourth time, beating Leo Diegel in the finals, 4 up and 3 to go. Diegel was always trying. Again and again he had an assured, an unassailable advantage on a hole--and lost. When an opponent challenges, Hagen rejoices. At the fifth hole in the morning Diegel sent a beautiful drive down the the middle of the fairway. Hagen was in a pit. Instead of resorting to an explosion shot he tried to flick the ball up to the green. His shot failed. Diegel, with a perfect approach, laid his ball hole-high and stymied Hagen who was 40 feet away. Like Von Elm at Baltusrol a week ago, Hagen took a machie cut round Diegel's ball and halved the hole. All day he sent his approach putts right to the lip of the cup. He smiled for the cameras, he crouched dramatically to study his putts, he indulged in all his characteristic byplay of gesture and jauntiness. "Diegel played a gude game, I'll noo say he dinna," remarked a grey professional as he rinsed his mouth, "but if he'd played twa times as weel again Hagen woulda fleetched him--the auld booggrrr."