Putts and Butts

The best amateur golfers in the U.S. include a New Jersey printer named Billy Dear, Patty Berg's kid brother Herman, onetime world's No. 1 Tennist Ellsworth Vines and hard-boiled Jim Oleska, a Brooklyn cop with a cross-handed grip. Billy Dear was out of play last week because Mrs. Dear is expecting a little Dear this week. The rest of these low-scorers and 146 others who survived sectional qualifying tests met in Omaha for the 45th, most upsetting and least sportsmanlike U.S. Amateur golf championship.

On opening day it looked as if Ellsworth Vines might, with a little luck, become the first man to win a U.S. championship at both tennis and golf. With an elegant, easy swing similar to that of famed Francis Ouimet, Vines shot a 72 in the first round. It was not the best score of the day (bespectacled Skip Alexander of North Carolina turned in 67). But it was better than that posted by Defending Champion Dick Chapman, 1939 Champion Marvin ("Bud") Ward, onetime British Amateur Champion Charley Yates (now a U.S. Army private) and onetime U.S. Open and Amateur Champion Johnny Goodman, the pride of Omaha, who was playing on his home course.

The second day Vines shot 78 and qualified for match play. Trailed by a gallery nearly as large as the one that followed home-town Hero Goodman, Vines got jittery, lost his first match, 1 up on the 19th hole, to a Tulsan named Ted Gwin. For a comparative beginner, Vines was in good company. Put out in the same round were Goodman, Chapman, Yates, Argentine Open Champion Mario Gonzales and nearly every other name player except Bud Ward and Ray Billows (twice runner-up).

Billows and Ward had met in the final two years ago, and the gallery began to look forward to another meeting--with Billows walloping Ward this time. But when the field narrowed down to two, Billows was on the sidelines. Facing Ward for the 36-hole final was Billows' conqueror: handsome Pat Abbott, Hollywood movie extra and onetime National Public Links golf champion.

For some reason, Ward, an ice-veined 28-year-old Northwesterner who earns a livelihood as secretary of a Spokane "Boosters" Club, was unpopular with the predominantly Omaha gallery. According to widespread rumor, he had made disparaging comments about the Omaha Field Club course. Their dander up, touchy townsmen, 3,000 strong, booed Ward's shots, tried to rattle him as though he were a baseball pitcher. It got so bad President Pierce of the U.S. Golf Association interrupted the match, appealed for better sportsmanship.

Despite their shocking action, the self-assured Northwesterner played brilliantly, was 4 up after 18 holes, quelled Abbott's courageous challenge, took the match on the 33rd green, 4 & 3. Whereupon the gallery wrote a new chapter in sporting misbehavior. They ignored the Champion although they scrambled for his ball, lifted Abbott to their shoulders, carried him off.

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