Golf

Western Amateur. Last week at Detroit a bright-gleaming comet flashed across the golfing firmament, followed by a heavy shower of falling stars.

In the qualifying round of the Western Amateur Championship, dextrous Dexter Cummings of Omventsia (Lake Forest, Ill.), onetime Intercollegiate Champion (1923, 1924), bore witness to his manhood (last month he was graduated by Yale University) by bashing his way around the 6,780-yard Lochmoor links in 68 strokes. After a good night's sleep, he strode forth again and bashed out a 70--138 for 36 holes, a "world's record" for tournament play.

Soon the dirge that is sung (superstitiously) for all medalists, went up. Russell Martin of Chicago dogged Dexter in his first-round match, let him beat himself with three putts at the 18th green.

The dirge swelled and another wake was held at the 19th green, where, of two birdie 3's almost in hand, one fluttered away from defending-Champion Harrison ("Jimmy") Johnston, sandy St. Paulian, and the other nestled in the cup at the cunning behest of rugged Rial Rolfe, former University of Illinois golf captain.

And still they fell in those first and second rounds: deliberate Rudolph Knepper, demon putter of recent Princeton teams, before one L. L. Bredin of Detroit; Chick Evans, onetime monarch of the West, before L. E. Bunning, stout-hearted Chicago business man; James Manion and then Eddie Held, the prides of St. Louis, before Keefe' Carter, Oklahoma boy-champion.

Evans may well have marked this Carter wistfully, a lad whose 19 sum- mers nearly matched Evans' age (18) when he won his first Western Amateur title in 1909. And Mrs. Carter, trudging faithfully in the galleries, may well have felt her maternal bosom rapturously expand. Her slight son, unruffled by high winds, undismayed by sodden turf, continued ticking off pars, eliminated Rolfe, then Fred Lamprecht (intercollegiate champion). In the final, the Cummings-conqucring Martin had Carter in hand for 18 holes, no more. Three down as he munched his lunch, Carter recovered with a rush, won the title 3 and 2.

Georgia Amateur. The Georgia Amateur Championship, always a contest between South Georgians used to sand greens and North Georgians raised on grass, was played last week in Columbus, in West Georgia. There the greens are of sleek herbage. There last week North Georgians filled three fourths of the semi-final bracket and all of the finals. With a theatrical flourish, 18-year-old Gene Cook of Atlanta won the title from redoubtable 'Watts Gunn, his clubmate. The B. Jones who reached the semi-final was Benjamin, of Druid Hills Club, Atlanta, and not chubby Robert Tyler Jones Jr., North Georgia's super-golfer. The latter, together with able Perry Adair of Atlanta, busies himself with his bond-selling between tournaments of national scope.