Western Open

The red-faced individuals who know all about golf listened last week while the Western Open Golf championship was being discussed in the soda fountains of their country clubs. Their eyes bulged with impatience, but they listened, for they wanted their own dicta to be final. When the others, at length, perceived their plight and fell silent, these informed ones wiped their mouths with the backs of their hands. Out of the fullness of their knowledge, in voices thickened by many draughts of Seltzer-water and orange juice, they spoke. "That's all right," they said, "but let me tell you something--listen, there's just one man is going to win the Western. Let me tell you something, the boy that is going to win the Western is. . . . . " They then appended the name of one of the following professionals: James Barnes, Willie Macfarlane, M. J. P. Brady or Macdonald Smith, their choice depending on the location of their club--whether in Florida, New Jersey or New York.

An accident befell a little girl, Elna Barnes. Her father decided not to play. Macfarlane, who has been going to an occulist all year because his altering sight had effected his putting, found that he had to have his glasses changed. Brady, for reasons unmentioned, also withdrew. So of the four favorite sons, Macdonald Smith alone was left, and on him the know-it-alls fixed their hopes. Among his 261 competitors were such men as Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Leo Diegal.

At the end of the first day's play these great names were listed, but they were unimportant. A golfer from Cleveland named Nabholtz led all the others with a beautiful 67 four strokes under the par of the Youngstown, Ohio, course. Next to him was Donald Carrick of Toronto with a 69. After them straggled the field. Macdonald Smith was listed in the first eight, with a 70. The know-it-alls pointed to his name and thumped on oak tables till the glasses jumped. "Watch Smith" they dogmatized, "let me tell you something . . . ."

The red-faced dogmatists had apparently forgotten that the holder of the title in dispute was one William Mehlhorn of Chicago. It is true that he stood well down the list with a 74, but he has a champion's nerves. He is at his best under pressure. He began to play with the desperate efficiency of a man defending his pride. In the last round he went out in the increditable score of 32, came in with a 34 to tie the course record, But the best his gallant effort could get him was second place. His title had been taken by Macdonald Smith, who thereby demonstrated to a skeptical world the oft-forgotten fact that the favorite sometimes wins, the know-it-alls are sometimes right.