At Five Farms

Down from Canada 26 years ago marched a thick-wristed, heavyset golfer named George S. Lyon to make a bid for the U. S. amateur championship. He was stopped in the finals by Eben Byers, who died last spring of radium-water poisoning (TIME, April 11). That was the nearest Canada ever came to the title until last week when Charles Ross Somerville of London, Ont. emerged at the head of a field of 154 starters at Five Farms near Baltimore. After the first round of match play, Robert Tyre Jones Jr., an observer in a gallery of 4,000, picked the sandy-haired, moose-nosed Canadian for the title. Meanwhile near Port Chester, N. Y., George Lyon, now white-haired and 74, was leading a team in the U. S. Senior Championship. Though his team was defeated, the Grand Old Man of Canadian golf turned in a 74 to win the international individual title in the play for the Lord Derby Cup.

Five Farms is a medium-length course --6,622 yd. It is more famed for beauty than stiffness. Johnny Fischer, lanky 6-ft. University of Michigan junior, this year's intercollegiate champion, broke the course record with a 69 on the first day, was medalist with a 142 for the 36 holes. Qualifying score was 152. The player who looks so much like Woodrow Wilson, defending champion Francis Ouimet, barely saved himself in the last seven holes to qualify with a 151. All the British Walker Cup team but one were eliminated, as were three former titleholders, Jess Sweetser, Max Marston, Harrison Johnston. Perry Hall, 37-year-old Drexel & Co. partner who first played golf six years ago, tied for third at 145. In 36 holes he had no 3-putt greens.

When the tougher grind of match play began the next day, the younger golfers suffered retribution for their medal performances. Ouimet, playing like an auto-matic stoker, put out George Voigt 6 & 5. Voigt was one under par for the first nine holes -- and 4 down. Ouimet had played the nine in 30. A young Yale player, Sidney W. Noyes, pressed Ouimet in the afternoon but was put out 1 down.

While Ouimet was squeezing into the semi-finals for the ninth time in his career by trimming Medalist Fischer with a 12-ft. putt on the last hole, another Bostonian, giant Jesse Guilford, was eliminating Chick Evans, title-holder in 1916 and 1920, 5 & 4. Ross Somerville defeated Boston's William O. Blaney 6 & 5 and Johnny Goodman, who unexpectedly whipped Bobby Jones in the first round at Pebble Beach in 1929, put out Maurice McCarthy 1 up.

A slight, intensely serious, towheaded youth of 22, Johnny Goodman of Omaha felt he should have been picked for the Walker Cup team. Sports writers thought he had been omitted because he once worked in a sporting-goods store. He entered the tournament with a grudge to settle. Without fanfare he polished off Walker Cupsters Seaver and McCarthy. In the semi-finals he drew Walker Cup Captain Ouimet. Francis Ouimet, now 39, had been ill before the championship, had played hard golf to get into the semifinals, and for the first 18 holes of his match, he out-golfed Johnny Goodman. In the afternoon Ouimet was obviously worn out, and Goodman took the match 4 & 2. Despite the driving of Siege Gun Guilford--he almost drove the green on the 349-yard 7th--Ross Somerville won his match 7 & 6.

On the news of Johnny Goodman's triumph over Ouimet, Omaha went wild with joy, planned a home-coming celebration, whether he won the final or not, for a home boy who had grown up "across the tracks" and made good. Like Ross Somerville he is now an insurance salesman. Somerville inherited an insurance business (plus a fortune) from his father. He had time and opportunity to become an all-round athlete in college (University of Toronto). His golf form was perfected by professionals in Scotland. Johnny Goodman learned as a caddy. Bashful, reticent, Somerville played throughout the tournament with a masklike mien. Sports writers described him as dour. Loosening up afterward he explained that he thought a stranger in another land should be quiet, that if he talked he was afraid he might appear to be "talking some one out of a match."

The finalists were both nervous as they started out in the morning. On the first hole Somerville half-topped his first drive, faded a spoon. Goodman topped his second shot. Somerville topped his drive on the second tee. Steadying down, they were all square at the turn, but at the end of the first round Somerville had the edge 1 up. He increased his lead to 2 up in the first two holes of the afternoon, then went ragged. On the 24th Somerville chipped poorly, took two futile putts, finally conceded a 7 to Goodman's cool if not brilliant 5, making it all even. Taking the 25th and 27th (with a birdie 2 to Somerville's 4) Goodman made it 2 up and seemed ready to carry the title back to Omaha.

But he cracked under the tension. He pitched over the 28th green, came back too strong and missed his putt. Tempered in years of tournament playing, Somerville braced for a strong finish. What he needed was par golf and he played it. He stolidly took the 28th and the next two holes while Goodman, control gone, took 1 over pars for each. The next three they halved. At the 34th green Somerville holed out in one putt for a birdie 3. Goodman, short on his second shot, had to pitch on the green, take a brave par 4. They halved the next in par 3's to make Charles Ross ("Silent Sandy") Somerville the second alien ever to hold the U. S. amateur title. The other was Britain's Harold Hilton (Apawamis, 1911).

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