At St. Andrews

In the 6th Century the Picts. shrinking into their lairs from the wind that blows off the Firth of Tay from the North Sea, called the place Kilrymont or Muckross. Later St. Regulus, the Bishop of Patras in Achaea, was guided thither bearing the relics of St. Andrew. Angus. King of the Picts, gave the prelate a duney tract known as the Boar Chase, and the pious Bishop promptly changed its name to St. Andrews. For centuries wind-bitten shepherds had knocked bits of stone about the hummocks with crooked staves in a dour and solitary game called golf, but they did not get around to organizing the Royal & Ancient Golf Club at St. Andrews until 1754. Fortnight ago, little George T. Dunlap Jr., U. S. amateur champion, Johnny Goodman, U. S. open champion, and Boston's spectacled Francis Ouimet, stood with bared heads in the Graveyard of St. Andrews Cathedral. There, in the very Mecca of golfdom, lay many of the game's great dead. Golfer Ouimet solemnly laid a bunch of yellow flowers on the still-fresh grave of Golfer Andra Kirkaldy, longtime St. Andrews professional. Golfers Dunlap and Goodman had flowers for the last resting places of Golfer Tom Morris and his son & namesake who between them won eight British Open titles between 1861 and 1873. There were more flowers for Allan Robertson, oldtime Scottish champion who died in 1859 secure in the knowledge that on his headstone would be graven the deathless words: FAR AND TRUE. This sentimental pilgrimage accomplished, Messrs. Dunlap, Goodman and Ouimet nipped back to the Royal & Ancient Club for some more practice. On that oldest and most formidable of courses, they and their six teammates were determined a week later to inter some live golfers, the British Walker Cup team.

Foursomes, Four two-ball foursomes, wherein each pair alternately plays one ball, opened the two days' play last week. It is a game the British are supposed to play better than U. S. golfers. If the game favored the British, desperately bent on winning after seven straight Walker Cup defeats, the weather favored the visitors. The wide greens, big as baseball fields, were sunny and the wind, worst of all St. Andrews' many infuriations, was low.

Omaha's Johnny Goodman, who had come a long way since he rode to his first tournament blind baggage seven years ago, was teamed with Lawson Little of San Francisco. Semifinalist in last year's National Amateur, Golfer Little is accustomed to playing in the world's far corners, having learned the game while his father was an army officer stationed in Tientsin. Opposing Little and Goodman were huge Cyril Tolley and Roger Wethered. That match was won on the first tee when Little stepped up to the ball and lined a drive 30 demoralizing yards farther than Wethered's. Long before the match ended 8 and 6 in favor of the U. S. pair, the solemn crowd of spectators, brightened here and there by the scarlet gowns of St. Andrews University students, went looking elsewhere for a more encouraging performance by their countrymen.

They did not find it in the match in which cocky Gus Moreland of Dallas and poker-faced Jack Westland of Chicago trounced Eric Fiddian and Harry Bentley 6 and 5. But British hopes looked brighter and a St. Andrews jinx held good when U. S. Team-Captain Ouimet and George Dunlap faced Eric McRuvie and Jack McLean, both Scots. Ouimet, who has played on every Walker Cup team, had never won a Walker match at St. Andrews, nor did he win this one. The match ended at the 34th hole, the Britons 4 up.

The match which most St. Andrews sentimentalists looked forward to provided the one eccentric shot of the day. British team captain was the Hon. Michael Scott, a grey-haired, hard-thewed old army officer, who won the Australian championship in 1904, came back last year to win the British Amateur at 55. With Sam McKinlay, outstanding Scotch amateur, he teed off against a pair of U. S. oldsters: Banker Max Marston, 41, of Philadelphia, and Fruit Grower Harry Chandler Egan, 50, of Oregon. Golfer Egan, as a Harvard undergraduate, won the U. S. amateur title in 1904 and 1905. He quit national tournament play in 1911 when he moved West, came back strong 18 years later. He won his place on the Walker Cup team when he defeated Johnny Goodman in the first round of match play in last year's National Amateur. At lunchtime, Captain Scott, who some times startles his compatriots by chewing gum, was confident that his unspectacular but precise game would sooner or later break down his opponents. In the after noon, turning for the two-mile struggle back to the club house, Messrs. Egan and Marston heard that the youngsters on their side had scored two victories. On the short 29th the British seemed certain to square the match. McKinlay's drive stopped within easy putting distance of the cup. The U. S. ball was also close to the cup. Captain Scott tugged at his little chevron-like mustache, putted. His ball clicked the U. S. ball, spun away. The U. S. ball dropped into the cup. That was too much for Captain Scott. He flubbed his drive on the 30th. On the 32nd he flopped into Hell's Bunker, a deep and evil pothole. The next two holes were halved, closing the match on the 34th with the U. S. oldsters 3 up. Scores for the day: U. S., 3: Britain, 1.

Singles. Next morning the U. S. team rose to find the wind whipping combers off the North Sea and a drizzling rain falling. Such weather, however, did not prevent them from completely walking away with their British opponents.

Every time Johnny Goodman cracked out a satisfactory shot, he cried: "Wham, diddy!" "Stymies and long putts kept whizzing at me like shells," Captain Scott ruefully recalled when he came back to the club house, defeated by Goodman. Five other U. S. golfers, including Captain Ouimet, beat their men. Jack Westland halved his match with Eric McRuvie and Banker Marston lost his. Duel of the day was between long-driving Lawson Little and Cyril Tolley. Little outdrove Tolley who spent most of the afternoon in the bunkers. When they shook hands on the 31st green, a Scotsman in the gallery muttered: "He's thanking the American for a valuable lesson." Total score: U. S., 9; British, 2.

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