Golf Over 55

Frederick Snare is 77, has five great-grandchildren. John H. Allen is 83. Findlay S. Douglas was already voting when he won the U. S. Amateur golf championship in 1898. Frank T. Heffelfinger, cousin of Yale's Immortal Pudge Heffelfinger, was born before the Franco-Prussian War.

Last week, on the rolling links of the hallowed Apawamis Club at Rye, N. Y., these oldsters and some 300 others--including Surrogate James A. Foley, onetime U. S. Attorney General William D. Mitchell and Major General James G. Harbord, board chairman of Radio Corporation of America--jogged around in pursuit of the U. S. Senior Golf Championship, last stand in a sportsman's competitive career.

To be eligible to play with the Seniors (two rounds instead of four), one must be 55 or over. Last week, when the field's first half had turned in their cards, tied at 156 were 65-year-old onetime Champion Douglas and 59-year-old Archibald M. Brown, classmate of Franklin D. Roosevelt at Groton and Harvard. Mr. Douglas' first-round 73 (eight strokes better than Sam Snead's last-round score in the U. S. Open fortnight ago) equaled the lowest score ever recorded in 35 years of Senior competition.

While the gallery was still marveling over these scores the second group of oldtimers teed up. In this group was 62-year-old Charles H. Jennings of Garden City, L. I. and Roaring Gap, N. C., most dangerous man in the field. Unlike low-scorers Douglas and Brown, who were playing golf in the 1890s (Brown's mother was the first U. S. women's golf champion), Bugaboo Jennings learned golf late in life. But he had already won the Senior title twice--in 1934 and again last year.

Touring the last 18 holes without once getting into a trap or taking more than two putts on a green, Defending Champion Jennings chalked up 149 and his third U. S. Senior championship. Four strokes behind was Texan John K. Wadley, 63, who set a new tournament record with a 72 on his final round.

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