Shooting at Fort Worth

The first U.S. Open golf championship was staged at nobby Newport in 1895; not until the 45th took place last week was America's No. 1 golfing event held south of the Mason-Dixon line. Place: the Colonial Club in Fort Worth, Tex.

Texas is proud of its homebred sport stars: Football's Sammy Baugh, Baseball's Dizzy Dean, Tennis' Wilmer Allison. But when it comes to golf, the Lone Star State has no lone star but a little dipper full: Ralph Guldahl, Byron Nelson, Jimmy Demaret, Ben Hogan, Lloyd Mangrum, Harry Cooper. In the Augusta Masters last year, Texans finished 1, 2, 3, 4.

So when Millionaire Marvin Leonard, a native Texan who had parlayed a downtown popcorn stand into Fort Worth's biggest department store, plunked a $25,000 guarantee on the directors' table of the U.S. Golf Association, its bigwigs decided that Texans deserved to play host to the blue-ribbon event of golf.

Last week, when 173 of America 5 golfing Big Shots besieged Fort Worth, they found its Colonial Club as tough a layout as they had ever seen. A par 70 course, its narrow fairways are bordered by groves of pecan trees, swamps, ravines and the chocolate-colored Trinity River that meanders stray-catlike over the course. Its tough Bermuda grass was an annoying novelty to many. And two days of rain had brought out chiggers--the pesky little red bugs that burrow into human flesh and start an itch worse than a mosquito bite.

To the Northerners, the 45th U.S. Open looked like a Texas stampede. In local bookie shops, betting commissioners made Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan, onetime fellow caddies at the nearby Glen Garden Club, co-favorites at 5-t01. Some experts rate Nelson the best all-round golfer in the world. Others say the same about Hogan, who has not been out of the money in 47 consecutive big-time tournaments. But in the Open almost anything can happen.

The first day, under a blazing sun, the only player hot enough to crack par was 36-year-old Denny Shute of Chicago, a 50-to-1 shot. As for the Texans, Nelson shot 73, Hogan 74, Demaret 75, Guldahl 79. On the second day, play was held up for an hour during a rainstorm that sent an unprepared gallery of 10,000 running helter-skelter for shelter. When the last bedraggled, drenched and mud-caked player turned in his card at dusk, the thundering herd of Texans were still just a distant moo.

Next day, for the 36-hole final, the thermometer hovered around 95DEG. But the non-Texans did not wilt. When the final score was posted, the $1,000 first prize went to 39-year-old Craig Wood of Mamaroneck, N.Y., who holds the world's record for 72 holes of tournament golf: 264, chalked up at New York's Metropolitan Open last year. Last week his 72-hole total was 284, but--considering the weather, the chiggers, a recently wrenched back that made him wear a polo belt, and suicidal holes like Death Valley (Colonial's No. 5)--it was good enough.

On other occasions Wood has lost both the U.S. and British Opens in playoffs. This time his 284 was three strokes better than the score of his nearest rival, Denny Shute, and five strokes better than that of third-place Ben Hogan. The next best score turned in by a Texan was the 295 of Lloyd Mangrum. Mighty Byron Nelson got 297.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.