Joe's Open

"No fightin' in August!" That's what Joe Louis told Promoter Mike Jacobs last winter when his fight-a-month campaign was first laid out. Reason: August is the climax of the Negro golf season. And the world's greatest fisticuffer, in the four years he has worn the crown, has become more & more bored with his profession, more & more enthusiastic about golf.

Last week, at Detroit's Rackham (municipal) Golf Course, the Brown Bomber was host to 186 of the best Negro golfers in the U.S., professional and amateur. They had been invited to compete in the newest tournament on the colored calendar, the Joe Louis Open. The Champion had sponsored sport ventures before. He sank $30,000 in the maintenance of the Brown Bombers, a nomadic, ne'er-do-well softball team. He had sponsored horse shows, bowling teams.

But Joe's golf show is no small shucks. Sandwiched between the Negro National Amateur Open, Joe's tournament, with annual prize money of $1,000, will be a blue-ribbon golf event, tantamount to the white folks' tournament sponsored by Bobby Jones.

Joe Louis is not only the Gene Tunney but the Bobby Jones of his race. He has done more than any other person to popularize golf among Negroes. But on the fairway, Joe is no Jones. Aided by his mighty right, he can sock a ball nearly 300 yards. "But," he moans, "I have trouble with my left hook and just ain't got that delicate touch around the greens." Still, under the private instruction of Bermudian Pro Louis Corbin and Washingtonian Clyde Martin, his present tutor, Louis has become a better than average golfer, has often chalked up scores in the middle 70s. Last fortnight, in the National Negro Amateur, he shot 79 in the opening round.

Last week, however, playing in his own tournament before a gallery of 1,000 or more (25% white), the Champion got the heebie-jeebies, posted 88 in the first round, 81 in the second, quit after nine holes of the third. On the other side of the ropes, he won some consolation (and a $200 bet) when Tutor Martin shot 146 (72-74) in the 36-hole final. Martin's 72-hole total of 292, two strokes better than that of Atlantans Calvin Searles and Zeke Hartsfield, won the tournament and the $500 first prize. Lowest amateur score was 300, turned in by a 19-year-old Norfolk kid named Leroy Smith.

Undaunted, Louis plans to match strokes with the big shots once more: in the coveted Negro Open to be played on the Ponkapoag course in Canton, Mass, this week. "Some day," he drawled, "I'll be the golf champ."

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