Anybody's Open

The 210 amateurs in last week's U.S.G.A. Public Links championship were the pick of a fierce breed of golfers who inhabit the nation's 1,800 public courses; they carry their own clubs, fight for fairway rights, and have little or no time to worry about the more genteel aspects of what is sometimes regarded as a genteel game. In their zest for the title, some of last week's competitors just missed beating their opponents over the head with mashie niblicks.

In the opening round on Los Angeles' Rancho course, Mike DiCesaro of Houston got mad after losing to Ted Grassi of Erie, Pa. He let out a squawk to the rules committee, got Grassi disqualified for using clubs with illegal face grooves. Next day, Grassi followed DiCesaro around, heckling him continually and calling attention to his clubs, finally got him disqualified for using equally illegally grooved clubs.

For six days, divots and fur flew the length & breadth of the 6,643-yd. Rancho course. The rules allow a player to assume a fair stance, but when Jack Gargan, a Hollywood bit-player, trampled a young sapling to get more elbow room for an approach shot on the 18th hole, his opponent asked for a ruling. Sputtered Gargan, when an official disqualified him: "I wouldn't call a thing like that on my grandmother."

Past performance meant nothing. Mike Ferentz, the Long Beach (Calif.) bartender who won last year's championship, got knocked out in the first round. Reporters, who set up press headquarters in the ladies' locker room, were soon calling the tournament "anybody's open."

Before the week was out they were paying attention to big Bill Betger, 26, a left-handed policeman from San Francisco who patrols the city's waterfront at night and golfs on the city's jampacked Harding course by day. It was rare for a southpaw to do so well in tournament play, and he did not get to the finals without incident. In the fourth round Policeman Betger graciously conceded a 12-in. putt to his rival Lewis North of Denver (for a halve), gave the latter's ball a swipe with his putter. Cried North, citing the rule book: "You can't do that--I claim the hole." He got it, too, and Betger had to go 19 holes to win, one-up.

In the final round, Betger squared off against a fellow San Franciscan, Ken Towns, 20, student at San Mateo Junior College and part-time handyman about Crystal Springs golf course. The policeman's tee shots, true all week, began to go awry and his putter couldn't have been colder if it had been on ice. Towns closed out the match on the 33rd hole, 5 and 3.

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