Sam & the Little Man

On a golf course Samuel Jackson Snead, 37, professes to be afraid of three things: lightning, a downhill putt and Ben Hogan. Last week, as he slouched on to the first tee in the playoff of the $15,000 Los Angeles Open, there was' no lightning--just fog and Ben Hogan.

Sam won the toss, stepped up to the ball and swung. The ball whistled down the middle of the mist-shrouded fairway and disappeared from view. Sam pursed his lips, blinked his grey, button-bright eyes and was satisfied. Then bantam Ben Hogan, the little man who had come back to haunt him, stepped forward. To the dismay of 4,500 assembled witnesses, Ben hit one that hooked crazily and landed in a ditch out of bounds.

Sam Snead did not let the gift of one stroke fool him. He stalked down the foggy fairways like a man half expecting an ambush. It took two hours to play the first eight holes. Always a deliberate player, Hogan was taking more time than usual between shots, partly to conserve strength and partly to wear on Sam Snead's notably uncertain nervous system. On the eighth hole with the match even, both men pitched to within twelve feet of the pin to putt for birdies.

Sam sank his and Hogan missed. In grim self-reproach, Hogan stayed on the green and practiced the putt again & again --never once making it. That shook the little man whose gimlet glance used to be enough to make rivals break out in hot & cold sweats.

An hour and three-quarters later, as he walked off the 18th green with a swollen 76, Ben was four strokes down, and Sam Snead was the winner. Ben Hogan smiled wanly at the crowd and said: "I'm terribly sorry I didn't play better today . . . I hope I'll give you a better show here next year."

Ben went off to Palm Springs, Calif, for a rest. He had to pull himself together for this week's Phoenix Open, which has been rechristened the Ben Hogan Open. He wanted to be ready for that one; it was the last tournament he had played before the auto accident last February that nearly killed him.

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