VOL. XXIX
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MARCH 27,1926
Entered as second-class matter at the post office at PINEHURST, N.
C., Subscription, $2.00 per year.
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Number 13
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Trailing Our National Champion
By E. Ellsworth Giles
r=nHIS writer is one of a number who has seen our
I I I national champion, Miss Glenna Collett, of Provi
rAJ dence, play in most of her big time tournaments
since she made her National Championship debut at Holly
wood in Jersey back in 1921.
Miss Collett, then in her seventeenth year, went forth
and tied with Mrs. Latham Hall of England for the low
qualifying medal, with a very excellent score of 85.
The champion closed the year 1925 with the greatest
competitive record ever compiled by a woman in this coun
try, if indeed in any country, over a period of twelve months.
Now she is standing on the threshold of another competi
tive season and giving evidence that she will equal her 1925
record provided she keeps fit and does not go stale with too
much tournament play. She lost a couple of niatches in the
far south recently, but to players shooting at the very crest
of their games. Miss Collett will lose other matches, or she
is not human, but the player who takes her over twice will
be in line for felicitations.
The North and South for women, for the amateurs, and
the pros as well, is a curtain raiser for the big northern
tournament season just around the corner, and what the big
boys and girls do here is a precursor of what may be expect
ed to follow.
So when Glenna goes out and burns up the No. 3 course
here at Pinehurst, which has a playing length of 6209 yards,
with a man’s par of 71—with a medal card as follows, we see
her silhouetted as the nation’s supreme golfer. '
Miss Collett:
Out Yards
No. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
367 415 392 330 221 186 305 443 380—3039
Score 4 5544344 5 38
No. 10 ‘ 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
365 419 446 340 138 371 213 523 355—3170
Score 44644435 5 39 77
And this 77, played in a strong1 wind, comes pretty close
to being a record for big tournament play. Glenna took
the qualifying medal over her own home course with a 79 in
1924 and she had an 81 at White Sulphur in 1922 to take the
gold medal. So well did the chamlpion play that she might
easily have cut off two and perhaps three strokes on the
merits of her game.
The single 6 on her card was the result of a bit of har
hick and not because of mechanical error. From a wel
placed tee shot, long as all of her tee shots were, Miss Co
lett’s brassie second was played a bit to the left oi the ag
to catch the slope to the blind green. The line was per
and the ball well hit, but it failed to carry the intervening
trap by inches, dropping into the sand. The shot out failed
to get near enough for a single putt, with the resultant 6.
A missed putt at the ninth hole after a corking tee shot ac
counted for the 5 there. Another missed putt on the No. 14
water hole cost a 4, and a mashie second played too slack on
the home hole after a perfect drive made it necessary to hole
a long putt for even a 5, telling the tale of sins of commis
sion.
Now let us recount some of the high spots in this scintil
lating round of the champion of the LJnited States whose play
was so smooth, powerful and flawless as to make the ver^
excellent game of her partner, Miss Bernice Wall, of Osh
kosh, Wis., look rather ordinary by comparison.
A MARVELOUS SHOT
In twenty years of watching all of the pros and best
amateurs in this country in open competition, I have never
seen a greater and more heroic shot pulled off, all things
considered, than the champion played after her tee shot on
No. 10 hole.
This hole is one of many on the four courses of the semi
dog-leg variety, played from left to right. The carded dis
tance is 365 yards with a water hazard all the way across
the fairway not far in front of the green which lies at a
higher level. The fairway where the ball should light from
the tee is of the hog-back type, receding to the right, and
toward a thick forest. Miss Collett’s ball was well on the
fairway, and on the crow flight line to the hole, but too far.
to the right to open the line to the green. The ball was so
far to the right that had the trees been covered with mid
summer foliage she could not have seen a vestige of the put
ting green. Added to this natural stymie was the further
handicap of a hanging lie, and a closely lying ball. Miss Col
lett was too close to the tall trees to make the direct line
carry over. Her partner, Miss Wall, with a somewhat
shorter drive and with the ball several yards nearer the cen
ter of the fairway, elected to play safe to the low land in
front of the water, which she did with a mashie pitch.
When the champion came up to her ball, without a moment’s
hesitation she pulled out a spoon and addressed the ball,
while the hundreds of golfers in the gallery held their col
lective breaths. The ball sailed forth with such a beautiful
ly controlled slice that it not only reached the green but it
actually came to rest on the far right hand corner of the sanded
putting surface, one of the greatest shots ever played in
stroke competition in this country, or in any other, as I be
live. This courage without the requisite accompanying abil
ity ?riight have cost her several strokes.