12 Sports Aces, January 1943 — page 88: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

86 . 12 SPORTS ACES rips what are the suckers in this game: it’s the enthusiastic clowns with a yen to be heroes. : We play the qualifying round like it’s some kind of a funeral rehearsal. The other two players in the threesome ain’t much on talk, but this Mister Rogers I’ve got is about as noisy as a bullnose clam at high water. He hits the ball, though, and with my coaching he gets around the course pretty good. His drives are all down the by-gosh middle and he clicks off his iron shots like his name is Hagen. I keep him wised up on all the tricks of the course and bring him in with a neat little seventy-three which leoks plenty good for a spot in the top flight. All he says to me is “Okay” when I hand over his sticks, not a word for all the inside dope I’ve been slipping him as we go along. He forks ever the usual two- bit tip on top of the caddie fee, nothin’ at all for the strokes I’ve saved him by ex- pert advice, That ain’t very encouraging but I have hopes that maybe he’ll loosen up later. 3 After supper I hear that his seventy- three is low enough to win the medal. Then I feel a little better because that ought to help soften him up for some kind of a shell-out. Then, just as I’m getting ready to go home, I hear one of his pals talking to him near the clubhouse parking lot. “You musta been hot today, Rogers,” the guy says. “You haven’t been down in the low seventies since you took up golf again. What happened to your sand-trap jinx?” Rogers pulls a funny grin. It wasn’t much, but it was better than anything I’d seen on his mug all afternoon. “No traps,” he says shortlike. “T thought so,” the other guy laughs. *You’d be a champ if you could just find a course without sand.” Rogers grins again. ““Maybe so. I can’t figure out whether golf courses have too much sand or whether I don’t have enough. I’m scared of it.” “That’s a new one I never heard of,” the other guy cracks. “I suppose the pro- fessors would call that silicaphobia or something. My trouble would be hydro- phobia. I’m scared silly by water holes.” IGHT then I begin to see what I’m up against. Not only is this guy Rogers a sourpuss—he’s a nut! Imagine - guys talkin’ like that! Silly-cosis and hy- drophobia. I know about the last one: it’s got something to do with mad dogs, and I begin to feel a little happy that it’s the harmless screwball I’m hooked up with —not the mad dog guy. Next day I’m on the job and we go out for the first round of match play. Rogers is the same absent-minded Ike he was the day before. I keep coaching him along, but most of the time he don’t even seem to hear me. For instanee, I study his shot and sug- gest, “Six iron!” So he says, “I’ll take the five.” Then he underhits the ball and the shot works out just right, making me look bad. | One way or another he manages to score okay, though, and he is four up at the turn. Then on the tenth he has an ap- proach that seems to worry him. He thinks it’s a six shot, but I know a six would be too much. He grunts a little and takes the seven I hand him. His shot looks good, but it ain’t hit fair, at least it don’t sound right to me, and the ball drops into a deep trap just short of the green. He glares at me like it was my fault, then walks on silent as ever and looks over the bad lie he has in the sand. I give him the blaster, and this time he don’t put up no argument, He just steps down into the trap and takes three puny cuts at the ball before it accidentally bobbles up on to the green. By that time the hole is lost so he picks up and con- —cedes. I begin to see what he meant when he was talking to his pal. He can shoot pret- ty fair golf while he’s on grass, but some- thing about the sand ‘has got his nanny. He ain’t got the guts to take a good swipe . at the ball. I’ve seen lots of guys who couldn’t seem to make themselves swing through when they were in sand, but this dope is the worst yet. On the thirteenth he gets trapped again and it’s the same story all over. It costs Gomichbooks (EO)