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Show 1 1 Speaking of Sports-, Texas Golfers Plan Invasion Of U. S. Open By ROBERT McSIIANE (Released by Western Newspaper Umoru POUR long years have gone by since any golfer outside the state of Texas walked oft with champion-ship champion-ship honors in the National Open tournament. Top-flight club wielders from every ev-ery section of the nation are devising devis-ing ways and means of ending the Lone Star state's monopoly of golf-dom's golf-dom's shining crown. It's going to be a tough battle for them. When the Texas squad is drawn up in early June battle formation for-mation on the Canterbury course in Cleveland. Ohio, it will include such formidable foes as Jimmy Demaret, the man with the quick smile; Ben Hogan, the mighty atom of golf; Byron Nelson, the defending Open titleholder; Ralph Guldahl, '37 and '38 titleholder; and Dick Metz, Texas Tex-as born and bred in golfing ways. The Competition There are plenty of fine golfers from the outside who have a good chance for the title, including Sammy Sam-my Snead, Henry Picard, Craig Wood, Gene Sarazen, Harry Cooper, Coop-er, Olin Dutra, Gene Sarazen, Law-son Law-son Little, Paul Runyan, Denny Shute and half a hundred others. But the Texas Rangers still get the nod. Opposition can't forget that Demaret won seven major tournaments tour-naments during the winter and spring, not including pro-amateur t 4 W A , vdAs a i. A ,Jt RALPH GULDAHL wins at Palm Beach and Miami Beach. Critics hail him as the most relaxed star golfer since the days of Walter Hagen's prime. Ralph Guldahl is just coming back into his own. Twice champion of the U. S. Open, Guldahl saw a hard winter. His game suddenly blew up. He lost his putting touch, and his left arm went bad. But he's always a dangerous golfer, particularly over a course he likes. And this may be the year he'll win his third title. Despite his blowup, Guldahl is a cool, almost icy, golfer. The Mighty Atom' Little Ben Hogan, a 132-pound chunk of dynamite, is one of the longest hitters golf has ever known, regularly getting 280 yards off the tee. While Demaret was moving at a breath-taking clip, Hogan was right on his trail. He led the winter and spring field with an average of 70.5 strokes per round through 14 medal play tournaments, no broke 70 in 11 tournaments, and at Tine-hurst, Tine-hurst, Greensboro and Shevillc, he led the field by the astonishing margin mar-gin of 15 strokes. He played four major tournaments against killing competition, a total of 288 holes, 32 under par for one of the truly great records of golf. Byron Nelson, present Open champion, is a determined, hard-fighting hard-fighting finisher. He is just the opposite op-posite of Demaret in that he can't relax. He takes his tournaments seriously, and is always keyed up to the tournament's end. Despite his tenseness, he doesn't discourage easily. In the last Open, Nelson started with a 73 that might well have been an 80 or worse. He saw more trouble in a single round than he usually does in a tournament. Who's going to stop the Texas invasion? in-vasion? Well, it might be Slam-min' Slam-min' Sammy Snead, the West Virginia Vir-ginia hillbilly and mystery man of golf. Snead is a great golfer, but Btill must learn to keep his nerves under control. It could be Gene Sarazen, Jimmy Thomson, or Martin Mar-tin Pose, the Argentine champion. It could be any one of duzens of well-known players, or it could be someone comparatively unknown as a tournament threat. But the native sons of Texas will give no quarter-and it won't be an upset if the Lone Star Rangers keep the crown another year. Sport Shorts Of the 16 major league baseball clubs. 14 of them refuse to transport their teams by air. On every club there are a few who will not travel in that manner . . . Christy Vateh again is sports director of toe World's fair in New York . . . car-roll car-roll Bierman.who rode GaUahadion to victory in the Kentucky Derby, is a native of Centralia. W- Two caddies from golf clubs in the Cleveland district will get scholar ships at Northwestern unners.tj next fall. |