OCR Text |
Show i SPEAKING OF j SPORTS :j: By ROBERT McSHANE Released by Western Newspaper Union A NY man who can hit a golf ball as far and as accurately as Samuel Jackson Snead deserves high ranking among present-day stars of the fairway. But Snead, despite his flawless swing and almost unbelievable distance-getting ability, hasn't won uni-versal uni-versal acclaim. In fact, the manner man-ner In which he loses tournaments often wins more publicity for him than would victory. Golfing fans never will forget Slammin Sammy's eight on the last hole in the United States Open at Philadelphia three years ago. Neither Nei-ther will they forget his eight on the last hole of the recent Los Angeles Open. Any galleryite watching Snead play his usual excellent brand of tournament golf would refuse re-fuse to believe him capable of two such debacles. On the surface, these last-hole blowups seem to Indicate a lack of heart on the part of the former hillbilly hill-billy from Virginia. Such Isn't the case. If Snead had been afraid of the pressure he would have been! overly cautious. Ills game would have mirrored his lack of courage. Too Much Courage But Snead was a victim of too much courage. He preferred to gamble. In the National Open he' used a brassie from a poor lie after hitting a rather unhappy tee shot, i The second guessers knew he should have played it safe with an iron. In the Los Angeles Open he needed a four to win on the 500-yard final hole. After a fair tee shot his long: brassie carried him about 270 yards, leaving him almost hole high. With the green on a slight plateau, Snead was in the rough. His pitch hit at the top of the bank and rolled back. He took four shots to get the ball on the green. You can be sure that Snead' sj weakness isn't due to the lack of courage. Rather it is the result of uncertain concentration. In Los Angeles An-geles he was six under par for 71 holes. Then, without running into' anything more troublesome than light rough, he went three over par on the last hole. Not until Snead learns to control himself completely will he earn the place which should be bis. He must learn to forget tbe sour shots and concentrate on matters directly at hand. Right now it doesn't take very much to turn him from an almost al-most certain winner to a ragged victim vic-tim of his own nerves. With competition com-petition Increasingly keen, nerves must be kept under iron control. Ben Hogan possesses marvelous concentrating ability so does Byron Nelson. Give that one additional quality to Snead and he would singe the tournament fairways to a brown crisp. e |