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Show Sam Snead Has Putting Trouble As North-South Event Opens i By BILL BONI PINEHURST, N. C, March 18 (AP) If the; putts (o "plunk" into the cup on the first three) holes today, it may be 1 tha warning that Samuel Jackson Snead is off to the wan again. ! Everything else is there condition, confidence, the shots from' tee to green but the putts haven't been dropping and Snead hasn't been winning. "Maybe I should get me a new putter," said San before teeing off thia morning for the first round of the north and south open. "That might be a help your know, psychology. Or maybe I should get me a new putting stroke. I dunno. "I do know, though, those putts gotta start rolling In aome way or I'm gonna be powerful mad." "Of course, there's a lot In how you look at things. In the Thorn-Seville Thorn-Seville Ga. open, Sam got aa I on the first hole and still had a 7 ever a par 72 coarse. Then he shot two successive 70s. That considering . the start should be satisfactory golf. But not to Snead. - Those last two rounds," he said. "I shouldn't have been ever a 64 either time." Yesterday. In hia final practice round, he toured the tough No. 2 Pinehurst course la 72, even par. Not bad, say the average man who's lucky ta break 90. But ; Snead? j "Shucks, I only canned ene putt all the way around, and that was a little bitty five-footer." So Sam figures that so far aa 1 thia north-south tourney Is eon- j earned, today's first three holes 1 may tell the story. "If they drop on those," he said. "It's likely as not to set me bangin' 'em in from all over. But If they don't if they go Bangin' oa the lip or Just curlin' away la the last Inch or so. fra ust aa likely to figure. "Well, here we go again.' and than I'll wind up with a 73 or 75." Another 18-hole round tomorrow will follow the opening sslvo. Then the field will be reduced for Thurs-1 day's 96-hole final. "Ski America First" is a slogan i which waa used by the famous Sua Valley lodge la Idaho. |