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Show Page Bl Thursday, July 30, 1981 sc." " - 4' 4 i. ' , ' .' ' ' V,1 4 Top: Scrum half Rick Phaler (right) watches as the ball comes flying out of the pack after a lineout. Bottom : Kenny Tedford gets rid of the ball as a would-be tackier closes in. Ski Town Tourney uckers save their best for last M By Doug McC'ulloch It was a weekend of high and lows in Steamboat Springs for the Park City Muckers Rugby Club this past weekend at the annual Ski Town Rugby Tournament. Tour-nament. In their opening contest, the Muckers laid back a little too far, got caught napping and lost to Aspen Highlands (Aspen's 'B' team), 3-0. Though that loss was the Muckers' only setback in three games over the weekend, it was a crucial one as it placed them in the losers' bracket of the tournament, tour-nament, leaving them with a best possible finish of fifth. And that is just where they ended up. The Muckers avenged their opening loss with victories, vic-tories, 17-10 over Frazier Valley and 9-7 over Vail. Against Aspen Highlands, the Muckers went without several of their 'A' players, resting them for what the team felt were to be more difficult games coming up. Taking Aspen Highlands lightly killed any championship champion-ship hopes the Muckers may have had. "We were holding players out to save for the other games," said Mucker David Sundquist. "We just didn't expect Highlands to be so tough." In that contest, the Muckers failed to convert three short penalty kicks as well as short drop-goal attempt. at-tempt. The Muckers also came out empty-handed on several occasions where they had the ball within the 10-yard line with set plays, according to Sundquist. The game remained scoreless until there were 15 minutes remaining when Aspen Highlands converted a penalty kick for the games' lone score. "Our backs didn't do the job in the first game," said Mucker captain Rick Phaler. "Though they might have been our 'B's' in there, they are good enough to play against teams like that." The Muckers' fortunes took a positive turn in the second game of the meet, however, going up 6-0 quickly after Phaler took the bail singlehandidly into the corner for a try and Bruce Reid converted the bonus, Park City never trailed Frazier Valley. Following a try by Frazier Valley, putting the score at 6-4, Mucker Don Sturges, led by some good backline movement after a line out, scored another try for the Muckers. Although Reid's kick went wide, the Park City side was on top, 10-4. After Reid added three more points for Park City, the Muckers used a fixed play to ice the win. With a side of the field open, Mucker Scott Thompson kicked to ball out to the Frazier Valley wing. The wing was smothered by Al Terry, allowing Mark Stokan to easily cover the ball behind the line for Park City's final score. In the final contest against Vail, it appeared until the waning moments to be a replay of the initial game for Park City. The Muckers took the lead early on a penalty kick by Reid. But Vail followed that shortly with a try and successful conversion conver-sion and held a 7-3 lead. From that point on, the Vail side did little more than try to kill the clock. ,- V ' - ' v IV -, y " " .. , "They were just stalling, laughing at us, trying to kill time," recalled Phaler. "And there were doing a good job of it, though they really got us fired up." Going into the final seconds of the contest, Vail's strategy had been working quite well, keeping the Muckers at bay, not allowing them to threaten. But with time running out, the Muckers' took their final shot. Park City was able to work the ball up to Vail's five-yard line when the Vail side was called for a penalty. Phaler set the ball for the kick, but with time running out, the three points a successful penalty kick would have given the Muckers would not have been enough. So rather than kick for the points, Phaler kicked the ball up to himself, ran towards the center of the field and kicked it over the line to the weak side. Again, as against Frazier Valley, Terry smothered the defed-ing defed-ing wing and Stokan touched the ball down for the try, tying the game. Reid's conversion con-version kick from a tight . angle was successful as the time ran out and Park City had a 9-7 win. "I guess all that laughing was wasted," Phaler said. Winning the tournament was Aspen's 'A' team, 21-0 over Sun Valley. Aspen fielded a team with a pair of English International players and an International Scot scrum half who were, according to Phaler, right at home on the rain-soaked field. "Their scrum half was the whole show," said Phaler. "He scored 17 points all himself. him-self. With those guys, Aspen was certainly the class of the tournament." With the team operating a beer concession to raise fun-during fun-during this weekend's arts festival, the Muckers will be idle until Aug. 8 when they play an over-30 match. That game will feature current players under the age of 30 meeting current and past players over 30 in a fun, get-together get-together game. The next full-scale game will be Aug. 22 at Idaho Falls, though plans are in the works for a contest at home the previous week. by Jim Murray MBDriraiy nim poirfe British Open faces crisis Sandwich, England No sooner had sweaters and ;plf sticks in the early days now the greenskeepers begun to collect the "pegs" became a tent city of considerable acreage (pins), dismantle the grandstand aad pack up along the first fairway. The merchants the 100th British Open than speculation began of England pay a considerable about the future of this hoary event. per-squa re-foot fee to display their wares on In the 1920s, the British Open was "the" ODen week. They cannily offered a championship, as it liked to bill itself. It was about as commercial as tea with the Queen. They picked a course, threw a ball out on it and said "Play away!" If the public came, if the Americans came, fine. If they didn't, well, pity! It wasn't exactly public. They made Walter Hagan use the tradesmen's entrance. Golf was as amateur as polo and as private as a crap game in a New York loft. It was really considered too good for the masses. Bernard Darwin covered it for The Times of London, of course, and if anyone had shown up with a press pass from Chicago or Los Angeles, the butler would have fed him in the kitchen. Under no circumstances would he be allowed on the course. The Americans made the tournament -Jones, Hagen, Sarazen, - but when they stopped coming, the British hardly cared. What would come after would hardly be better bred than the caddies, now would it? The tournament went back to being won by Alfred Padgham, R. Reginald.A. Whitcombe and the runner-up would be S.F. Brews. The level of golf was about that of a member-guest at Saticoy. The British theory is, no gentleman plays a game too well -- and the winners of the British Open were gentlemen, all right. You could tell by their scores. They might have thrown their cloak down for the Queen but they sure couldn't putt. The British would have done better playing in a suit of armor. Still, the event had a prestigious connotation connota-tion and it soon occurred to the Aussies and South Africans there was easy pickins to be had in Mother England. Just go up there and beat a lot of four-putts, who played with their ties on, and you had yourself a reputation. In the late '50s, a curious thing happened. A few American manufacturers and promoters - Mark McCormack, among them - began to perceive the bonanza to be won in this event. Not in money, in publicity, which is the same thing. Arnold Palmer appeared. Followed by the flower of American golf. Followed by television. Far from resenting, the British began to do a peculiar thing: they began lobbying for American intervention. The reason was in the best traditions of the empire: loot. Where Palmer went, television tele-vision followed. Instead of making American journalists wipe their feet and take their hats off, the English relented to the extent of letting them use the clubhouse lavatories. Where once Hagen couldn't tread, now the sportswriter from the Memphis Press-Scimitar could take a bath if he wanted. Standards have not been completely obliterated, however. When the Royal and Ancient invited the press to a noon cocktail party this year, a reporter from Philadelphia disdained the cocktails in favor of a piece of cheesecake. A club lackie rushed up to him and scolded him: "You were invited here for drinks only, sir!" he thundered. What the British Open did was become what this generation might call a "happening." The commercialization began innocently enough. A few merchants opening a "pitch" Alongside the fairways for their A s 1 -v 'WWW r&$M 4MBw :. ' i I - V , "professional" discount to the visiting players, and other important visitors with a view to popularizing their product. But where you could buy a cashmere sweater of highest quality for six pounds 12 years ago, the same cashmere today would cost you 60. The British Open, like Europe itself, today faces a crisis which may threaten its continuation in its present mode. The cost of playing it has always been inhibiting. First prize money was always so laughably low that the winner had to win to break even. In fact, in 1922, Walter Hagen grandly gave the 50 pound first money to his caddy. Today, at 25,000 pounds, the winner can do a lot better. But the ante in this high-level game has gone up even higher. Jack Nicklaus conceded that a week's rent for Tom Watson this year was in the $6,000 range. Add to that first-class air fare from the U.S.for Tom and his wife Linda and Watson is pushing $10,000 worth of chips out on the table before he even buys a cashmere sweater. Ben Crenshaw last year estimated it cast him $10,000 to play in the British Open. Three journalists, two television men and a magazine man paid $9,000 in rent for this week. Of course, it included a chauffeur and a Rolls. But the field was the poorest American turnout in years. Only 17 braved the decline of the dollar and the high cost of cards in this deal. Only four finished in the top 10, a lesson that will not be lost on the 60 or so who folded their hands and refused to come. You might put up $10 grand to play with ribbon clerks. But not if the deck is marked. Most American players regard British Open rough as a game where you're betting into a pat hand. "The Royal and Ancient has to do something about this situation," Jacl Nicklaus told the press, indentifying the escalating costs of an overseas player playing in Britain as "gouging". "They are making the Quad Cities Open look better and better", summed up another American player, a one-time Open winner. "You don't have any lions in the rough, you can win almost as much money, and you can get to Moline by Greyhound if you want." Nicklaus conceded the R & A has tried to control rents in the Open venues, has consulted with British Airways to reduce air fares. For himself, he feels the game is worth it. "If it costs you $10,000-a-year, and you win it once, it's worth it," he says. Bill Rogers, this year's winner, agrees. "I don't buy that 'too expensive' stuff. After all, your expenses are deductible and this IS the British Open." Nevertheless, the real fear is, once the Watsons and Nicklauses and Trevinos are through, the American pros will not want to buck this wheel anymore. Arnold Palmer would not have competed this year if he were not given special one-year exemption. When the word goes out that the Yanks are not coming over there, the British Open, which suffered a sharp attendance decline this year because of American scarcity, may go back to being the gentlemen's game again. Not played too well and not racking in millions of pounds. 1981, Los Angeles Times Dave Strong announces an exciting, new driving experience from Audi The Coupe from Audi is now in Salt Lake. 50 years of Audi innovation has gone into a car that propels you from 0 to 50 mph in 7.4 seconds and still gives you 36 mpg on the highway. 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