Show speaking of sports wood entitled to golad s roll of honor by ROBERT is H JES IJES I Es one of the greatest goltl 1 ers ive ever seen and not because he beat me it took a lot of courage for the speaker to say that for lie was none other than craig woodi wood who recently completed his reverse grand slam by losing to young byron nelson in the second se cond 18 hole playoff for the national open title the fact that lord byron scored an eagle to beat him important in itself it was merely the follow up of a long succession of events which have kept I 1 him from gaining the many titles for r which he has competed wood has found only one competitor harder to beat than old man par and mr hard luck who has finished regularly in first place since 1931 when last chapter is written craig will be remembered as the man who came closer to winning is more major championships pion ships than any divot digger who ever lived opportunity has knocked more than once for him in fact it has rapped a steady tattoo on his door his golfing career has been a succession of tough breaks lost chances and marvelous opposition his amazing career got underway back in 1931 when the tall blond haired youngster tied john golden for the north and south title at pine I 1 al CRAIG WOOD hurst burst it one of golf doms major titles but it was his first big tournament he win the title golden beat him in ln the playoff from then on hi would have spelled disaster to anyone but a fighter in 1933 he tied denny shute for the british open championship pion ship in his first overseas effort he was beaten in the playoff student vs teacher in 1934 he reached the final of the professional golfers association tournament at buffalo paul runyan beat him on the thirty eighth the second extra hole an interesting sidelight to victory was the fact that he had served his apprenticeship under wood at the hollywood country club in deal N J during the 1931 1934 season he finished second in five winter circuit tournaments na losing three times to horton smith wood has been plagued by the phenomenon long shots his opponents have holed to beat him opportunity had stepped inside the door at the near end of the masters at augusta in 1935 wood had retired to the locker room to celebrate and there received ev congratulations it over 0 v er yet he told his well wishers there are still a lot of scores to be posted but wood along with the milling spectators figured his lead was secure then the miracle happened ha opened gene scored a double doub le eagle on the fifteenth haleing out a yard wood shot played the next three holes in par and tied wood for the championship wood lost in the playoffs play offs to keep the record straight he finished second in the metropolitan open in 1936 reversal completed wood has now lost playoffs play offs for the four greatest titles in reach of a professional the british open the P G A crown the masters and the national open despite these breaks wood has never carped he has always alwa y S played his best game and is the first to give credit to the wi winner one on e big reason why so I 1 many folks feel pretty badly th that at gentlemanly craig wood di ant win the national open instead of losing it to byron nelson in a double playoff and they have no wi wish ab to take anything away from the winner wood had two breaks in the first playoff round of the national open the first was when his second sh shot ot hit a spectator and was thereby saved from hooking out into the rough the second break of a totally different nature ewas was when he failed to hole a six foot putt which would have won the championship for him one person remarked it was only justice I 1 think th ink that the putt missed for it evened the break that hat up t came before to the speaker again wood was craig allstar all star jinx A A STRANGE jinx has overtaken ax each of the five college foote football all coaches who in past years were named to coach the graduated college allstar all star team which annually meets the national football league professional champs in the presca pre sea son grid classic the head coach of the college all stars is selected by millions of fans voting in a nationwide nation wide poll it is a signal honor for any coach to win that election the jinx has already overtaken noble kizer of purdue who coached the first allstar all star team in 1934 frank thomas of alabama bernie bierman of minnesota gus dorais of detroit and bo tin of indiana aizers all stars met the chicago bears in a scoreless tie but his purdue team while finishing high in the western noble vohla ble kizer kir e conference arence the previous year experienced a disastrous 1934 season losing three games the Boller boilermakers makers lost to rice notre dame and their traditional rival indiana in 1935 the following year frank thomas coach of the alabama rose bowl champions of the previous season suffered a similar unsuccessful season bernie bierman coach of minne botas mighty golden gophers was head bead mentor of the 1936 all stars when they tied the detroit lions 7 to 7 ile he quite as unlucky as kizer or thomas but the jinx tripped him up when the gophers undefeated in 32 previous starts were whipped 6 to 0 by northwestern in one of the seasons most startling upsets an upset that kept the gophers from annexing another big ten title dorais suffered the same luck in 1937 as did mcmillin in 1938 mc millins collegiate crew did a fine job in beating the worlds champion washington redskins Red skins 39 to 14 but his own indiana lads scored one victory and that over ineffectual iowa should the jinx continue football fans may need more than an biec election to name an allstar all star coach it will probably call for a mandate gao g 0 backfires Back fires JOE OE JACOBS manager of ber weight champion tony galento struck a new high or rather a new low recently when he charged that joe louis had a metal slug in his hand the night he knocked out max joe cant be blamed for trying to build up interest in his bis fat boy something had to be done A public made apathetic by past heavyweight performances certainly rush the turnstiles turn turri stiles to see galento in action even against the brown bomber jacobs took it all back when gen john J phelan chairman of the th state athletic commission threatened to revoke his license in new york but the damage has been done prize fighting has never been held in the same high repute as other sports with the exception of an almost obsolete contest called wrestling millions of people look upon I 1 prize fighting 0 with a raised eyebrow or with compressed nostrils thinking only of the sports seamier side it is all too true that boxing has plenty of unwashed linen in its hampers it is equally true that the fight game includes some of sport doms squarest shooters in its ranks unfounded accusations such as jacobs bombast magnify the evils of the ring granted that the average fan is too smart to be taken in b by such ah hokum nevertheless repetition of such baseless charges have an a unhappy happy un effect A few crackpots can do untold damage and the sad part of it is they dont suffer the consequences quen ces the entire pugilistic profession is the loser sport shorts A RT SHIRES former white sox first baseman says he finds refereeing wrestling matches in the southwest more profitable than managing a minor league team ray arcel is emphatic in saying joe louis is dynamite he has acted as a second tor for six fighters who have opposed louis and only jimmy braddock was able to go beyond the third round he tell fell in the seventh others handled by arcel were paulino uzcudun jack sharkey nathan mann john henry lewis and r jorge brescia walter hagen says pres present ent day pros are playing like amateurs they take fuu full powered swings at all times and would rather hit a no 5 iron over the green unlike the old time pros who would use a no 2 iron and finesse the walter alter n hagen S ball into the hole former title holders will be qualified automat cally icalla for the 1940 national open if the U S G A can work out a satisfactory arrangement only y 17 games have gone more than is 18 innings in in the 63 year history of the national league and the cubs cuba have played in nine of them fRe released leased by western union I 1 |