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Show TACK KRAMER, the tennis star, " was talking about the difference between goll and tennis. We had just asked him if there was any chance that he would follow in Ellsworth Ells-worth Vines' path and later take up golf for a living. "Not the slightest chance ever," the astute Kramer said. "It may be tough to make a M-! living out of tennis. But it's far tougher in golf. For example, ex-ample, in a tennis match if you can beat an opponent in straight sets or in three sets out of four, jou usually can keep on beating him. Not always but usually. It's J. Kramer noming like that In golf. You can beat a star one day and next day some unknown will knock your brains out. "In tennis we knew pretty well who should reach the semi-finals and the final round at Forest Hills. We figured at least that most of the leaders would be hanging around. But at Pebble Beach they were scattering scat-tering the dust of beaten stars all along the Pacific. Just about the time this golf championship really got under way, Frank Stranahan was out, Bud Ward was out, Smiley Quick was out, Ted Bishop, defending defend-ing champion, was out most of those picked to win were packing their clubs and heading somewhere else. Fellows who had lost In the first round at Baltusrol, a year ago, now were decorating their wigwams wig-wams with scalps of leading stars." "Tennis also has its upsets," I suggested. Upsets Are the Rule "I know that," Kramer said. "But only here and there. Only occasionally. occasion-ally. Golf is nothing but one upset after another. Look at the last P. G. A. tournament. Most of the star golfers were out by the second round. "I like golf as a game, but not as a way of making a living. It's too tough. Ellie Vines has played a long number of brilliant rounds. But he rarely wins a big money tournament. tourna-ment. And Vines has practiced thousands thou-sands of hours at golf." "Don't forget," I put In, "that tennis is played over a few square yards of space. A round of golf covers cov-ers over five miles and some 150 acres. A tennis court is perfectly massaged. A golf course is full of trees, bunkers, traps, matted rough, ponds, lakes, maybe part of an ocean, hills, ravines, bushes and jungle. Irv Cobb told me once that he got so deep into the woods on some western course that he was attacked by two pumas. Also, there are few cuppy lies in tennis. No bunker heel prints in the sand." "That may have something to do with it," Kramer said. "All I know is that I don't want any part of pro golf even if I was 15 strokes better than my 85." There is another angle that Kramer might have figured on. The tension in golf is about four times the tension in tennis or any other sport. There is only one cure or relief for tension that every other sport carries. This is action movement. move-ment. Golf has no such relief. Too Tough for Many-it Many-it is much easier to keep your eye on a fast-moving baseball or a fast-moving fast-moving tennis ball than it is to keep a fixed orb on a small, white ball that doesn't even flinch until you hit it or move it. Any football player will tell that his tightest tension is just before the first kickoff. After one or two body collisions this tension ten-sion is gone. Nothing like that happens hap-pens in golf. Golf demands greater mental control con-trol than any other game. By mental men-tal control we don't mean cultural intelligence, which has nothing to do with sport. Psychology always plays a far bigger big-ger part in golf than in any othr game. In almost every other game you are playing against some opponent. op-ponent. In golf you are playing almost al-most entirely by yourself. No one can Interfere physically with anything any-thing you do. You can only beat yourself. Your main opponent is yourself not the other fellow. 1 Golf demands no speed, no brawn, no quick mental reflexes under fire. There are no split seconds of mental action in golf as there are in baseball, base-ball, football, tennis, polo and all games of physical action. Knute Rockne, who played most games well, gave up golf. "It's too tough for me," Knute said. Fred Stone was one of the greatest great-est natural athletes I ever saw-acrobat, saw-acrobat, boxer, a star performer in most sports. "Fred learned how to ski in two hours." Rex Beach told me once yet Stone tried and quit golf. It was a different game. And those who have played other games so well hate to be duffers and dubs in a game that looks so easy and simple. Sammy Byrd and Ellsworth Vines are the only two men I know who have starred at other games baseball base-ball and tennis plus golf. Byrd was a better golfer than he was a ball player, but he turned first to baseball |