USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT: SEPTEMBER, 1952 5 An Old Friend and Many New Ones By JOHN P. ENGLISH USGA ASSISTANT EXEClJTIVE SEC~ETARY When contenders for the USGA Ama- It is so obviously sound that to see it teur Championship arrived in Seattle last even briefly is to understand how his month~ they were greeted by billboards victory was accomplished, twenty-six and placards which proclaimed: "You years after his first Championship effort, Can Trust Jack Westland." twenty-one years after he had been de- After a week of competition, the USGA feated by Francis Ouimet in an earlier concurred in the sentiment thus expressed final and five years after his last previous in behalf of the winner of the Repub- challenge. Even Westland's caddie, Kenny lican nomination for Congress in the Guernsey, profited by watching that Second Washington District and entrusted swing; he won the Seattle Golf Club's him with the gold Amateur Champion- caddie championship the next week. ship Cup. There was no alternative~ and party Westland's Era lines played no part in the decision. Al- lack Westland's era was the immediate though he is~ at 47~ by five years the old- post-J ones era of the early Thirties, and est man ever to win the Championship the contemporaries whom he defeated in (Harold Hilton was 42 in 1911), lack reaching the final of the 1931 Amateur 'Westland demonstrated his golfing super- were Sam Parks, George Dunlap, Ducky iority over 1~028 other entrants, almost Yates and Maurice McCarthy. He was a all of whom were his juniors. He tied member of the 1932 and 1934 Walker for fourth at 149 among twenty-one quali- Cup Teams with Francis Ouimet, Jess fiers in the sectional round at Tacoma Sweetser, Max Marston, George Voigt, and defeated seven opponents at match Johnny Goodman, Lawson Little, Chand- play in the Championship proper at the ler Egan, Don Moe, Charley Seaver, Gus Seattle Golf Club. In the latter process, Moreland and Billy Howell. He defeated he played nine rounds of golf in five Rodney Bliss in the final of the 1933 days, including two rounds a day for the Western Amateur. last four days. His closest call came in In recent years, Jack Westland has the fourth round when he had to go played only local golf. Although he won twenty-three holes to defeat Raleigh Selby. the Pacific Northwest Amateur fo~r times, The story of Jack Westland's victory is he entered the USGA Amateur only when one of superb native skill and great the site was convenient to his home in human interest. Everett, Wash., not far north of Seattle. There are many ways in which an The demands of his political campaign individual can accomplish the physical made it possible for him to play very technicalities necessary to propel a golf little in the weeks immediately preceding ball a considerable distance with control. the Championship, and he had scheduled Some are beautiful to behold, and some political speeches on evenings during the are not. Jack Westland's way is beautiful. \veek of the Championship. Most of these He can truthfully be termed a "picture he made, although he postponed one on swinger," and the Rowing, effortless grace the evening prior to the final. with which he achieves club-head speed When the five-foot putt which defeated and club-face control is something that young and strong Al Mengert, 3 and 2, was more common in the past than it is in the final went into the hole, Westland today. cocked his head at the cup momentarily, 6 USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT: SEPTEMBER, 1952 , I as if in expectation that the ball might ~ It was, however, an anachronistic vic- come out again, then threw his head .tory not only because Jack Westland had back, whooped and hurled his cap into been written off by many as a part of a the gallery in unrepressed exultation. The bygone era but also because, apart from dream he had first dreamed at the age of his victory, the Championship appeared 12 had come true long after he had ceased to mark the ascendancy of a new genera- to dream. Older men, however, have won tion of top-flight amateurs. It also may the British Amateur; John Ball won his have marked a shift of the axis of ama- eighth title in 1912 at the age of 51, and teur golf to the West, if not, in fact, to the Hon. Michael Scott won in 1933 at the hospitable Pacific Northwest. the age of 55. Of the eight players who took part in The reaction in the Pacific Northwest, the quarter-final round, five represented as well as throughout the golfing world, the Pacific Nort.hwest (two of whom were was almost equally exultant. Jack West- .Canadians), one was a Southern Cali- land long ago proved himself an ex- fornian and the two who represented the tremely popular personality and a thor- East came originally from California and ough sportsman on both sides of the Texas. Atlantic. The delayed fruition of his When it boiled down to the semi-final dream increased the joy which was so round, three (including one Canadian) widely shared. were natives of the Pacific Northwest, and This stunning action photograph caught Jack Westland's ball in mid-air as he ex- ploded from a bunker by the fifth green in the morning round of the final of the Amateur Championship at the SeaUle Golf Club. He got a half in 3s to mainJain a I-up lead. The photograph was ,taken by Capt. L. D. da Ponte. /' USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT: SEPTEMBER, 1952 7 the other was a Texan playing out of testimony of the breadth and depth of New York. golfing skill over this continent, and it The final was played between two is becoming more than ever true that a United States representatives of the man who wins this Championship juit Pacific Northwest. Rarely since the early once is man of supreme skill and good days of eastern dominance has one fortune. geographic section so monopolized the It" is pleasant to be able to record concluding rounds. that with this spread of golfing skill there The playing of the Amateur in the has been a parallel spread of sportsman- Pacific Northwest for the second time ob- ship and good golfing manners in ama- viously tapped a new lode of talent. Jim- teur golf. my McHale was the last member of the The contestants in this 52nd Amateur 1951 Walker Cup Team to survive, and Championship were equal to their setting he was defeated in the quarter-final round. at the Seattle Golf Club. Charles W. Not a member of 1952 Americas Cup Adams, the General Chairman, and his Team reached the quarter-final round, fellow-workers had driven unsparingly Charley Coe having lost to McHale in for two years to provide facilities which the previous round. would be not only complete to the last In the places of the established veterans detail for the Championship but also came, as semi-finalists, Westland, once graceful and hospitable. Their efforts again; Mengert, an extremely promising showed through every phase, and their young player of 23 from Spokane, Wash.; reward was measured in innumerable Bill Mawhinney, of Vancouver, a recent compliments and smiles bestowed on the Canadian Amateur Champion and the Club and its 6,632-yard, fir-lined course first to represent his country in the semi- by Puget Sound. finals of our Championship since Ross Somerville in 1932; and Don Cherrv. a THE AMERICAS CUP young Texan now recording pop~iar The first match for The Americas Cup, songs in New York. Westland beat Maw- held also at the Seattle Golf Club in the hinney, 5 and 4, and Mengert silenced week preceding the Amateur Champion- Cherry, 3 and 2. ship, set a gratifying example in the field The four players defeated in the quar- of international relations. The golfers of tff-final round were McHale; Walter Mc- Canada, Mexico and the United States Elroy, of Vancouver, the Canadian Ama- proved that there is another way for na- teur Champion at the time; Gene Littler, tions to get along by joining the competi- of La Jolla, Cal., another promising tion in complete good faith and adhering young player; and Dick Yost, of Port- to the highest standards of good sports- land, Ore., a graduate last June of Ore- manship. gon State College. Those who envisioned the match and The double-headed Canadian challenge, brought it into being had, of course, which constituted a real threat, not only every reason to believe this would be the was turned back but was reversed the case. Colin Rankin, President of the following week at the Capilano Golf and Royal Canadian Golf Association; Pedro Country Club, in Vancouver, when Larry _Suinaga, President of the Asociacion Bouchey, of Los Angeles, defeated Billy Mexicana de Golf: Totton P. Heffelfinger, Campbell in a 37-hole final of the President of the USGA, and Jerome P. Canadian Amateur. Bowes, J r., donor of the Cup, drew their This emergence of new talent and a gratification from that fact. Surely future new geographical section of the country, matches will serve a useful purpose_ in a speaking in competitive golf terms, can- field broader than golf. not but be a good thing. It is further The pleasure of seeing the match move 8 USGA JOURNAL AND TURF MANAGEMENT: SEPTEMBER, 1952 The USGA Team which defeated Canada and Mexico in the first Match for The Americas Cup at the Seattle Golf Club.