Evening Star Newspaper, July 26, 1931, Page 74

L] THE SUNDAY STAR, egmner’s Luck The Story of a Very Bad Golfer- but a True Sportsman. BY TALBERT JOSSELYN - Pictures by Feg Murray. LD Gilead Wetherby was the worst golier Frirview had. Nobedy could | come within 20 strokes or a dozen 1'st balls or two broken clubs of b irg 2s bad as old Gilead. And old Gilead didn’t care. At the esge cf 60, after 40 years of manu- facturing stoves, he had been shunted by rela- tives inio his doctor’s office. The doctor h:d shaken his hezd. He had said, “Stop work— and plar.” “Play what" asked old Gilead. “Golf,” said the doctor. “Good heavens!” said old Gilead. For 40 gears he h-d manufactured stoves. Cood, sub- stantial stoves, 2nd he had thought of nothing else. “Golf,” rcpeated the doctor. the chcst.” Old Gilead tcok the golf. Thereafter he daily ploddod around the Fairview ccurse, leok- ing like a rcund-shouldered old mud turtle that had been snat 4 from sunning itse!f on a log and p'ump:d into pius-fours. Of the game of golf he knew no morz than the turtle. Just plodded arcund the course solely because he didn't want liies on his chest. So, on an aftcrnoon as on other afternoons, he plodded, playing, as bccame the logic of things, with 2 man who was the next wost player at F.irview. Swing—hit—whack —an- other hole dcne, thank goodness. “What hol'e’s this ahead? Oh, that darn short one. Lose a hat full of balls down in that ravine, or in that brush beyond. A hun- “Or lilies on w dred and twonty yards. . . . Gimme that wood stick, buddy.” Swish—ha *k—clump—plunk. Yes, plunk. Plunk.inte the cup. Old Gilead Wetherby had made a hole-in- omne! e The gods that engineer such events see to it that the actors and spectators are commensu- rate with ths deed. Just quitting the green whereon the Wetherby ball chose to do its dis- ‘appeering act were the champion of the club and the club crab. Tlfl champion had essayed to play the hole according to golfing Hoyle, but his technic was a little too finely drawn, and a sour five was the simm-ring result. Tre crab on his pert had skidded a shot over the green inte the nearest thicket, where it remained hidden from mortal kenning and poking. The two of them now stood on the edge of the greensward calling down vials of wrath upon the architect of the course and asking how any poor so- and-so of a player could hope to score on any such-and-cuch kind of a hole. So standing and declaiming they witnessed old Gilead Wetherby, back on the tee beyond the ravine, gn through his old-man, stiff-back -swing; saw the ball come heavy-footed and sidewise through the air; saw it drop and bounce like a bleck of wood; saw it fall into the hole. “Jophry!” cried the champien. “A hole-in- “Great Judus,” yammered the crab, “see wh ft is that's done it! Ooh, that old dolt! And he gets a hole-in-one.” At the same time that Gilead Wetherby had been making his swing two players had been approaching the tee from behind him. One was a tall young man in hoot-owl glasses, the other stout and middle-aged, with russet face. They were witnesses of the Wetherby single shot and reacted in accordance with their characters. “Champagne!” shouted he of the russet face, running up. “Hole-in-one and champagne for all hands.” His tone underwent change. “Well, anyhow, drinks all around.” The tall young man of the glasses vigorously shook the Wetherby hand. “Marvelous hole-in-one. And what thatl pay off at! You'll get one of those little hole-in- one statues at the club and a box of golf balls and a case of ginger ale and a sweater and... Now just let me get things straight in my head as to all the things that a hole-in-one shot pays. Hmmm.” The statistical young man’s brow became corrugated in deep thought. All this while the Fairview golfing champion was pumping up and down and crying “Won- derful, wonderful! I've heard all about 'em, read all about 'em, but this is the first ene I ever actually saw. Hole-in-ene boy!” It was kere that a certain amount of compre- hension began to shew itself on the face of Gilead Wetherby. He threw back his head and snorted. “Huh! Is that what all the Y llering is #r1? '.All I did was te hit it a lick and it fell into ‘he tin can. I told you golf was a fool game.” The russet-faced man bellowed: “Do you mean to say you don't know what a hole-in-one means? And then you go ahead and have the luck to get one!” The statistical young man had % now un- rolled his brain chart. “All you'll have to do now is to finish the game and turn in your attested score. Then you will get the statue and the golf balls and the ginger ale. And you'll get a safety razor 3 a Never-Fail golf sleeve to put on your sefs m se that you can’t bend it, with the result that you won't pull er slice in the slightest, and three paits of golf hose and a pound of . tobacco and a hole-in-one pipe with the legend ‘Hole-in-One’ carved right into the bowl, and a top-ventilated cap and .a pair of knuckle- ventilated gloves and 40 other things that I can't think of just now. And oh! best of all, you'll join the Hole-in-Ore Club and have your name in the National Hole-in-One Book. Gee, but you're a lucky man!” 1" COMEBODY,” said Gilead Wetherby, “is just bugs.” “Oh, noa he's not!" defended the Fairview golfing champion. “Every word is gospel truth. But my only regret is that you couldn't have made it when it counted for something.” “Counted for something?” cried the statis- tician. “Haven't we just been telling him all that it counts for?” A “Sure. But it bas always been my hope to see a man make a hole-in-one in a tight tournament. Now if Wetherby was in a tourna- ment and—" ‘ Gilead Wetherby had had plenty for one afternaon. “Let's get along out of here!” And it was on this note that the remainder of the Wetherby daily task was got under way. The echoes also got under way. From the locker room the young statistician sent out a prize-claiming broadcast of the Wetherby feat. “I just want to see,” said the young man, “exactly how many things a person can get. Let me handle it.” And he handled it. On the second morning there came to the home of Gilead Wetherby a paper package. Mr., Wetherby opened the package and came upon a pair of knuck'e-veutilated, self-breath- ing gloves. He had never seen gloves like these. Gloves were supposed to keep hands warm, and here somebody had gone and cut heles in 'em to keep 'em cool. Possibly some- bedy was trying to put a fast one over on Mr. Wetherby. He turned to the accompanying letter. The makers of the gloves congratulated Mr. Wether- by for his splendid achievement of having made a hole-in-one and . . . “Oh, that!"” cried Mr. Wetherby, light break- ing in upon him. He put on the gloves. Immediately he Jooked like som= sort of gardener going out to trim rosebushes. “Fool-lookin’ things,” grunted the inspect- ing Mr. Wetherby. Without being conscious of the act, he strolled across the room and picked up a golf club. “Huh. Well, they do sort of give a grip, at that. Guess I might just as well use 'em once, now I've got em.” He used them, and at the end of an after- noon of toil had succeeded in reducing his score from 140 to 138, and had lest only half of the prize balls that had been presented by the club. “They do seem to help,” admitted Mr. Wetherby, as he took off the self-breathers and went home to find three packages await- ing him. He cut strings and found himself possessor of a shiny safety razor that looked like a little hoe, a pound of Golfers’ Own smoking to- bacco and a rough-faced pipe. On the bowl of the pipe, carved in large, free letters, were the words ‘“Hole-In-One.” In turn he picked up razor, tebacco and pipe, and lines were on his brow. He had always shaved with the old-fashioned, open- faced type of razor, and had always smoked cigars. But a gift was a gift. He made pantomime of shaving with the razor, and the brow lines deepened. He put half a pound, more or less, of briarwood in his mouth, and the lines did not lessen. “Darn fool things,” “said Gilead Wetherby. HEREUPON he proceeded to shave with the safety razor, nicking himself in oniy two places and leaving a swath of stubble under one ear, and then loaded up the Hole- In-One pipe with Golfers’ Own, and when he had get through making the last of a series of faces the doorbell announced the arrival of a special delivery box. It took the one-time manufacturer of stoves a good quarter-hour to figure out the theory of this latest prize and then to lace the prize around his left e'bow, where, being of leather and fitting like a sleeve, it gave him the appearance of a man going out to train police dogs in the art of biting. Since the thing was of no value without trying it, he went so far as to pick up his driver, and, true to the pamphlet accompanying the gift, found that his left elbow remained straight at all times during his swing, with the as- surance, that because of this he would always drive in a line as undeviatingly straight as that laid out by a surveyor. As if that mattered, thought Mr. Wetherby. Still, it might save him from losing so many golf balls, and since he had to play the game . . . he practiced swinging. At first the leather dingus was laced a little too loose, and then a little tpo tight, this latter error causing all feeling to leave the arm, as well as the golf club to leave the hand. The club did a neat piece of end-over-end hurtling before landing beneath the grand piano. The recipient of gifts ripped off the guide to straight playing, and, after putting hamd WASHINGTON, B. C, JULY 26, 191 Swish — hack — clump — plunk. Yes, plenl:. Plunk into the cup. Old Gil- ead Wetherby had made a hole in one, to face and finding the shave nicks still raw, crammead safety razor, as:well as sleeve guide, along with the carved pipe and the Golfers’ Own, into an unused library closet and upon them profanely turned a vigorous key. Came the morrow, and an unturning of the key. The razor, viewed in the light of a new day, didn't seem so bad. The pipe seemed somehow ¢@ have lost its original flavor of a furniture store. The leather sleeve, when worn in the yard with plenty of swinging room, gave hint of new golf horizons. G. Wetherby placed the new little razor in his shaving compartment alongside the time- valued, open-faced one. Into verious pockets he’put the pipe and a double handful of Golf- er's Own and the open-knuckle gloves and the leather sleeve, and, the parcel post having arrived, he donned a crinkly new linen cap; a cap with a ventilated top. A congratulatory letter accompanied it. This was the second congratulatory letter that Mr. Wetherby had received. “Maybe there is something to this hole-in- one stuff, after all,” he said. At the first tee that afternoon Golfer Weth- erby, cap over eye and sleeve-equipped, with gloves on and pipe in mouth, hit a ball such as only prefessionals are supposed to hit. Fol- lowed it up by hitting another. And then ... Well, what does it matter if he did miss the next five? If he did blow up like a barge loaded with powder? Didn't he get in a corker on the seventeenth, and how about that last putt? He came in with a score of & hundred and fifty and the memory of four perfect shots, and he found awaiting him on his library table a sweater that a Pawnee Indian would have shied st. No shying for Gilead Wetherby. He put the sweater on. He loaded up the hole-in-one pipe. He seated himself before three golf magazines purchased within the hour, and, humming what might have passed for a jazzy tune, he leafed the magazines over until he came to the article entitled “How the Professional Goes Around in Par.” UT the full blooming of Gilead Wetherby did not occur until the next week. Then there arrived a thin book, the Year Book of the One-Shotters of America, and there, thanks to the speedy work of the young man of statistics, crowded in at the last moment among the W's, stood the name of Gilead Wetherby. There it was, sandwiched for all time between the names of Westonby, Claude, and Wettenstein, Julius. Wetherby, Gilead. The one-time manufac- turer of stoves took a deeply satisfied breath. And somewhere down within him a button seemed to have been pressed, starting a strange new motor, making a strange new man. From then on Gilead Wetherby put in all his spare time at the club. Within the week the club was climbing to the top of the mantel and fuzzing out its tail and spitting at Gilead ‘Wetherby whenever he appeared. Which made it a rather gontinual performance. “Something’s got to be done about this!" cried the club. “A hole-in-one . . . crazy bull luck and nothing else but . . . and the old fool thinks he’s done something important. Talk, talk, talk, morning, noon and night. And we got to handle him with gloves!” That was the worst of it. Emphatically they would have to handle him with gloves. For within the week Gilead Wetherby had be- come the rich uncle of the club. Did it need anything? Redecorating, something new in lockers, improvements here and there? Just let Gilead Wetherby know and he would write the check. > “Wonderful, wonderful,” thankfully mur- mured the club, and writhed “Ooh”! There he went again fastening himself on another victim, this times a club guest. “Did you ever make a hole-in-one? Well, I never had until the other day. I was playing with Jenkins. Do you know Jenkins? Mighty pleasant little chap even if he isn's much of a golfer, and we came up to the fourteenth hole. It's a 120-yard one, and tough? Say! I'll have to take you out and show you that hole. But I just stepped right up and let the ball have one on the nose, and she gave one bounce on the green and fell smack in. Yes sir, I just stepped up to that ball . . .” “Stop him!” howled the club. “What's it going to be like when the Ockepockee Club comes to play us for the annual city champion- ship? 'fl\lnkdhl,botenmnlflnn strangers!” “What'’s this I hear?” asked Gilead Wetherby, “A tournament? Sure I'll play in it. And boy, won't we take that crowd down the linc!” The club rolled right over and died. But it couldn’t stay dead long. Not with the Ocle- pockee committee coming across town to confer with the Fairview committee on selection of contestants. The Fairview committee, still wall- eyed, managed to shove the Ockepockees into a side room without running afoul of Gilead, and sal down to the annual task of pairing off players for 18 holes of match play, scratch player against scratch, and so on up the handi- cap list. The Fairviews, had they been less intently listening for the Wetherby voice outside the door, might have noted that the Ockepockee commitiee similarly had something depressing on its mind. HEN all contestants of known handicap had been told off, two by two, there fell a strained silence. The Ockepockees were the first to break under it. “We . .. ah ... uh ... There’s just ene thing more. We've got a player at our club— and a mighty nice old ehap he is, too—who wants to play, but he's so terrible that we haven't bezn able to give him any handicap. We don't see how . . . And yet at the same The Fairviews jumped as though jabbed with pins. For an hour they had been sweat- ing. wondering how to present the case of G. Wetherby. “What's that?" they demanded. you've got a player who's so bad . . . now, ha, ha, isn’t that funny? here in this club who's exactly the same sort and we were kind of wondering how . . . just wondering, you understand . . .” Life came back into the Ockepockees and into the Faiiviews. And so Gilead Wetherby and the terrible-awful of Ockepociec were matched. “Now,” broad the Fairview committee, briskly rubbing its hands, “all that we have to do is to let it percolate into old Wetherby that a hole-in-one means less than nothing. and teach him four thousand and eight other things, and there we are.” “Yes,” agreed the pessimists. are!” Yet it was done. Using as many words as the Congressional Record, and thrice the guile, the Fairview Club engulfed Gilead Wetherby. What chance had an old gentleman who had once made sloves? One after another disap- peared the knuckle-breathing gloves, the ventie lated cap, the sunset-and-lightning sweater. Vanished the leather swing-straight sleeve and the One-Shotters’ Book of Books. Last went on the morning of the Ockepockee tournament the hole-in-one pipe. And died all words of athletic prowess. The conversion was complete. The successful Fairviews snapped down a needed drink and turned to greet the Ocke- pockees, who, clubs a-rattle and handbags a- clink, were falling out of their cars with loud cries. This was the annual big day for those fortunate enough to be -Fairviews and O:ke- pockees, and nobody intended to see that it was overiooed. ‘Then, with greetings behind them, the Fair- views and the Ockepockees settled down to the serious good time of licking the stuffing out of the other fellow. “Now,” said the Fairview board of strategy, “we've got to play heads-up golf every minute. These birds ate going to be hard %o twake. . So, among a hundred other things, will somebody again tell that old Gilead Wetherby te quit making his practice tee shot so close to his ball? It looks just like he'd made a real swing and missed, and if the old buzzard that's play- ing against him knows even the kindergarten rules of golf he's going to call him and call him plenty. Now let's go take their shirts.” ‘The process of shirt-taking and losing raged all day. The Fairviews lost practically a whole case of shirts when their scratch man, who knew his home course like the back of his hand, must have mistaken his hand for his foot, and several of these valuable articles of wear were regained when a number of lesser- known Fairviews rose to dramatic heights. The scratch pair had been sent out first, so were the first to check in. The lesser lights followed, hour succeeded hour, the club score tilted: this way and that. Now Ockepockee was ahead, “And there we