Mrs. Mae Hall

The shuffleboard season in Florida is almost over, and Mae Hall of St. Petersburg stands out as the winter's best woman player. In the picture above she holds the cup for taking first place at Lakeland in the National Women's Open. (It was her second win, giving her two legs on the trophy. Another and she keeps it.) She is the holder of three state singles and two national singles titles. Grand finale of the tournament year is the Champion of Champions Tournament at Tampa on April 4, and no one will be surprised to see Mae walk off with that title, too. Mae, who manages some apartment properties in St. Petersburg with her husband, Herbert (who can't match her skill with the cue), began playing shuffleboard a dozen years ago in Colorado, where they ran a resort hotel. She has become a top tournament player since they moved to Florida in 1952. Now she plays every day and enters about 20 tournaments a year. Shuffleboard, growing in popularity, has about 300,000 players, occasional and otherwise, in the U.S., and it even has an official organization called the National Shuffleboard Association, author and arbiter of recognized rules.

PHOTO

ALICE DURANT