WONDERFUL WORLD OF SPORT

HOME RUN IN WISCONSIN

Upland, lowland, wood, marsh and littoral it has been a bounteous autumn for the American hunter. Here, at Wisconsin's Horicon national wildlife refuge, for instance, the special goose season was closed three weeks early when 16,000 birds, including some of these fat Canadas, snows and blues, were killed from blinds on the refuge's perimeter. And it was a grand autumn for Wisconsin goose watchers, too. One Sunday, 50,000 goose watchers drove out to Horicon to look at, listen to and photograph 55,000 geese. Police and Civil Defense volunteers had to be called out to unsnarl the traffic.

When the first birds arrived, the winter wheat was as high as a gander's eye, but today the field is flat enough to play marbles on, and many of the geese have resumed their clamorous passage south. Their mingled voices have been recorded as ong-ong, goup and ga-ga-ga, as well as being compared by blither spirits to the sound of far-off harps, sweet bells jangling and the distant baying of mellow-tongued hounds. But as times change, metaphors change. "The noise," said Photographer Ken Futterlieb, who took the group portrait of this symposium, "is as though a continuous Braves' home run were being hit at County Stadium."

INSTANT GOLF FOR STAY-AT-HOME ADDICTS

As a spectator sport, golf is not ideally suited to TV. A tournament percolates too slowly. Taking its cue from instant coffee and quick-frozen TV dinners, however, ABC-TV has found the answer in a filmed series called All-Star Golf (5 p.m. Saturdays in all time zones). What an estimated 9 to 12 million viewers see on the screen is a crisp, exciting match between two top professionals that has been filmed a few months earlier. The loser collects $1,000 and steps out, while the winner earns $2,000 and returns the following week. Very simple. As these pictures amply show, the distillation of this heady sporting brew is a more complicated business. A force of 50 technicians, seven cameras, one golf course and, naturally, two golfers are needed to film each show. Weeks later, by simply flipping a switch on his set, the enchanted viewer can see in 60 minutes what may have taken eight hectic hours to record.

Calling for action, Producer-Director Sidney Goltz glides around in hustling cart, shouting instructions over loudspeaker.

Scrambling to cover camera against sudden shower are two cameramen perched atop 28-foot hydraulic lift.

Live audience, ringing the green at an All-Star Golf match at the Ponce de Leon Golf Club in St. Augustine, Fla. consists of a gallery of fans plus a bulky task force of TV technicians who follow the players over the golf course like bearers on an African safari. This 26-show series, now in its second year, goes on location wherever the climate is warm and sunny.

Wide-angle view at Boca Raton (above) shows cameras goggling in from all sides as Roberto De Vicenzo putts in one of his two matches with Sam Snead. Their first ended in a tie, but Snead won the subsequent playoff, carried on TV last week.

Golfer to watch is Sam Snead (left), the Wyatt Earp of the fairways. This week, after finally beating De Vicenzo in a two-week struggle, he meets Lionel Hebert and then retires. But only temporarily—he'll be back and full of fight next February.

SEVEN PHOTOS