TROUBLE AT OLD 16

The Bing Crosby National tournament in California had hardly gotten under way last week when PGA Champion Jerry Barber came to the ill-famed 16th hole at Cypress Point—and disaster. A treacherous par-3 over the ocean, the 16th has caused awful misery in past years, and it did again. Trying to play safely, Barber hit his first tee shot into the ocean. He took a penalty and promptly put his next onto the beach. With hundreds of spectators ("sadists," Mike Souchak called them) looking on, Barber picked his way carefully into dead man's gulch (above) and chopped his ball into an ice plant, halfway up a small cliff (right). Grimly, he holed out in 10 to join an honored list of golfers who have come a cropper at old 16. Doug Ford, who didn't, won the tournament in a sudden-death playoff after a snowfall, the first in 30 years, had postponed for one frigid day this stormiest of all Crosbys.

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PHIL BATH

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Just a little chip to the green

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Caddie, bring me my ladder

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I'm not dead yet, you vultures

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Phew! It's been a long day