PEOPLE

Pretty Deirdre Barnard at 17 is a national water-ski champion in her own country and holder of the Australian Masters Championship. Next month she plans to take off for Australia to defend her title there, and later she will go on to England to train for next year's world championships—she came in third in 1965. It is just as well that she's leaving home to train, since home is South Africa, and her father, heart-transplant doctor Christiaan Barnard, does not have quite as much time as he used to have for hauling his daughter around the lake outside of Cape Town.

Ohio is not widely known for its mountains, so Governor James Rhodes had his work cut out for him on a recent tour to publicize the state's 10 ski slopes. He had it cut out for him, but he didn't do it. "C'mon, Governor, let's see you take a little run on the skis," a photographer suggested at one point. The governor said, "Nope." His granddaughter was willing, however, and Rhodes said, "Missy is learning to ski, and she tells me that Ohio's slopes are excellent." Missy is 3.

That is Minnesota Fats (above) with Brooklyn Fats, alias Comedian Buddy Hackett. Pool shark Rudolf Wanderone temporarily has departed from Dowell, Ill. (pop. 453) to tape a TV series in which he takes on a few celebrities. Among them are James Garner, Phyllis Diller, Bill Cosby, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Mickey Rooney and the Smothers Brothers, possibly to be followed by Roger Maris, Willie Mays, Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and Omar Sharif. In case he should fail to hold audience attention with his pool shots, Fats figures to hustle the viewers with his new wardrobe. He has acquired some fetching $500 suits made up in kelly green, chartreuse and "heaven blue." "Pool is the rage in California," Fats says, reporting that there are now two tables in The Daisy and four in The Factory. He listed as the best pool-playing sportsmen Leo Durocher, Dean Chance and, to nobody's surprise, Bo Belinsky; but by and large, he says, muscles and pool do not mix. "You need a wrist stroke, but no muscles." Opponent Hackett appears to fulfill that second requirement, anyway.

It seems that in England fully a third of industrial accidents involve the feet and ankles, a problem which that great soccer player Sir Stanley Matthews (left) is attacking. The British Safety-Council is launching a campaign this month, which will involve circulating in 50,000 factories photographs of the footprints and faces of 16 famous people to be matched up by the workers and accompanied by two lines of verse on the poetic subject of wearing safety footwear. Some of the famous feet, in addition to Sir Stanley's, will be those belonging to Henry Cooper, the Duke of Edinburgh, World Cup soccer stars Bobby Moore and Bobby Charlton, Christine Truman and Singer Millicent Martin, at present playing Peter Pan in London. Charlie Chaplin has been sent a do-it-yourself foot-printing kit and asked to return a print. How many English feet and ankles all this will save is, of course, not known, but there is one thing you probably can bet on. If many people put Henry Cooper's feet in Millicent Martin's mouth, Miss Martin is going to be mad.

Willie Mays made a hole in one recently, to defeat golfers Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson and Bob Feller. The great confrontation took place in Gallagher's Steak House in New York, where the four attended a publicity luncheon given by American Airlines to publicize the second Astrojet Golf Classic, to be held next month near San Diego. Baseball players, football players and local businessmen will play in the tournament to aid cancer research. Willie's hole in one was only a 10-foot putt, but all four had three chances, and only Willie came through. On his first try, too. He won the putting strip, $167 worth of AstroTurf.

While Willie Mays was winning his match at Gallagher's in New York, Quarterback Joe Namath was engaged in losing the Pro Football Players' championship in Florida. He finished 23 strokes behind the Atlanta Falcons' Steve Sloan, who used to be his substitute at Alabama and, with his handicap, 17th out of a field of 91. Actually that wasn't bad at all for a man who says his handicap, he guesses, is the night before. Then, too, Namath has not played much golf since last July, partly, he explains, because he feared he might hurt himself.

The Cuban Missile Crisis Club is not really a jolly name for a social group, but then neither is the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and occasionally they seem to have a good time. The CMCC is a very In poker-playing group in Washington. It is reported to have been formed to help ease tensions during the Cuban missile buildup, which was probably as good an excuse as any to play poker, and members include Art Buchwald, David Brinkley, Jack Valenti, Carl Rowan and the Malaysian ambassador, Tan Sri Ong Yoke Lin. Brinkley reports that the club now meets "spasmodically" to play for "more than pennies" and that the best players are Rowan and "that scrutable Oriental," His Excellency Tan Sri Ong Yoke Lin, or Yoke, for short. The latter has observed that he prefers poker to bridge because, "If you're a lousy bridge player everyone hates you and never asks you back. But if you're a lousy poker player and lose a lot of money then everyone loves you and you always get asked back."

TWO PHOTOS