19TH HOLE: THE READERS TAKE OVER
COMMENTS
Sirs:
In regard to Gary Player's statement that "making rude remarks about a golf course is like accepting an invitation to dinner and telling the host the food is lousy" (Tony's a Shark at Pasture Pool, June 29), Mr. Player is an excellent golfer and I think a fine man, but he has no right to talk that way about a fellow golfer who is one of the best on the tour today. Dave Hill didn't get an invitation to play in the U.S. Open. He had to qualify for it through hard work and long hours of practice. He didn't tell the host the food was lousy. He merely made some remarks about the course that were probably true. When golfers like Nicklaus and Palmer have trouble breaking 80 you know it isn't because they're not keeping their head down. Dan Jenkins is absolutely right in calling the fine imposed on Mr. Hill "absurd." The PGA had no right to do it.
HOWARD WATERS
Newport News, Va.
Sirs:
If Dave Hill can be fined for his comments about the Hazeltine golf course (June 29) surely Orville Moody should be reprimanded for his appalling remarks about student demonstrators (June 22). Baseball Commissioner Kuhn says Jim Bouton's book reflects badly on professional baseball's image; certainly Moody's statement is much more damaging to golf's image than Bouton's book ever can be to baseball. Unfortunately there are far too many Americans today who agree with Moody's horrendous remarks.
JAY L. FRANZ
Ritzville, Wash.
Sirs:
The questionable statement of Mr. Moody was probably a figure of speech just as "kill the umpire" is. Give the man a break. Don't condemn him for a slip of the tongue he probably never meant in the first place.
RANDALL W. FRICK
Isle of Palms, S.C.
SAD TALE
Sirs:
I read The Sad Tale of the Tiger in the July 6 issue. Let me tell you the sad tale of the tiger hunter.
If you think, the stock market was a bad bet in '69, you should try a tiger hunt in India, normally known as a shikar, which translated means sucker. If nonactivity is your bag, try India. They illegally bounce you all night in a World War II jeep, with the spotlights piercing the flora looking for animal eyes. You hire an army to drive the "game" to you. You sit in a tree over live bait or over dead bait. Results are the same: nothing.
After a month the dawn comes. Hell, there isn't enough game for a healthy tiger to live on. After getting an official drunk the following facts came out. There were between 450 and 500 foreign tiger hunters in India during the season of '69. Forty-seven tigers were killed, which means one in 10 hunters was getting a tiger at $5,000 a throw. You could do better in Las Vegas.
Glad to be home.
JAMES J. MELLON JR.
Chicago
WISCONSIN ROW
Sirs:
Re the SCORECARD item "Crazy" in the July 6 issue and the comments of beleaguered Wisconsin Athletic Director Elroy Hirsch ("Crew is a wonderful tradition at Wisconsin, but we can no longer afford $40,000 worth of tradition"). I wonder what he can afford? Are sports for the benefit of the participants or merely moneymakers for the school that sponsors them?
Crew at Wisconsin may not be a money-making proposition—and thus may not impress Hirsch—but how about the fact that while Wisconsin football was improving to a magnificent 3-7 record and a tie for fifth place in the Big Ten in 1969, Wisconsin's crew was second only to Washington in the national championships. And doesn't sports also have something to do with winning?
DAVE ROSENTHAL
Syracuse University Crew
Silver Spring, Md.
NIJINSKY'S WALTZ
Sirs:
Accompanying Claud Cockburn's delightful article (Triumph for the Clan O'Brien, July 6)—full of local color, Irish atmosphere and charm—there is a photograph of significance showing the horses nearing the finish of the Irish Sweeps Derby. It shows the ears of the place horse, Meadowville, turned back, which usually is a sign the horse is running under pressure. On the other hand, Nijinsky, drawing away to win, is shown with ears cocked forward, usually a sign the horse is running well within capacity, serving to underscore the remarks of his jockey, Liam Ward: "My grandmother could have won the race on that horse." What's next, Nijinsky?
G.M.W. KOBBÉ
New York City
HEAVY HAND
Sirs:
Your July 6 cover picture of hammer thrower George Frenn looks exactly like my golf swing feels when I'm one down, 18th hole, par 4, 450 yards and my opponent has already hit one out of sight.
PETE WOOD
Bethesda, Md.
VEST POCKETS
Sirs:
If Mr. Coburn is the originator of the type of craft featured in your story (Vest-Pocket Fishermen, June 22) he must have been seated at his drawing board with a Boston Whaler brochure fully opened at the time he brainstormed this "revolutionary" design. The Fisher-Pierce Co., Rockland, Mass. has been graciously allowing purchasers from Alaska to the Keys to gobble up every available hull it has made for more than a decade.
The basic big-water features of the four superb boats shown—sandwichtype glass construction, beamy self-bailing hulls, center console, flat deck areas and more—were all found on the first Fisher-Pierce Whalers. While I'd be proud to own any of the four in your gallery (should something happen to my Whaler), please give your boating readers a look at the original vest-pocket fisherman.
LOU CALOGERO
La Crosse, Wis.
•For a good look, see SI, July 29, 1963.—ED.
SELLING SEASHELLS
Sirs:
The last thing the already burdened biosphere needs is an article extolling its plunder (A Gumshoe in a Shell Game, June 15). This raping has led to the disappearance of pretty seashells from many areas where they were once abundant. Professional collectors continue to strip reefs the world over, catering to the insatiable demands of the purveyors of marine curios and jewelry. The depredations of amateur and professional shell collectors are on a par with those of the hunters of plumage and rare birds and animals at the turn of the century.
KENNETH R. H. READ
Director of Research
New England Aquarium
Boston
OLE
Sirs:
Your article about Cayetano Ordó√±ez (The Sun Also Sets, June 29) was a moving commentary on the last years of one of Spain's greatest toreros. For me, it is fitting that I should have read the article this week, for I have just left to spend the summer touring Spain with Antonio Ordó√±ez, his son, an even greater figure in bullfighting. I will be teaching him English and, hopefully, by the end of the summer he'll be able to read the article. Olé and a lap around the ring for another SI article on the bulls.
JEFFREY LYONS
New York City
FORTUNATE COOKIE
Sirs:
The article on Chi Cheng in the June 22 issue was an example of quality. Her records in track are going to be difficult for other women to equal.
This was the first time I had read anything about this Taiwanese, and the article made me think about Red China: if they sent their athletes into international competition instead of using them to manufacture weapons, just imagine what they could do in the sport world.
MARTIN LEE ENGLE
Sebastopol, Calif.
TOUGH DECISIONS
Sirs:
Why is it that umpires today are forced to comply with the traditions of yesteryear in regard to dress? It's hard enough for these men to make decisions without being bothered by the heat of a July day. To me, there is a simple solution. Why not, as in football, hockey and basketball, have umpires wear striped jackets and white pants. It would still be easy to distinguish them from the ballplayers. Come on now, baseball has changed in other ways, how about in its officials?
NEIL SACK
St. Andrews East, Quebec
SNOW JOB
Sirs:
Just as the Department of Defense is best revealed for the patchwork of self-serving euphemisms it finds itself required to hide behind, the Bureau of Reclamation is clouded by an irresponsible tendency to be only marginally concerned with the land it is charged with protecting—if it may be fairly judged by the cloud-seeding paroxysm proposed by the Dr. Strangelove of Project Sky-water, Dr. Kahan (No Snow Job for Us, June 29).
The Department of Defense labels our continued slaughter of Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians as "augmented protectionary reaction"; the Bureau of Reclamation calls this deliberate ecocide in the San Juan Mountains merely "precipitation augmentation."
Must the Colorado River Basin, like Hue, "be destroyed to be saved?" What the Santa Barbara-San Diego-San Bernardino sprawl needs is a few more birth-control pills, not silver-iodide pellets.
DAVID C. EKBERG
Marlborough, Mass.
SWITCH
Sirs:
I must comment on your pessimistic predictions of Mike Garrett's success in baseball (SCORECARD, June 22). You pointed out that the odds are against him, judging from past attempts made by other outstanding athletes, but remember they must have been terribly against him when he initially signed to play a much more violent and tougher game.
As for Bud Harrelson's comment, if the two were to switch and replay the World Series and the Super Bowl odds are Mr. Garrett would get the better end of the deal.
To summarize, let it be a question of determination, not of odds.
KEVIN W. RILFY
Chula Vista, Calif.
Sirs:
In relation to Mike Garrett and college football players in major league baseball there were other pretty good players who made the switch.
Mickey Cochrane, no less, is in Boston U's Hall of Fame for both baseball and football.
Sam Chapman of California played in the Rose Bowl and batted .322 for the A's in 143 games one year.
Christy Mathewson was a great college fullback at Bucknell.
Riggs Stephenson of Alabama won two varsity football letters and later, as a major leaguer, became one of the top sluggers of all time—eight seasons with the Cubs over .300.
Jesse Hill of USC was a Rose Bowler and hit .293 for the Yankees in 1935 and at least that well with Washington in '36 and Philadelphia in '37.
BRAVEN DYER
Beverly Hills, Calif.
GETTING THE POINT
Sirs:
What are you trying to do, take away the only points scored by Kansas State University in the NCAA track championships? In Pat Putnam's story describing the meet (Cal Cuts Down the Barbarians, June 29), Kansas State's Ken Swenson, winner of the 880, is erroneously listed as representing Kansas University. The rivalry between KSU and KU is keen enough without Mr. Putnam sharpening the blade.
THOMAS K. ROGGE, 2ND LIEUT.
USAF
Kansas State '69
Homestead AFB, Fla.
NO DESIRE
Sirs:
It is interesting to note that Ray Eliot, associate director of athletics at the University of Illinois, has put out an "invigorating pep talk" record for football teams (SCORECARD, June 22). It is questionable if the record has been heard by the Illinois football team, since its record for the last two years is 1-9 and 0-10. And if team members did hear it, they certainly were not motivated "...to have desire, make the sacrifice and pay whatever price necessary to win."
RICHARD H. LANSING
Carbondale, Ill.
Address editorial mail to TIME & LIFE Bldg., Rockefeller Center, New York, N.Y. 10020.
