Some
highlights of 1949
First Prize to S. M. McCready
By
HENRY LONGHURST
It may not be a very original award, but on the whole
I think the first prize for 1949 must go to the Amateur Champion, S. M. McCready,
for his victory at Portmarnock; not merely for the fact of winning, but for the
manner in which he did it. I doubt whether anyone has won the Championship with
so powerful and prolonged an exhibition of first-class golf. His round of 70 on
the morning of the final against the American, Willie Turnesa, a score which
will be appreciated by all who know Portmarnock even if only by reputation, may
well have been the round of the year.
Earlier, of course, he had eliminated the
redoubtable Frank Stranahan, holder of the title. I did not see a great deal of
this match, but nothing will erase from my mind the memory of the last few holes
of his semi-final against Kenneth Thom: first of all Thom, apparently beaten,
holing a gigantic putt on the 18th to keep the game alive ; then McCready, away
out in the rough on the right of the 19th making what one would have thought to
be an impossible recovery to within a yard or two of the green ; and finally,
with Thorn's ball stone dead on the 20th, and his own about ten yards above the
hole on a treacherous looking slope, McCready running the ball boldly down the
hill and into the back of the hole. How far it would otherwise have gone past is
a matter on which we need not speculate !
I do not remember a final which raised our hopes
so high, from the International point of view, nor dashed them later so low,
only to send them soaring at the end. As McCready lost the four holes lead he
had gained in the morning and as Turnesa holed the cruellest eight-yarder
imaginable on the 14th to become one up with four to play, the sun, which in the
morning had turned it into a technicolour final with vast white clouds riding
across over the vivid blue of Dublin Bay and the golden yellow sands, gave place
to thunder and lightning and rain, and with them the hopes of the British
correspondingly declined. And then when all was almost lost, up came three holes
in a row and, before he knew where he was, McCready was being cheered shoulder
high to the clubhouse by his frenzied compatriots.