Les Girls: Life Under Pressure

At 8:30 on the morning of the second and final day of the recent Curtis Cup match at Brae Burn—as you probably remember, the team of women amateurs from the British Isles retained possession of the cup by splitting the nine points (3 foursomes, 6 singles) with our American team—the two players in the first of the six 36-hole singles matches drove off. Since a 36-hole match can take innumerable twists and turns, the group of us who walked down the fairway after this first twosome were professionally counseling one another not to bear down too closely during the morning rounds—one should always keep as much energy in reserve as possible for the afternoon, when the really meaningful moments arrive, and especially since this Curtis Cup (with the British Isles leading 2-1 after the foursomes) had all the earmarks of developing into another of those cliff-hanging affairs in which the ultimate result is suspended in the balance until late, late in the afternoon. "As a matter of fact," Frank Pennink of the London Daily Mail observed at 8:35, thinking of the many holes and fleetingly crucial moments ahead and smiling wryly at the very thought of it, "I suppose it will all hinge again on the match between Polly Riley and Frances Smith." Mr. Pennink was referring to the last time the two teams met, at Prince's in Sandwich in 1956 when, with all the other matches concluded, the losing and winning of the cup eventually depended on the tight and intensely dramatic duel between these two veteran internationalists. They had gone to the 36th all square, and Mrs. Smith had won it there by hitting a great iron to that difficult home green. Now at Brae Burn, in the 1958 meeting, they had been drawn together again, each having been placed by her captain in the final singles spot.

At 5:20 p.m., roughly some nine hours after the long day's play had begun, Miss Riley and Mrs. Smith came trudging up the hill to the 16th or 34th fairway—and once again, quite incredibly, the outcome of another international competition rested on them. This is an almost insupportable amount of pressure and responsibility to have weighing on a player's shoulders. Each stroke is terribly critical, and there are moments when even the most seasoned and positive-minded competitor, thrust into such a spot, can think only of the heavy consequences of playing a bad stroke. As they walked up the 34th, Mrs. Smith was holding a 1-up lead over Miss Riley . I think we all know Polly well by now—she has been our outstanding match player among the women amateurs for quite some time—but a word at this juncture about Frances Smith might not be amiss since she is hardly known in this country.

Mrs. Smith, who was Bunty Stephens when she first came to prominence in English golf about a decade ago, is now in her early middle 30s. She has a most unimpressive swing. It includes what surely must be the longest pause at the top of the back-swing in all of golf. While she is holding it there at the top, a train could dispatch and pick up passengers. After that long halt she whips the club through to the finish in good style but, taken all together, her swing, neither rhythmic nor powerful, is the type one would usually associate with a mid-90s shooter. Mrs. Smith, moreover, is a pale and frailly built person. When you watch her play a grueling 36-hole match, your sympathies go out to her: she looks like she will be lucky to finish, let alone play anything resembling her best golf. But somehow she does, just about always. As a matter of fact, this slight, quiet, entirely undramatic girl has come through with more first-rate shots in the clutch than any other golfer, man or woman, in the last 10 years.

On the 34th, a rugged par 4 for the ladies, Frances held her 1-hole margin when both she and Polly took fives. In truth, she was lucky to get this half, for Polly just missed dropping a 20-footer for her four, and Frances, after too bold an approach putt, had to hole a hard-to-read five-footer coming back for her five. The 17th (or 35th) at Brae Burn is a difficult par 3, 212 yards long, swinging downhill all the way from a high, perched tee to a green protected by trapping along both the left and right sides and by the rumbling contours of the fairway before it, which break off toward the traps. Up first, Polly, using a three-wood, played a very fine shot. Hit low, it bounded onto the green, but it was a shade too strong and just did trickle over the back apron into the rough behind. This was a rough break for Polly, but she is a redoubtable chipper and she would no doubt manage her three. With this stern probability confronting her, Mrs. Smith hit an even better shot, a high four-wood that was right on the flag every yard of its flight. It floated down on the front apron and finished about 20 feet short of the hole. Both made good bids for their birdie and halved the hole with threes. Onto the 36th, 360 yards, most of them uphill, Mrs. Smith was still 1 up. Here, as composed as if she were merely out for an evening walk, Frances won the hole and the match, and insured the 4�-4� tie in the team match by playing a straight drive down the right side of the fairway, and following it with a beautifully hit three-iron that almost struck the base of the flagstick.

Frances Stephens Smith is the daughter of a Lancashire professional, Fred Stephens of the Bootle Golf Club, outside of Liverpool . As one of her countrymen put it during the week, "Frances is a very plain girl, of face and figure. In a gathering she is retiring to the point of invisibility. You hear talk of negative charm, and maybe this is what she has, but I think it is more than that. She has such a lovely manner about her you like her immensely, and there is such fortitude in this girl that you admire her immensely." Frances has won the British Ladies' Championship twice and the English Championship three times. Some three years ago, she married Roy Smith, a test pilot for Scottish Airways. It was an extremely happy marriage. Last summer he was killed in a plane crash, a few months after the birth of their daughter. Frances started to play golf again this spring. In her first tournament, the Lancashire County Championship, she was eliminated in the first round. She looked better in the intercounty matches and, when her play in the British Championship convinced the selectors she was very much her old self, she was named to the Curtis Cup team for the fifth time.

To come through in the clutch just once, as Frances did at Brae Burn, is no small accomplishment. To come through as regularly as she has—well, I don't really know what one can say. In any event, here, for your astonishment, is her record in Curtis Cup competition:

1950. In her debut in the cup matches, at the Country Club of Buffalo, she won her foursome (with Elizabeth Price) 1 up, the first of her many journeys to the 36th green. In the singles she faced Mrs. Mark Porter. Three down with three to play, she won the 34th, 35th and 36th to halve the match. On the crucial 36th (390 yards) she put her approach six feet from the hole.

1952. The match was held at Muir-field. Partnered with Jessie Valentine, Frances was beaten in the foursomes. In the singles, something went wrong, and she didn't go to the 36th green, only to the 35th in defeating Marjorie Lindsay.

1954. At Merion, Frances again lost her foursome but, playing in the No. 1 slot in the singles, outlasted Mary Lena Faulk 1 up. Frances won the 36th with a birdie 4. After pulling her second into the rough, from an awkward sidehill stance she contrived to manufacture a shot that got the ball onto the green...five feet from the cup.

1956. In this match, played at Prince's in Kent , Frances won her foursome (with Elizabeth Price) and became the direct agent of the British Isles ' 5-4 victory when she won the decisive match from Polly Riley on the 36th.