Events & Discoveries

LATERAL HAZARD
For nine years Malaya has lived under a state of emergency, thanks to bands of murderous Communist guerrillas, but the planters and sportsmen who remain are made of stern fiber. Last week, when police flushed a nest of guerrillas in a patch of jungle just off the ninth hole at the venerable Selangor Golf Club, a bald major took a sip of gin and tonic on the club porch and expressed the general view: "Shocking. One might have sliced right into the buggers' camp."

DEMONSTRATION BY PANCHO

Why can't the U.S. produce tennis players good enough to win and keep the Davis Cup? Tantalizing data toward a partial answer came from Australia , where young Ken Rosewall , 22, a bulwark of the Aussies' cup team for four years, now turned pro, has been testing his game against old Pancho Gonzales , 28, of Los Angeles , who used to be an amateur himself before he found there was no real chili money in it. After seven matches Pancho led Rosewall six matches to one.

In other words, Pancho seems to be taking up where he left off last year with another young-amateur-turned-pro—Tony Trabert, whom he beat 74 matches to 27 over the course of 1956. Since Lew Hoad , Australia 's remaining whiz kid, is reported simply waiting till next year before he, too, turns pro (and takes on Pancho), it is perhaps time to agree, once for all, that the Davis Cup no longer stands for the summit of excellence in tennis competition, though its interest and international appeal remain strong.

Amateur tennis groups in the U.S. are concerned with broadening the appeal the game makes to youngsters. Perhaps a healthy first step would be the acceptance of the open tournament—an idea the USLTA has at last agreed to study. That would be a recognition (which golf made 62 years ago) that a man can make an honest living as a professional after his amateur days are over. Incidentally, such recognition might bring enough youngsters into tennis to win the U.S. a nice long hold on that nice old Davis Cup.

WARREN-GREEN'S IDEA

Mad dogs and Englishmen are not in it. "This is sheer damn lunacy," snorted an oldtimer, casting a baleful look at the strange scene taking shape nearby. One had to agree there was something to what he said. It was a black January night, the moon was hidden behind thick clouds and a freezing wind was blowing off the hills of Nottingham . A chilled but curious crowd of several hundred shuffled reluctantly away from the warmth of the Mapperley Golf Club and edged toward the first tee, where Sidney Warren-Green, the club pro, was about to demonstrate his thesis that night golf is feasible.

"This isn't fun, and I'm not crazy," Warren-Green was first obliged to announce. "This is a serious experiment in golf, and I hope you will regard it as such." Nobody really did, however.

Four kerosene lamps just barely drove the darkness away from the tee where Warren-Green and the other members of his foursome were to hit their first shots. Halfway down the fairway was a red lamp tended by two caddies and off in the distance another kerosene lamp marked the pin. One by one the players drove off into the inky blackness with scarcely the vaguest notion where their shots might settle. The pair of caddies down the fairway did their best to take bearings on the balls as they plopped into the soft winter turf, probing the area with pocket flashlights to confirm their suspicions. "Dead on target" or "A little left," someone in the gallery would occasionally volunteer as the golf balls whistled off into obscurity. "If you're off the fairway you've had it," one of the golfers muttered.

This weird British foray into nocturnal golf proceeded for 11 holes, by which time most of the gallery had evaporated and the players, too, had had enough. Due to some amazingly proficient and consistent play only two balls had been lost and five birdies had been carded. Yet even the participants had to concede that the Warren-Green experiment is not quite ready to leave the drawing board. "Accurate judging of distance is not really possible," the inventor explained. "A stranger would have some difficulty in clubbing himself, and it is virtually impossible to read the green. You've got to know it."