When the Royal Montreal Golf Club proposed a competition with The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., in 1898, the suggestion to initiate an international event reflected the rising respect for golf in America and was met with wholehearted support in all quarters. Earlier this month, that match celebrated its 100th anniversary, and if the participants of the early matches enjoyed a camaraderie near the level experienced today, it indeed has been a grand century of both golf and sportsmanship.

"As a little boy after the war," recalls Louis Newell, a former TCC captain, "I remember my dad saying, 'Look, son, if you ever get a chance to play in this, just say yes.' And in fact, in 1963, when I was 27 years old and had a young family, I got a telephone call from the captain, who said that someone had dropped out. This was on a Friday afternoon, and he said, 'Can you be at Logan Airport in two hours, ready to go?' And I said yes. I had already told the anecdote to my wife, so there was no argument at home."

The format of the competition has changed over the years. This year the plan was to play singles, four-ball and foursomes matches as a one-time event to commemorate the Centennial. Regardless, the spirit of the match remains as it was intended in May 1898, when the Boston Evening Transcript reported on the competition and said, "Not only was it a good match between the Americans and the Canadians, but it was, it is hoped, the first of a long line of international matches to be held in this and coming seasons."

Writing in the 1932 TCC club history, Frederic Curtiss noted, "The spirit has always been one of friendship first and golf next. Hence, neither club has ever attempted to pick what might be termed its best official team."

"There are a lot of people who would love to be members of the competition," says TCC's Frank Ellsworth. "The captains have decided who will go based on a combination of competitiveness and pleasantness to be with. It's a good balance."

The golf has been relatively even as well as The Country Club has won just one more match over a century of play. The matches have such a strong hold on members of both clubs that others have inaugurated similar competitions in curling and tennis.

Those who have participated have formed friendships that are renewed on occasions other than the match. "We stay in each other's homes," says Newell. "We watch our respective children grow up from very small kids. The wives are involved and it crosses generations. The bonding is very important. If it was just another golf match, it wouldn't have lasted this long."

— Bob Labbance

A Texas First

Within those wide open spaces, Texans like to believe they've got everything. That may be true now that the first Texas State Public Links Championship is in the books. That's right, first.

Earlier this month, the Masters Course at Houston's Bear Creek Golf World, the setting for the 1981 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship and the 1984 NCAA Championships, hosted the three-day match-play event featuring 32 competitors from around the state. Steven Smith (pictured at right), a 38-year-old from Houston who owns his own drywall contracting business, won the inaugural by defeating Sam Houston State senior Brandon Turner, 2 and 1, in the final. He won carrying his own bag in afternoon temperatures above 100 degrees.

Surprisingly, Texas did not have a statewide public links event until Douglas Harker, a member of the USGA's Public Golf Committee, suggested the idea and the Southern Texas Golf Association agreed to conduct one this year.

"It will be nice to have a true statewide champion instead of a bunch of different city champs," said Chad Ihrig, director of amateur services for the STGA. "It's really surprising that a state the size of Texas didn't have a Public Links Championship. Our mission is to provide more amateur golf opportunities for people in this state, and we see this as another step in that direction."

Players in the event were drawn from the qualifiers conducted for this year's U.S. Amateur Public Links.

"It's a great match-play course," Ihrig said, "and an event like this will only help everyone. We want this to continue to grow larger and larger and be able to move it around the state and attract more golfers.

"In the long run, having a statewide event like this can only help state golfers get ready to compete in other major amateur events," he added.

Texas has played host to three U.S. Amateur Public Links events, in 1954, 1968 and 1981. Now it finally has its own.

— Art Stricklin

Booth, Kuehn, Chuasiriporn Headed South for U.S.

The United States trio that attempts to regain the Women's World Amateur Team Championship in November will have a familiar look to it. Kellee Booth, 22, of Coto de Caza, Calif., and Brenda Corrie Kuehn, 33, of Fletcher, N.C., both members of the U.S. team that finished third in 1996, have been selected to the squad, along with Women's Open and Amateur runner-up Jenny Chuasiriporn, 21, of Timonium, Md.

The 18th Women's WATC will be played Nov. 12-15 at Prince of Wales Country Club in Santiago, Chile.

All three members of the U.S. squad were also on the victorious Curtis Cup team. Booth and Kuehn were both 4-0. Chuasiriporn is the first player to finish runner-up in the Women's Open and Women's Amateur in the same year; she lost in a 20-hole playoff to Se Ri Pak at the Women's Open and last month dropped the Women's Am final against Grace Park.

Women's teams from the U.S. have won the biennial WATC on 12 occasions, the last time coming in 1994 in Versailles, France. It finished third in 1996 behind Korea and Italy.

The alternates to the U.S. team are Beth Bauer of Cramerton, N.C., and Virginia Derby Grimes of Montgomery, Ala. The U.S. captain is Barbara McIntire of Colorado Springs, Colo.

Clearing the Confusion In Pinehurst

Next year's U.S. Open site proudly boasts "There is only one Pinehurst." Now, a federal appeals court has agreed.

In a victory for the legendary Pinehurst Resort and Country Club, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that the nearby Pinehurst National and Pinehurst Plantation golf courses infringed on the trademark of their famous neighbor.

In ordering an injunction prohibiting National and Plantation from using

"Pinehurst" in their names, the federal appeals court ruled that the clubs' current names were "likely to confuse the public" — the legal benchmark for determining trademark infringement. In fact, mixups between the clubs already had occurred, including misdirected equipment shipments to misplaced telephone calls from golfers eager to book starting times at the famed Pinehurst No. 2 Course, where the Open will be played next June.

"The confusion occurred because golfers knew Pinehurst [Resort] only as Pinehurst and our club's name began with the name Pinehurst," testified former National golf professional Chris Lewis, adding that he fielded over a dozen incorrect calls each week. "Several people told me that when they called information, they took our number because they thought we were the owners of the Resort's courses."

Whether Pinehurst also can win money damages from the clubs may be another story. The appeals court ruled that notwithstanding the infringement, National and Plantation still may argue the question of damages before a trial court — an issue that a judge will begin to take up soon, according to Pinehurst attorneys.

But for now, an injunction in place, Pinehurst has its name all to itself again.

"It was of supreme importance," says Pinehurst Resort and Country Club attorney Don Cowan, "that when the '99 Open comes to Pinehurst, that it comes to the one real and true Pinehurst."

— Ted Curtis

'01 Junior to Pecan Valley

Pecan Valley Golf Club in San Antonio, Texas, host club for the 1968 PGA Championship won by Julius Boros, will be the site of the 2001 U.S. Amateur Public Links.

It will be the first APL in Texas in 20 years, since Jodie Mudd won at Bear Creek in Houston.

Preceding Pecan Valley, designed by Press Maxwell and opened in 1963, as sites of the APL are Spencer T. Olin Community Golf Course in Alton, Ill., in 1999, and Heron Lakes Golf Club in Milwaukee, Ore., in 2000.

Necrology

Serge Ballif, 72, who served as president of the Southern California Golf Association in 1990, died at his home in Sherman Oaks, Calif. A member of Wilshire Country Club for 51 years, he first joined the SCGA board of directors in 1975. Following his term leading the SCGA, he was president of the Southern California Seniors Golf Association.

Anyone who competed on the Sunshine Tour in South Africa during the 1970s and 1980s came to know Helen (Mouse) Bland for her various duties. "It was Helen's face you first encountered when visiting the (South African) PGA's on-course offices," SAPGA chairman Graham Webster recalled. "She took your entry form, checked your score card after the round and, if you played well, handed you your prize winnings." Bland died Aug. 3 from a stroke after suffering from long-term kidney problems; she had been on a waiting list for a kidney transplant for eight months. She is survived by her husband, John Bland, the runner-up in the 1997 U.S. Senior Open.

In the quarter-century he covered golf for The Associated Press, no one wrote more words on the game than BOB GREEN, 66, of Weatherford, Texas, who died in late July.

He worked for the AP for 41 years, the last 26 as the wire service's first full-time golf writer. Having covered some 1,000 tournaments, many with his wife, Iva, by his side, he retired in 1995.

"Bob was one of the favorites among the writers who covered golf in my time on the tour," said Arnold Palmer. "You could always be comfortable talking to Bob. You know he would get it right."

He served as president of the Golf Writers Association of America and was a member of the Association of Golf Writers in Great Britain.

He received a lifetime achievement award from the PGA of America in 1994, and two years later the GWAA presented him with its William D. Richardson Award, given in recognition of outstanding contributions to golf.

He had covered dozens of USGA championships and hundreds of tournaments, but among the last sports events JIM MURRAY wrote about was last month's U.S. Senior Open at his favorite course, Riviera Country Club. Murray, 78, who died of cardiac arrest Aug. 16 at his home, was for 37 years the featured sports columnist of The Los Angeles Times. A Pulitzer Prize recipient in 1990 for commentary — only the fourth sportswriter so honored — his humorous style would in equal turns memorialize and skewer his subjects. Murray was a child of the Depression, raised in Hartford, Conn., then became a newspaper reporter who, after serving as Hollywood correspondent for Time and Life magazines, was one of the writers who helped launch Sports Illustrated in 1953.