50 Great Moments in Pittsburgh Sports by David M. Shribman & Richard "Pete" Peterson

Author:David M. Shribman & Richard "Pete" Peterson [Shribman, David & Peterson, Richard "Pete"]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Triumph Books
Published: 2012-08-21T05:00:00+00:00

June 17, 1974

By Jimmy Jordan

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Overseas reports to the contrary, Carol Semple does not play golf while in a daze, under hypnosis, nor in a trance.

Nor in any combination of the above.

Miss Semple has added the British Women’s Amateur title to her US Women’s Amateur crown and she insists she did so without any hocus-pocus or hexes influencing her choice of shots or her swing.

She defeated Angela Bonallack, 37-year-old wife of a former British Walker Cup captain, 2 & 1, on the Royal Porthcawl Golf Course in Wales Saturday to win the British crown.

Carol, 25, became the first American woman ever to win both the U.S. and British championships since 1948—before she was born. Louise Suggs was the last to win ’em both.

Miss Semple, reached by telephone at the home of a friend in London yesterday, still was excited by the victory—a “Grand Slam” of women’s amateur golf, actually—but she also was a bit upset over some of the news service stories about the championship.

The stories indicated that a tape that she often plays before a match puts her into a state of hypnosis, which lasts through the day’s play.

“That’s not true,” she told the Post-Gazette. “I do have a tape that I often play before I go to the golf course, but all it does is help my concentration. It does not put me in a trance or a hypnotic state, or anything like that.

“Actually, I don’t see how I could hit a golf ball if I were in a trance.”

Her combination for victory more likely is her ability to size up a shot properly, wonderful coordination in hitting the ball and confidence.

“I think I was in a daze when the match ended and I realized I had won this big tournament, but I know I wasn’t in a daze while I was playing,” the daughter of H.S. (Bud) Semple, president of the United States Golf Association said.

The Sewickley family is one of golf’s most prominent. Carol’s mother, Phyllis, has won innumerable titles. So have others in the family.

“I had won the Women’s West Penn, the Pennsylvania State and others, all of them great, but nothing of national importance until I won the U.S. championship,” Carol said. “And now this. I’m still excited about it.”

Her father, reached at the U.S. Open at Mamaroneck, New York, said that he thought weather at Porthcawl would bother Carol, “but apparently it didn’t.”

Miss Semple had been playing well just before going to Wales. She shot a 68, two under men’s par, at Allegheny Country Club despite being four over par on the last three holes.

Bobby Cruickshank, the veteran Scot who is still beating his age at 77, Frank Smith and Chuck Scally, former Tri-State PGA and Open champ, are the teachers who helped build her championship game.

“Chucky Scally worked with me for about a week and a half before I came over here,” she said.

She credited a fine bunker shot on the 17th of the final round as the “winner.”

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