A Roundup Of The Sports Information Of The Week

GOLF—GENE LITTLER, the stoic from California, stroked a five-under-par 67 in the final round of the $100,000 Thunderbird tournament on the Upper Montclair ( N.J.) course to win golf's biggest cash prize. $25,000, and his second tournament of the season (see page 16). Littler forged relentlessly ahead with six birdies to beat newcomer Jack Nicklaus by two strokes. Nicklaus, who shot the tournament's lowest round, a 65, the day before, was in the same threesome with the winner but could not take advantage of Littler's brief faltering moments on the last nine. Steady Dow Finsterwald came in third tied with Wes Ellis at 280, and always-favored Arnold Palmer finished a miserable 35th.

Sandra Haynie of Fort Worth won the Austin (Texas) Civitan Open with a 72-hole total of 289, finishing one stroke ahead of Mickey Wright, who was just unsteady enough to allow Miss Haynie, 19, to capture her first tournament victory since she became a professional last year.

HARNESS RACING—HENRY T. ADIOS ($3.20) set a new world record for the mile on a five-eighths-mile track while winning the $121,500 HTA pace at Scioto Downs in Columbus, Ohio. The brilliant 4-year-old, who had established the record of 1:58 1/5 only two weeks earlier, clopped home this time in 1:58 fiat, under good handling by Driver Stanley Dancer. The rest of the eight-horse field all finished in less than two minutes, making this one of harness racing's finest paces.

HORSE RACING—JAIPUR ($7.70) barely nosed out Admiral's Voyage in a rousing finish to the $153,300 Belmont Stakes at Belmont, biggest and last purse of the Triple Crown (see page 14). Crimson Satan, developing a habit of finishing just behind the leaders, did so again, taking third a length and a quarter in back of Admiral's Voyage. Derby winner Decidedly couldn't go the longer (mile and a half) distance, and pulled up in fourth, while Preakness winner Greek Money ended up seventh.

Larkspur, a 22-to-1 shot, skittered around a seven-horse pileup at Epsom Downs to win an English Derby in which the fallen caused more excitement than the victorious. The seven—including the favored Hethersett—crashed to the ground when leader Crossen tired, slowed down and caused Romulus, right on his heels, to stumble. They both went down in front of the pounding 26-horse field just as it was crowding into the downhill dash to Tatten-ham Corner. One horse. King Canute II, had to be destroyed, and six jockeys were hurt in the 183-year-old Derby's worst accident. Larkspur is almost a medley of racing traditions: Irish bred and trained, owned by New York Businessman Raymond R. Guest (Winston Churchill's cousin), and ridden by Australian Neville Sellwood.

Flaming Page ($2.80), owned by Canadian Multimillionaire E. P. Taylor, won the $39,154 Canadian Oaks by a relaxing 4� lengths after taking charge in the stretch at Toronto's Woodbine track. The filly turned the mile and an eighth in 1:52.

LACROSSE—THE SOUTH took command of the field in the traditional all-star game against the North in New Brunswick, N.J., winning a rough-and-tumble contest, 14-4. Buddy Beardmore, All-America midfielder from the University of Maryland, led the onslaught with a goal in each quarter.

SOCCER—THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP in Chile went down to its last week with two South American countries and two Iron Curtain teams still in contention. When attendance fell far below expectations, officials hastily switched the schedule and promised to let the home team play in the bigger Santiago stadium in the semifinals, if it got that far. Thus inspired. Chile went out and licked the Russians 2-1. But the schedule change apparently dismayed the West Germans, who would have been briskly rerouted to smaller Vina del Mar. They slumped against a younger Yugoslavian team, losing 1-0. Czechoslovakia, handed a stunning upset by a scrubby Mexican team earlier (3-1), bounced back with a victory over Hungary, 1-0, and Brazil overcame England, 3-1. In the semifinals Brazil faces Chile and Czechoslovakia plays Yugoslavia.

SWIMMING—FRED BALDASARE. 38, of Cocoa, Fla. set a world record—to be sure, no one had ever done it before—by swimming the three-mile Strait of Messina from Sicily to Calabria in three hours and 42 minutes, underwater.

TENNIS—DARLENE HARD, the U.S.'s best woman amateur, displayed every bit of her championship form in a brilliant show of mid-court volleying to quickly subdue Judy Tegart of Australia in the Northern England grass court women's finals, a tuneup for this week's Wightman Cup matches at Wimbledon. The blonde Californian brought down Miss Tegart, who has embarked on a tennis tour of the world, in a quick two sets, 6-3, 6-2. Top-seeded Margaret Smith, the Aussie powerhouse, was upset in the quarter-finals—her first loss in nine months—by unknown Carole Caldwell of Santa Monica, ranked No. 9 in the U.S. Mike Sangster became the first Englishman to win the men's singles title at the tournament since 1949, as Australia's awesome aces were busy taking surprising beatings in Barcelona. Neale Fraser and Roy Emerson lost in the semifinals, Fraser to the surprisingly agile Manuel Santana of Spain, 7-5, 6-4, 6-3, and Emerson to India's Ramanathan Krishnan, 6-0, 6-2, 6-2. Santana went on to win, 3-6. 6-3, 6-4, 8-6, over Krishnan. Aussie Rod Laver, however, was pressing on regardless, in a cooler climate. He won the Norwegian open in Oslo, his fourth straight European title this spring (he already has the Swiss, French and Italian) with a victory over Jan Erik Lundquist. 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-3. Then a few days later in Stockholm he too lost, while trying for the Swedish championship.