19th Hole: The Readers Take Over

HOLING OUT
Sirs:
Your article The Best 18 in America (Feb. 15 and 22) is the most ridiculous you have ever printed. It is impossible to pick the best 18 holes. I have a lot of respect for Mr. Joe Dey, Mr. Byron Nelson and Mr. Charlie Coe, but most of the holes they selected were from courses where a USGA event had been held. Some good courses do not allow tournaments, so your committee could not have played all the good holes in America. Two of the greatest golf courses in the world, The Cascade Golf Club, Hot Springs, Va., and Pinehurst (N.C.) Country Club do not have a hole on your so-called best. Portsmouth, Va., home of the Eastern Amateur, also has some great holes. And the Carolinas are full of golf courses with good holes.
HARRY L. WELCH
Salisbury, N.C.

Sirs:
Let us not be provincial! Your headline should have read The Best 18 in the U.S. rather than The Best 18 in America. I can assure you there are many other fine, beautiful golf holes to be found all over the Americas from Canada to Argentina.

I am personally acquainted with golf courses throughout Mexico (in addition to the many courses I have played in the U.S.) and, in particular, my home course, the Club de Golf in Mexico City, which boasts quite a few excellent golf holes and which you yourselves called "one of the world's best" (SCORECARD, Feb. 15).
SANDRA CLIFFORD FULLMER
Chicago

Sirs:
Check the 11th hole at Big Cypress Golf and Country Club in Naples, Fla. for a difficult par 3.
LE ROY HUNT
Pompano Beach, Fla.

Sirs:
Obviously Dan Jenkins never played in the Pacific Northwest!
J. RICHARD CROCKETT
Seattle

Sirs:
To my chagrin I have played only one of your Best 18—Pebble Beach's 18th. I do feel, however, that the 12th at Olympia Fields (Ill.) North Course belongs on any "best" course. Others that have proved an almost impossible challenge to my game (11 to 13 handicap) and which I feel stand the tests of beauty and character are the first at Point Clear, Ala., the 2nd at Peachtree in Atlanta (another Robert Trent Jones masterpiece), the 4th on Dorado Beach (P.R.) East Nine and the 10th at Bob O'Link in Highland Park, Ill. or Blythefield in Belmont, Mich.

Thanks anyway for a fine story and great round of golf.
RICHARD W. KELLY
Terre Haute, Ind.

Sirs:
Trying to pick the best 18 golf holes in America is like trying to pick the 18 best-looking girls in Atlanta; a welcome challenge, but an impossible task. May the controversy reign forever!
JIM BRADT
Atlanta

WATCH THE FORDS GO BY
Sirs:
Never have I read such an excellent piece of honest, objective reporting as Bob Ottum's article on the Daytona 500 (Brutes, Brawls and Boosters, Feb. 22). I lived in the South last year and attended all major NASCAR events on the major tracks. Indeed, as Ottum said, nothing approaches this sport in brute excitement. But the 1965 NASCAR rules have boiled every major race down to just one issue: What color Ford will win?
DAVID C. CLEAVER
Carlisle, Pa.

Sirs:
The Ford Motor Company need not worry about "the critics' question of whether or not it could beat Chrysler in an engine-to-engine showdown." It was answered last year when drivers of Chrysler's now-outlawed hemis, King Richard Petty, the late Jimmy Pardue and Paul Goldsmith (last year's Daytona 500 No. 1, 2 and 3 finishers), looked in their rearview mirrors and saw those Fords in futile pursuit.
ROBERT DOUGHERTY
Lancaster, S.C.