A Round Of Golf With The President

But the sand is not all, by any means. There is the brisk wind that comes up around noontime and blows viciously in from the Pacific bearing haze and mist from the sea. There are the steep hills and the deep rocky ravines. There are the cruelly undulating greens. There is the knee-deep grass and the thick pine forests (from which the deer frequently emerge to graze) bordering the fairways on the early holes. Trouble and more trouble reaches out to grasp the golfer without letup throughout the entire 18 holes. But the man who conquers Cypress returns to the clubhouse feeling he is indeed a golfer of considerable merit.

Which is to say that Ike's very respectable 90 or 91 the first time he ever saw the course (to say nothing of the fact it was the first full round of golf he had played in three months) must have left him with a glow of triumph.

Indeed, he enjoyed himself so much that he went out again the next day and the next for 36 more holes. For a hole-by-hole account, in words and pictures, of Ike's return to the game, see the next five pages.

PEBBLE BEACH, CALIF.

First hole 418 yards

Ike was told to hit his drive to the left of the gnarled, runt-sized cypress tree. His drive, into a slight wind, was the best of the foursome, about 215 yards down the sloping fairway. He beamed over the compliments from a dozen bystanders. "Is that the right spot?" he asked, knowing full well it was. His caddy said it was perfect.

The foursome set out, with Hunt and Eisenhower in Ike's electric cart, the others walking. Two Secret Service men walked ahead of the golfers, always a hole ahead. Four other Secret Service men accompanied the players.

Ike's second shot, a three-wood, was short to the right. He had a pitch to the green, about 40 yards. He was told it was longer than it looked and, after pitching short, barely reaching the slanting green, he shook his head and admitted, "I misjudged the distance." His putt sailed three feet past, and on the return which looks like a downhill putt but is actually uphill he was short. Three putts. He took a double bogey 6.

Second hole 532 yards

Ike hit a fair drive, then a four-wood from a hardpan lie, then smothered a three-wood to the left of the green, chipped on, was down in two for a bogey 6.