Vines Did It All Before It Became Fashionable

Ivan Lendl could very well win the All-England tennis championship at Wimbledon next year. It might even be likely.

But don’t expect to see him solidly in the hunt for the U. S. Open golf championship a few years from now.

Curtis Strange may win his third consecutive U. S. Open at Medinah next June.

But, don’t look for him in the finals at that other U. S. Open in Flushing Meadow, N.Y., in September. Or ever.

Only one man has ever stepped across the net separating the two sports and became a champion at both, Henry Ellsworth Vines.

Bo Jackson is widely considered to be the second coming of Jim Thorpe. He draws million-dollar salaries in two sports and is featured in every kind of ad Madison Avenue turns out. But when Ellsworth Vines starred in two even more divergent sports, the world just yawned.

If it was the opinion of the sporting public that it was no big deal, it was wrong. It had not been done before and it has not been done since. And it is not likely to be done again.

“Elly Vines was the greatest white athlete I’ve ever seen,” insists Jack Kramer, a great tennis player himself. “Jackie Robinson and Jim Thorpe were faster, but their other skills were no greater. And I’d have to see Bo Jackson coming out of a sand trap two-down.”

Elly Vines never saw anything particularly difficult about hitting, catching, throwing or putting a ball. It came as natural to him as crooning to Crosby or dealing cards to Nick the Greek.

They didn’t make the game he couldn’t play. He went to college on a basketball scholarship and he hit a baseball so hard his high school coach used to say it didn’t come down for two innings.

He came up in a tennis era when they paid off in loving cups and tea trays. If you threw a racket or cussed a linesman, your career was over. You were society’s guest. You got money the same way kidnapers and blackmailers did--in the dark, under a bush, and in unmarked bills. And not much of it.

Ellsworth Vines got by on raw talent. No one ever remembers Elly Vines getting a lesson in anything. “When they taught Elly how to keep score, they taught him everything he needed to know,” his tennis rival, Wilmer Allison, used to observe.

He was only 19 when he won the U. S. singles at Forest Hills, N.Y. He won the first Wimbledon he had ever seen. No one ever hit a tennis ball any harder than Ellsworth Vines--not Bill Tilden, Don Budge or any other of the cannoneers. On the nights he played Tilden on a hardwood floor, the ball flew so fast the spectators thought they weren’t using any. They tell the story of a fan who had gone to the match and who asked a friend if he had been there. “No,” came the answer. “I caught it on radio. I only listened to it.”

“That’s all we did, too,” said the one who had been there.

There is no telling how good Ellsworth Vines might have become had he stayed in tennis. Having won two Forest Hills, one Wimbledon, the U. S. doubles and the mixed doubles two years in a row, Elly turned pro. He didn’t get rich that Depression year but, at least, he didn’t have to take off his hat, wipe his feet and laugh at all his host’s jokes to get to play in tournaments. He wiped out Tilden, 61-19, in matches and then took the measure of Britain’s Fred Perry, 64-60.

He picked up golf the same way he did tennis--on his own. His first round of golf, by his own admission, was a wall-to-wall horror with 125 shots, not counting 20 whiffs and a dozen lost balls. Within a few weeks, he was down to a 19 handicap. Within a year, he was scratch. Within two years, he was a pro.

Only a handful of people who took up golf in their 20s excel at it--Larry Nelson, Calvin Peete. You have too much to un-learn. Swings are usually picked up at age 6.

Athletes from other sports have invaded the golf field--Sammy Byrd from baseball, Bill Eznicki from hockey. But Elly Vines didn’t just join the pro golfers, he beat them, a Massachusetts Open here, a Rocky Mountain Open, two Pike’s Peak opens, a San Francisco Match Play, an Open in Houston, runner-up in the PGA.

He left some numbers to shoot at--a 29 on the back nine of the Miami Open one year, a 29 on the front nine at Oakmont. His best years would have been 1940-46, but the country wasn’t interested. A bigger tournament was going on--World War II.

A total of 1,175 golfers tried out for the 1946 U. S. Open as that venerable tournament was restored after the war. Only 170 qualified, only 62 made the cut. One of them was Elly Vines, who finished 26th. The next year, he shot his way in again (over 1,356 entries), was one of 164 starters and made the cut and finished 51st. In 1948, at Riviera, he was 14th in the Open. At Medinah in 1949, he started the final round only two shots off the lead but hit a ball into the water on the ninth hole. He finished 14th again.

Elly Vines is in a position now where he needs a two on the 18th hole. Or, it’s match point and he’s down 5-0. Elly needs dialysis treatments four times a week. A tough par four.

Accordingly, a group of Elly’s pals from both the golf and tennis worlds are staging a shotgun golf tournament March 5 at the Citrus course of the La Quinta Hotel Golf Club. Prizes range from a new Lexus (for a hole in one) to a trip for two anywhere American Airlines flies. They will be honoring more than a friend. They will be honoring a legend--the only man in history to be able to win Wimbledon and be among the leaders in a U. S. Open. Unless Bo beats Lendl or makes the cut at St. Andrews, that has to stand as the toughest double in the annals of games.