Sport: Dirty Work at Calcutta

Progress was creeping up on Long Island's famed old Deepdale Golf Club. The ranch homes of well-heeled suburbia were already encamped on its borders; soon its green and rolling acres would be split by the broad scar of an express highway. It was time to move on. But before their old bar was closed, before the silver trophies were packed for shipment, Deepdale's members decided to hold one more tournament on the trim fairways that have known such diverse golfers as William K. Vanderbilt and Dwight Eisenhower, Bing Crosby and Bobby Jones.

So last September Deepdale organized a "Calcutta"* competition. Amateur sportsmen not averse to gambling $1,000 or so on a friendly game of golf scrabbled for invitations. Among them was Richard L. Armstrong, a Manhasset (N.Y.) investor and member of the nearby Sands Point Club. At a tournament dinner before the teams teed off, Armstrong just happened to be seated at the same table with a pair of visiting golfers named William Roberts and Richard Vitali. Roberts, who claimed a 17-stroke handicap (along with his partner's 18), seemed strangely confident. No one knew anything about him, but there was a rumor running around the club that he had burned up the course on a practice round a few days before.

Armstrong, at any rate, organized a syndicate (of which he owned 60%) and bought the Roberts-Vitali team for $1,128.30. Later, he put the two strangers up for the night, paid their entrance fee, lent them a Lincoln convertible, helped them out with a little pocket money, and was even kind enough to take care of their caddie fees. They responded by winning the tournament with net scores of 57 and 58, a total of 27 under par.

No Gentlemen. Deepdale's President M. Borland Doyle, a Manhattan advertising executive, who even in his best days never shot better than 94, began to wonder about such uncommonly fine scores handed in by such high-handicap players. He checked the entry list and discovered that Winner Vitali belonged to no recognized club where his handicap could be checked. He tried to hold up payment of the winners' prize money, but was overruled by his tournament committee. No golfing gentlemen, they argued,t would participate in a fraud.

Armstrong's syndicate collected $16,106.93. Before the cash was divided, Golfer Roberts announced that he himself had bought a 50% share. He had left the check, he said, on the seat of Armstrong's car. Armstrong went out to explore. Sure enough, the check was there. Other members of the syndicate asked to see it, promptly recognized something that Armstrong, a former vice president of Bankers Trust Co., had failed to notice: the check was unsigned. Still, they felt so flush that they agreed to give Roberts 25% of their winnings ($4,026.73)—minus, of course, some $300 that Armstrong had already lent to the visitors.

Less than a week later, Club President Doyle received a phone call from West Springfield, Mass. Charles Helmar, a carpet factory worker and Springfield public links champion, wanted to explain that he had been Roberts' partner in the Deepdale Calcutta. He had used the name Vitali, said Helmar, because Roberts had said that his partner Vitali was sick and the stunt would do no harm. Roberts had offered Helmar $100 for playing along and had never paid. Both of them, said Helmar, were actually three-handicap golfers.