Dale Morey forged into the lead on the first hole of the final round and then waltzed off with the championship of the 58th Southern Amateur at Shreveport Country Club Saturday with a nine-under par 275 for 72 holes.

The High Point, N. C., amateur veteran posted a final round 34-35-69 to beat back a pair of younger players, Charles Kennon of Baton Rouge and Jerry Greenbaum of Atlanta.

Kennon defeated Greenbaum for second place in a sudden-death playoff which required two holes. They had tied at three-under par 281's on completion of four rounds.

Howell Fraser, the Panama City, Fla., golfer who will defend his Florida State Open championship next week in Tallahassee, wound up next after failing on a late charge at the lead.

Morey, who joked at being worried because the younger players in the tournament were calling him "Mr. Morey," posted rounds of 66-71-69-69 on the way to the title. His opening day score set the competitive record at the SCC, but new records were a day-to-day occurrence in the meet, played for the first time on stroke basis.

The winner moved into Saturday's round deadlocked with Kennon for the lead with 206. Playing in the threesome just behind the 23-year-old son of former Governor Robert Kennon, Morey got out front early.

Kennon bogeyed the first hole and Morey, on a terrific recovery shot from a fairway sand trap, birdied to pull two strokes ahead.

Morey's second shot sailed with the low trajectory of a "week-ender's whack," but came to rest 15 feet from the cup. He surveyed the putt for nearly a minute and then used a bold stroke which sent the pellet into the heart of the hole.

That gave him a two-shot bulge on the field and he protected it like a miser.

"It was as good a day as I've had here," said Morey of his 35-34-69. "After I built up the lead, I did play it safe," added the balding ex-Walker Cupper who will play next in the Carolinas Cup matches.

He also plans to play in the National Amateur, and says that the Southern victory will "help out an awful lot" in his consideration for a berth on the Eisenhower Cup matches in Italy in October.

The Eisenhower tourney matches four-man teams of more than 40 countries.

Kennon won the playoff on the second hole, using a par to Greenhaum's double bogey. Both parred the first hole before the past winner of the International Jaycee Junior meet ran amuck.

On the dogleg second assignment, the Atlantan hurried his second stroke into the trap fronting the green. He tried to blast it out, but moved the ball only about 12 inches.

Kennon, with a clear advantage, lagged a 15-foot putt up to the hole for his par while Greenbaum took two to get home.

This marked the second championship for Morey. He won the tournament in New Orleans in 1950, defeating Tommy Barnes of Atlanta.

Morey bailed himself out of trouble on the front nine twice. His tee shot trickled off the green on the par-three third hole, but he chipped back to within a foot of the cup for a par.

He hit his tee shot into a trap on the par three eighth and took three to get down from there. Morey got a birdie at the seventh with a good second shot close to the pin on the elevated green.,

On the back nine, the angular former basketballer-golfer from Louisiana State, birdied the 14th hole with a "Texas Wedge" from the edge of the trap to the right of the par-five hole. He then parred home for a two-under par score.

Kennon came home with a 38-37-75, his first over-par round of the meet. He tied the competitive record which Greenbaum later broke with a 64 on Friday.

"I hit as good today as any other round," said Kennon. "But it was just one of those days with the putter."

The medical student from LSU missed two greens on the front and two on the back side, and had only one birdie when he struck his tee shot to within six inches of the pin on the par three 17th.

"I lost my confidence with the putter after the first three holes," he added.

Kennon hopes to qualify for the National Amateur which will be played the week before he returns to medical school. He turned to the back nine six-under par and was destined to lose a little ground.

But at that point, the battle was for third place. Fraser, grappling with a balky putter charged in after Greenbaum and caught the faltering Army lieutenant at the 13th assignment when the Atlantan took two straight bogeys.

Fraser then said he hit two of the best strokes he hit in the tournament and they resulted in a bogey six on the 14th.

His second stroke landed in the middle of the sand trap to the right of the hole. With the ball sitting up in good position in the gritty surface, Fraser chose a sand wedge and blasted. He caught it too cleanly and the ball sailed high over the green and fell off the back -edge. It took the ex-LSU linkster three to recover and he was unable to make up any ground on the leaders from there.

"I started slowly," said the soft-spoken Floridan who had become a gallery favorite in part due to his poor luck with the putter. "And when I did it was too late."

Lowest round of the day came from Bunky Henry of Valdosta, Ga. The muscalur long ball hitter, who resembles a football guard rather than a fairway flailer, posted a 35-33-68.

The score gave him a total of 291, good enough to claim the first flight championship for the former Southern match play champion.

Other flight winners included Jim Grant of San Antonio, Tex., in the second, Bobby Rodgers of Lafayette in the third, Johnny Hopkins of Shreveport in the fourth and Ed Thompson of Montgomery, Ala., in the fifth.

All packed off shiny silver bowls as souvenirs of their stay in Shreveport.

Final Results: