THE FIRST AMATEUR WIN OF THE OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP
In 1889, having, as aforesaid, exhibited to the Meadowbrook Club, on
Long Island, a specimen of what they were good enough to say "might be a
very good game for Sundays," I returned to Great Britain a brief while
before the amateur championship and went up to St. Andrews, very short
of practice, to take part in it. The second or third round brought me up
against Johnny Ball, and I put up a very poor fight against him. He was
playing respectably enough--not more, for he never has been a real lover
of St. Andrews--but I know that he had some satisfaction in thus getting
back on me a bit of what was his due. I know that he had a little of
this feeling because Johnny Laidlay told me that Hilton said to him, as
we started off, "If there is one man that Johnny Ball would like to beat
in the amateur championship, it's Horace Hutchinson." So he had his
wish, by some four or five holes, and it was at this same championship,
I think, that we first began to have an idea how sore a trouble Hilton
was going to be to us in the years to come. For he was playing Johnny
Laidlay, who was then at just about the best of his game--which is
saying much--and he stuck to Johnny like a man, though he was hardly
more than a boy, and Johnny confessed to me afterwards that he acquired
a great respect for Hilton's play from that time forward.
Now the outstanding feature of that meeting was, beyond all possible
question, the match between the two Johnnies, Laidlay and Ball. It was
not the final match, but probably it decided the final result. They
halved the round. Then, setting forth for extra holes, they halved the
first of these--and not too creditably, if the truth be told, for I
think the figure was five apiece. But the second hole they both played
like tigers. They had two good tee shots, Johnny Laidlay's being a yard
or two the longer. So Johnny Ball had to play. He took his cleek. Now to
reach that second hole in those days, when the ground was not so keen
and it was a gutty ball that had to be dealt with, with an iron club, at
all was no easy matter; but Johnny's shot looked a beauty. I judged it,
as it ran over the gradients, after pitching, to be as near perfection
as a shot could be, and to be resting very near the hole. Johnny Laidlay
then had to play; he, too, took a cleek; he, too, played a shot as near
perfect, as it seemed to me, as might be. My only doubt was whether it
was quite strong enough, whether it would quite hold its way over the
undulations, whether it might not possibly die away, even towards the
bunkers on the left, a little short of the green. I was, as events
proved, wrong in my estimate of both shots. Johnny Laidlay's had just
the strength to take the undulations at the right curve: it lay on the
green quite near the hole. Johnny Ball's had been a shade too strong: it
had even over-run the green and was in the bunker, just beyond. Of
course that was the end. No doubt it was a most unlucky shot; no doubt
it was a shot that deserved to win, rather than lose, a championship.
But I do not mean, saying this, to imply that there was any luck in
Johnny Laidlay's winning that match and that championship. His shot was
perfection. But Johnny Ball's was very perfect too. It must have been
given an unduly running fall. However, such is golf, and such is life.
Then Johnny Laidlay had to play Leslie Balfour in the final, and beat
him, as he really was likely to do, if both played their game. Gallant
player as Leslie was, Johnny had all the advantage of the years on his
side. Yet the time was to come, and many years later, when Leslie
actually should win the championship, beating Johnny in the final, and
in a very wonderful manner, as shall be told in its due place in the
story.
Now all this while I have said mighty little about the open
championship, because really the golfing world in general took little
interest enough in it at that time. It was regarded as virtually an
affair of the professionals. Now and then a few of us amateurs took part
in it, but it was with scarcely an idea of possible success. And then,
all at once, something happened, in 1890, which put the open
championship within the possible grasp of the amateur, and therewith the
general interest in that great competition became at once very much more
vivid.
Johnny Ball had won the amateur championship that year at Hoylake,
defeating Johnny Laidlay in the final. My own part in the contest was an
ignominious one, for I allowed myself to be defeated rather weakly by
Johnny Laidlay at the last hole after being one up with two to play. I
missed a short putt at the last hole, of which the memory is still
painful.
I was playing fairly well that year, notwithstanding, and went to
Prestwick for the open championship--began by missing a very holable
putt at the first hole and continued in a like vein throughout the two
rounds. So that was the end of me. And then I, having finished my futile
efforts, heard that Johnny Ball, who was still out, was doing terrible
things. I went out to meet him, and as he reeled off hole after hole in
the right figure it became apparent that "bar accidents" he was going to
do the most terrible thing that had ever yet been done in golf--he, as
an amateur, was going to win the open championship. Dr. Purves was
hurrying along at my elbow as we went, with the gallery, towards the
sixteenth hole. "Horace," he said to me, in a voice of much solemnity,
"this is a great day for golf." It was.
Johnny was playing with Willy Campbell, poor Willy Campbell, splendid
player, most gallant of match-fighters, certainly deserving of
championship honours and only missing them on the last occasion of the
championship being played at Prestwick by one of those fatal accidents,
very near home, bar which, as aforesaid, Johnny Ball was bound to win
the championship of 1890. But poor Willy on that occasion got heavily
bunkered; lost his head a little and perhaps his temper more than a
little. He had strokes to spare; but he wasted them hammering in that
bunker, and when I came into Charlie Hunter's shop at Prestwick half an
hour later I saw a sad sight. Willy Campbell was sitting on an upturned
bucket on one side of the door, his caddie had a similar humble seat on
the other side of the door, and both were weeping bitterly.
This, however, is a digression into a vale of tears. Johnny Ball did
not digress into any such vale. He continued the scoring of the right
figures and accomplished the great feat, for an amateur, of winning the
open championship. It was a win which made a difference. It seemed at
once to bring the open championship within the practical horizon of the
amateur for all years to come. It had broken a spell. Incidentally it
may be noted that it put Johnny Ball's name higher than any other's had
ever been, for he held the championship of the amateurs and of the
professionals at the same time.
And what interested me much at the moment was the attitude of the
professionals towards the result. I had expected that they would feel
rather injured by seeing the championship which they had been used to
regard as theirs going to an amateur. To my surprise that did not appear
to disconcert them in the least. What they did resent, however, so far
as resentment may be carried within the limits of perfectly good
sportsmanship, was that it should be won by an Englishman. You see, it
was not only the first time that it had ever been won by any other than
a professional, but also the first time it ever had been won by any
other than a Scot. That is a fact which will strike the reader with
astonishment now perhaps, when the poor Scots must have become fairly
well inured to Englishmen annexing the championship. Taylor and Vardon,
to say nothing of Harold Hilton, have taught them to grin and bear it as
best they may. But up to that time a Scot had ever been open champion of
the game of Scotland, and Scotland did not much like another taking it.
So that was "a great day for golf," as Dr. Purves had truly said to me.
It gave an added interest to all further competitions for this open
championship; for what an amateur had once done, it seemed as if an
amateur might do again, and thus the active interest was no longer
confined to the professionals. The amateurs became at once something
more than mere lookers on. There was only one man who did not seem to
realize that Johnny Ball had done a big thing, and that was Johnny Ball.
A week or so later he was playing a friendly match at Hoylake, and just
as he was starting a stranger came up to him and said, "Can you please
tell me, is the open champion playing here to-day?" and Johnny answered,
"Yes, I believe he is." On which the stranger started out at score over
the links in search of this "open champion," whom, presumably, he
expected to recognize by some special halo set about his brow if he
should come across him. Willie Park, fine all-round golfer and
magnificent putter, was the previous holder of the championship, which
he had won in 1889 at Musselburgh; and that was the last occasion on
which this open championship ever was played on that excellent old
nine-hole course. Just at this time the Honourable Company of Edinburgh
Golfers migrated down to Muirfield, and that green, instead of
Musselburgh, became the third championship arena, the other two, at that
date, being St. Andrews and Prestwick.