ABOUT HAROLD HILTON, FREDDY TAIT AND OTHERS
What between trying to be sculptor and succeeding in getting married, I
did not pay all the attention that I should have done to golf in the
early nineties. Hilton was runner-up in the amateur championship, first
to Johnny Laidlay and then to Johnny Ball, in 1891 and 1892
respectively: so we may regard him as thoroughly well arrived. In 1893
Mr. Peter Anderson, at Prestwick, beat Johnny Laidlay in the final for
the amateur championship and so broke up our triumvirate. I was not
there, and know nothing of the merits of that champion, who soon, on
account of an unfortunate chest weakness, migrated to Australia. But the
amateur championship of 1892 deserves a special word, because it was
played for the first time at Sandwich. It was a sign of the times, sign
of a generous policy on part of the Scottish clubs, sign of an extension
of the golfing spirit, that this South-country green was welcomed into
the sacred number of those on which championships should be played.
In that same year, though I was not golfing very assiduously, I was at
North Berwick when the open championship was played at Muirfield, and
had a narrow escape of winning that open championship. It was the first
year that the competition was extended to an affair of seventy-two
holes, stretching over two days. Previously, two rounds, or thirty-six
holes, had decided it, and at the end of the first two rounds I
astonished myself and most other people by finding myself heading all
the field. I forget by how many I had the advantage, but I think it was
by two or three strokes. Then, on the morning of the second day, hitting
off from that first tee at Muirfield, which then was not far out from
the wall, I pulled my very first shot over the garden wall, and took I
forget how many to the hole. But I remember intimately that this evil
start had a baleful influence against which I struggled in vain; I went
from bad to worse, and what my eventual score was for the seventy-two
holes I do not know.
[Illustration:
J.E. Laidlay.
Horace G. Hutchinson.
John Ball, junr.
P.C. Anderson.]
[Illustration: H.H. Hilton.]
Really it was rather hard luck: if only they had deferred that extension
of the test, from thirty-six to seventy-two holes, for one year more I
might have written myself open champion, but it was not to be; and as
it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, so that extra day gave
Hilton just the opportunity he wanted. I can see him now as he came up
to the last hole--I had gone out to meet him hearing that he had been
doing very well--walking along at top speed, chatting volubly with his
friends, very pleased with himself, as he well might be, brimful of
confidence and with the smoke trailing up from his cigarette, even while
he was playing the ball, so that it seemed impossible that he could see
through it to hit the ball correctly. But he did hit it mighty
correctly, for all that, and won the championship. I believe he did
several conjuring tricks during the course of the round, such as holding
mashie pitches from the edge of the green. But however he did it, he
won, and therewith, from that time forward, established himself as very
distinctly the best amateur score-player that we have ever seen. Of that
there can be no question.
So far as I can make out I played very little golf in 1893. Probably I
was amusing myself with being ill, in some form or other, but in 1894, I
had golf and greatness thrust upon me by being elected captain of the
Royal Liverpool Golf Club. The local people showed me no little
kindness, and made my year of office very pleasant. I stayed at the ever
hospitable house of Alec Sinclair, most cheery of companions, just
beside the links, and I see by the record that they were kind enough to
let me win the first medal on the first day of the spring meeting and
again the first medal on the first day of the autumn meeting. The
following year I was not at the spring meeting, but at the autumn
meeting I won the first medal on both days. The next year again I won
the second medal on both days of the autumn meeting--rather a quaint
record and one that I am proud of.
I am proud, because those Hoylake medals were not very easy to win. The
local talent, with Johnny Ball and Hilton always on hand--Jack Graham
was not yet a force to reckon with--was very formidable. But I remember
that on one of these winning occasions I had a portentous piece of luck.
It was playing to the then third hole. We drove from the present second
tee, but the green was about where some estimable gentleman's
dining-room now stands--far to the left of the present second green. It
was a ridge and furrow green, so that though you could reach the hole
with an iron club for the second shot you were grateful enough if you
holed out in four. By some providential chance my second, with the
driving iron, found its way into the hole, saving two clear shots. It
is the biggest and best fluke I ever had on a medal day, and I took good
advantage of it.
By way of showing what an extraordinary condition the handicapping at
some of the Clubs had fallen into at that date, I may note that Johnny
Ball, Hilton and I were all handicapped at Hoylake, for a short time
about this period, at _plus_ eleven! You see what the effect was--you
see what kind of player a scratch player would be, when there were such
penalty handicaps as this. As a matter of fact I believe the absurdity
arose from a tender feeling for the too acute sensibilities of certain
players who had been what was known as "scratch" in the old days and
liked to style themselves so still, and yet could only be kept on the
scratch mark, in any reasonable handicap, by penalizing the good players
to such a terrific extent as this.
In that year, 1894, when I was captain of the club, the amateur
championship was played on the Hoylake course, and I have a lively
remembrance of it because it was the first time that I came up against
poor Freddy Tait, as a grown golfer, and suffered at his hands and from
the peculiar characteristics of his game. Again and again I had the
better of him, in a tight and well-fought match, and again and again he
came up, from somewhere right off the green, with a wonderful approach,
which he followed by a good putt and so halved the hole. Going to the
last hole we were all even. His second was away to the left, far off the
green. He laid up one of his usual approaches and put himself within
holable distance. My own second was a very good one, and I had a chance
of a three. I know even now that I went for it all too boldly, rather
tired by the recoveries of the gallant Freddy. He holed his putt. I,
with a much shorter one to hole, missed: and so he won hole and match.
He was really but a lad then, though a strong and sturdy one, but in the
next round he met his master in Mure Ferguson. That brought Mure into
the final with Johnny Ball against him, and very gallantly Mure played.
Johnny had some holes the better of him to begin with, but he was not,
even then, playing quite like his old self, and he let Mure wear him
down, and only by a very daring and splendid shot at the seventeenth
hole did he take the lead and practically settle the match, and the
championship.
Freddy Tait was the very keenest golfer, as a boy, that I ever saw. I
had watched him at St. Andrews, growing up from small boy's to young
man's estate, and acquiring the mastery of his clubs as he grew. He was
a favourite with everybody. At this time, when he beat me at Hoylake, he
was still in the hard-hitting phase of his game, rejoicing, as a young
man will, in his strength, and delighting to let the ball have it. And
he had great strength. Later, as his game developed, he grew to play
more within himself with more reserve force to call up when occasion
required it, than any other first-class player, and at times he played
very finely and very accurately indeed. But at all times, even when he
was not playing accurately, he was very dangerous, just by reason of
this, his marvellous faculty for recovery, which he exhibited even in
this match against me at Hoylake. You never had him beaten at any hole.
That not only made him in himself very formidable, but it also made him
very difficult to play against, because you never felt any confidence
that you had him. I do not know whether it was this quality of his game,
or some other influence more psychic and personal, but for some reason
Harold Hilton appeared to find it almost impossible to produce his true
game when he was brought up against Freddy Tait. He gives some account
of it in his own reminiscences, showing too that by steadfast work and
stern endeavour to get the better of that influence--really it was as if
Freddy put the evil eye on him--he was succeeding in conquering it. He
made a progressively better fight in their later matches. For Johnny
Ball, on the other hand, Freddy had no terrors. I was surprised, looking
through poor Freddy's biography, written by Johnny Low, to see how
consistently Johnny Ball had the better of Freddy--I think with only one
exception of any importance at all--in the many matches that they played
together. I had thought the balance would have stood far more level,
especially as Johnny was not quite at his best when Freddy began to
tackle him. Their matches were well fought and close, but Johnny won a
very big majority.
[Illustration: Freddy Tait.
(With Championship Cup.)]