THE REVOLT OF THE AMAZONS
Lord Moncrief (then Wellwood) writing in the Badminton Book on Golf, had
said that ladies were relegated and restricted to a species of "Jew's
quarter" where they were graciously permitted to play with a single
club, the putter, those little strokes which we all of us are fond of
saying are the most important in the game of golf, but which we all feel
to be the least interesting.
It was either in 1892 or 1893 that Lord Eldon asked me to stay with him
at his Gloucestershire place, Stowell Park, on the Cotswolds, and there,
incidentally, I received quite a new impression as to the possibilities
of feminine golf. I had already played on the long links at Prestwick in
foursome matches with the Misses Whigham--Johnny Laidlay being the man
on the other side, and taking one of the sisters as his partner, while I
took the other; but they had not then come to their full golfing due.
They were rather in the phase which would now be known as the "flapper
stage." Still, they played remarkably well. But the most remarkable
thing, as we thought then, was not that they should play the long game
so well, but that they should play it at all. It was like Dr. Johnson's
comment about the dancing dogs. They played, and we as their partners
played, with all consciousness that we were guilty things, doing that
which we ought not to do. It was an enormity for ladies to play on the
long links at all.
At Stowell Lord Eldon had a course of nine very good and interesting
holes in the park, and there I found the Scott brothers, Osmond and
Denys, playing with their sister, Lady Margaret. I had never at that
time seen any lady capable of playing at all the same kind of game that
Lady Margaret could and did play. You must remember that these were the
days of the solid gutta-percha balls, which were far less easy to pick
up clean off the ground and raise, without putting a little slice on
them, than the modern rubber-cores. The ladies have especially been
helped by the more resilient balls which rise more readily. But Lady
Margaret Scott had a perfect facility in picking the ball up with her
brassey, off the ordinary lie of the course, and sending it flying
straight to the mark without any slice on it. She had a very long, an
exaggeratedly long, swing back, but then the weakness of the extra long
swing back was not realized at that time as it is now, and certainly she
never seemed to lose control of the club, although there must have been
some wasted labour about it.
I never had seen a lady able to play golf at all as Lady Margaret played
the game. She had all the crisp and well-cut approach strokes at her
command. It was some years after this that the ladies' championship was
started. Meanwhile ladies, greatly daring, had begun to play on the long
links. As a rule they would have been both better and happier on their
own short putting greens; but there were exceptions who were quite able,
by their skill, to appreciate the longer courses and to play them as
well as the men. As soon as ever the ladies' championship was
instituted, Lady Margaret Scott (now Hamilton Russell) justified all the
opinions I had formed of her game by winning that championship three
times in annual succession. And I think that the only reason why she did
not go on winning it was that she did not go on playing for it. Surely
she had done enough for glory.
It is very unprofitable work trying to estimate the relative golfing
merits of different generations, but I am disposed to think that our
best ladies of to-day (whom shall we name? I think Miss Ravenscroft and
Miss Leitch) are not greatly better, if at all, than Lady Margaret at
her best. We have to take the difference in balls into consideration for
one thing. It is certain that the change to the livelier ball has helped
the best of the ladies more than the best of the men. But I get a
certain line of comparison in this way: some of the finest of the lady
golfers, when ladies first began to invade the long links, were the
Misses Orr. They used to play at North Berwick. But they did not, in the
daring fashion of the ladies to-day, claim to play at reasonable hours.
They started very early and were finishing their round when lazy men
were finishing their breakfast. They were just about representative of
the best feminine golf of the time, and on the only occasion in which
they took part in the Ladies' Championship one sister beat another in
the final. I played one of them at Nairn, giving, as far as I remember,
a half, and that seemed to bring us very nearly together. In these
latter days, since the ladies have claimed, and as I think, quite
rightly claimed, practically an equal right to our long links, we have
had several matches at odds of a half, and again they have worked out
very level. There was that much-talked-of match between Miss Cecil
Leitch and Harold Hilton. The lady won it. I do not think that either
played up to his or her true game, unless it was perhaps Miss Leitch in
the final round. But the match was a close one, showing that the odds
were adequate for bringing the sexes to something like a golfing
equality. Then again, giving the same odds of a half, we played a team
of men against a team of ladies at Stoke Poges. The one side was just
about as representative as the other. Our masculine side won. To this
day I do not know how we won: I do not understand how it is that the
best of the men (speaking of amateurs) is able to give the best of the
ladies anything like a half, but it does appear that these are very
approximately the right odds, and it also appears that these have been
just about the odds ever since the ladies began to play the long game.
The inference is that the quality of the game of the best of them has
not greatly altered. I know that when I played Miss Violet Hezlet in
that Stoke Poges match, I found myself hardly at all in front of her off
the tee, when we both hit good shots, going against the wind. Down the
wind it was quite another story: I could outdrive her usefully with the
wind behind. And here I think it possible to give ladies a hint by which
they might profit: if they would but tee their ball high, going down the
wind, they would find it far more easy to give it that hoist into the
air which is essential for its getting advantage of the favour of the
breeze. They seem to have a lofty-minded idea that there is something
not quite right about putting the ball on a high tee--that it is rather
on a par with potting the white at billiards. It is splendid of them to
have such fine and noble ideals, but it would be to their practical
advantage to forget them now and then.
And I am quite sure that the ladies, as a rule, do not take the pains
they should about their putting and the short game generally. There is
but one of them, Miss Grant Suttie, so far as I have seen, who really
studies her putts as a good man player studies them, and that is because
she has played so much with men at North Berwick and has adopted their
methods. She has her advantage therein, for she is the most certain on
the green of all the ladies. It is a wonder, seeing that it is a part of
the game which demands delicacy of touch and no strength of muscle, that
ladies do not putt far better than men. As a general rule they putt far
worse.
Naturally, when this incursion of the ladies arrived on the links of the
men, it intensified the trouble of those problems of the congestion of
the green which were already beginning to be acute. Naturally, too, men
dealt with the incursion according to their powers and according to
their gallantry. No doubt it was felt that it was a hard and
discourteous thing to deny the ladies equal rights, even over the
private courses. Obviously, on the public courses they had the equal
right, and they were not shy of claiming it. On the private courses we
used to hear at first, "It's absurd, these ladies not sticking to their
own course: they can't drive far enough to be able to appreciate the
long course," and so on. But then it very soon became evident that they
could drive further and play better than a large number of the male
members of the Club, which rather knocked the bottom out of that
argument. As a rule some compromise was effected, the ladies being
restricted to certain hours--after all, the men were generally workers,
so that they had the more claim to have the course at their disposal in
their hours of leisure. A very good form of compromise is that which is
in vogue at Biarritz, and it may be commended to the notice of other
Clubs. There is one afternoon in the week set apart for all and sundry
ladies, but besides this there is a permission for ladies whose handicap
is four or under to play at any time and on equal terms with the men.
This seems to meet the case admirably, for it keeps off the links the
inefficient lady players who would be apt to block the green and whose
right place is their own short course, while it freely admits those who
are capable of appreciating the blessings of the long course and are
quite as good golfers as the average of the men whom they will meet
there. As time goes on it appears as if we shall be fortunate if the
ladies do not take exclusive possession of the links, and only allow us
men upon them at the hours which are the least convenient.