GOLF IN AMERICA
Good golf in the United States--My tour through the country--Mr.
Travis's victory in our Amateur Championship--Not a surprise--The
man who played the best golf--British amateurs must wake up--Other
good Americans will come--Our casual methods of learning golf--The
American system--My matches in the States--A good average--Driving
well--Some substantial victories--Some difficult matches--Course
records--Enthusiasm of the American crowds--The golf fever--The
king of baseball takes to golf--The American Open Championship--A
hard fight with J.H. Taylor--A welcome win--Curious experiences in
Florida--Greens without grass--The plague of locusts--Some injury
to my game--"Mr. Jones"--Fooling the caddies--Camping out on the
links--Golf reporting in America--Ingenious and good--Mistakes made
by non-golfing writers--Lipping the hole for a hundred dollars.
I have a higher opinion of both the present and the future of golf in
America than that which seems to be entertained by a large number of
eminent players in this country. I think that American golf is very good
at the present time--much better than it is given credit for being--and
I am convinced that it will be still better in the future. I made a long
golfing tour through the United States in 1900, when Englishmen for the
most part regarded the game in that country with as much seriousness as
they would have bestowed upon golf in Timbuctoo if they had heard that
it was being played there. At that time it seemed to be taking a firm
grip of our cousins, and I saw enough to convince me that America was
coming on quickly, and that before long the old country would have
reason to fear her. Everything that has happened since then has
strengthened my belief, and the eyes of the British were at last fairly
opened when the Championship was played for at Sandwich in June of last
year, when, to the chagrin of our own leading amateurs, an American, in
the person of Mr. Walter J. Travis, became the victor, and took back
with him across the Atlantic the Amateur Championship Cup. So far from
surprising me, that event was exactly what I expected. When I was in
America I played against Mr. Travis once or twice, and though he was
then in the improving stage and evidently not at the top of his career,
I felt that he was a man who might very likely do great things in the
future. Afterwards I followed his play with some curiosity and interest.
I saw that in course of time he beat many good men whose form I
understood precisely. I knew that he was one of the steadiest golfers I
had ever seen--a man of fine judgment and marvellous exactness, who
always played with his head, and was constantly giving the closest
possible study to the game. I felt that when he came to play for our
Championship he would make a very bold bid for it. When I heard that he
was going to Sandwich last year, I made him my "tip" for premier
honours, and before the first round was played I said to many friends,
"Mark my words; if Travis gets anything like a fairly easy draw to start
with he will go right through." And so he did. I saw him play on this
memorable occasion, which will never be forgotten as long as any of the
events of golfing history are remembered, and, in opposition to the
opinions of other British critics expressed in many columns of print
during the weeks following, it was and is my absolute conviction that
his was the best golf played in that tournament, and that he thoroughly
deserved to win. He played with his head the whole way through, and his
golf was really excellent. It was only natural that our people should be
very downhearted when they saw what had happened, for it seemed nothing
else than a great disaster. I do not think that in the long run it will
prove to have been so, for the inevitable effect of it was to wake up
our British golf, which stood sadly in need of arousing. I think that
amateur golf in this country has been steadily depreciating for some
time, and at the present moment I think that the standard of merit of
our best players is lower than in the days when Mr. Harold Hilton, Mr.
John Ball, jun., and the late Mr. Freddy Tait were at their best. And
despite the American shock, I cannot profess that the outlook at the
present moment is particularly encouraging. There are other good golfers
in the States besides Mr. Travis, and, frankly, I think that unless we
wake up in this country the Cup will go there again. For the moment our
numerical strength in the Championship tournament is in our favour. When
there are only half a dozen Americans entered out of a total number of
over a hundred, the odds are evidently against them, but an "American
invasion" is threatened, and then we shall see what we shall see.
The chief reason why it is difficult to feel optimistic about the
prospects of amateur golf in this country is because the rising
generation, upon whom we must depend for our future champions, do not
take sufficient pains to make themselves masters of the game. They are
too haphazard in learning it. The beginners on our side are too apt to
say to themselves, "I will go and teach myself to hit a ball first, and
then I will take a lesson," which is, of course, entirely wrong. Then
one of their friends tells them to do a certain stroke in one way, and
another tells them the opposite, and thus at the end of six months they
have got into such a thoroughly bad style that it is the most difficult
task in the world for a professional to set them right. Those who have
the future of British golf at heart cannot afford to disregard or wink
at these vagaries on the part of beginners, on whom we depend to
constitute the national system in coming years. Now the national system
of America is altogether different. They are not haphazard there. They
seem to take a deeper interest in the game and its science, and they
never think of trying to learn it by the chance methods which are so
much in favour with us. They take the game with the utmost seriousness
from the very beginning, and obtain the very best advice that they can.
The professionals never have a minute to spare, and their
engagement-books are constantly filled up for three weeks in advance, so
that without that length of notice nobody stands a chance of getting a
lesson for love or money. That is the way in which the people of America
are learning to play golf, and it is the proper way. It is slow but it
is very sure; and unless I am very much mistaken, there will in the
future be other players coming across the Atlantic to take part in our
championships who will be as great as Travis if not greater, and if we
on our part do not forthwith begin to take our golf more seriously it
may be a sad day for us when they do come.
As I have said, American golf was only just budding when I made my tour
through the country in 1900; but nevertheless I found that tour
extremely interesting and enjoyable, and everywhere I was given the
heartiest and most enthusiastic reception. Nobody even begrudged me the
American Championship which I brought back with me, and nobody made any
unkind criticisms of my play, or suggested that I did not in any way
deserve the victory. My tour began in March and did not finish until the
end of the year, but was interrupted for a short period at the beginning
of the summer, when I made a flying trip home in order to take part in
our own Open Championship. As it happened, the best that I could do was
to finish second to Taylor, but I may add that this result was better
than I expected, considering the sudden change of golf and climate that
I experienced. I had to cover several thousands of miles in order to
play the matches in which I took part in America. Of these matches I
only lost two when playing against a single opponent, and each time it
was Bernard Nicholls who beat me, first at Ormonde and then at Brae
Burn. There was not a blade of grass on the course on which Nicholls won
his first match from me, and I leave my readers to imagine what playing
on a links consisting of nothing but loose sand was like. Altogether I
suffered only thirteen defeats, but in eleven of them I was playing the
best ball of two or more opponents, which was the task that was
generally set me. I won over fifty matches and halved two. Some of my
victories were somewhat substantial. At Point Comfort I beat Willie Dunn
by sixteen up and fifteen to play, and at Scarsdale I got the better of
the same opponent to the extent of fifteen and fourteen. Such wide
margins naturally suggest opponents of inferior ability; but if I may
modestly say so, I do not think that was wholly the case. I consider
that at that time I was playing better golf than I had ever played
before or have done since. As was the custom there, I used to go out on
the links in the very thinnest and airiest costume. In Florida it was
too warm to play with either coat or vest, so both were discarded and
shirt sleeves rolled up. Generally, like my opponents, I wore no jacket,
but a neat waistcoat with sleeves which helped to keep the arms
together. In such attire one was afforded a delightful sense of ease and
freedom which considerably helped one's golf. Then again, whether it was
due to the fine dry atmosphere--as I think it was--or not, the ball
certainly seemed to fly through the air with less resistance offered to
it than I had ever experienced before. Never have I driven so well as I
did with the old gutty in America in that year. Many of the
professionals whom I met were men who were taught their golf in this
country, and were players who would usually hold their own in the best
of professional company. The American papers gave very lengthy reports
of all the matches in which I took part, the headlines and what followed
them being frequently very flattering. There was "The Golf King," and
many such as that, in type nearly an inch deep. Perhaps I may, without
offence, be permitted to quote from the account given in a leading daily
newspaper of the second match in which I defeated Willie Dunn--at
Scarsdale--which I only do for the purpose of showing that the
conditions of play were sometimes really trying, and not at all
conducive to big victories or record breaking. This paper said: "If it
were necessary to dwell upon the extraordinary consistency of the
champion's game, one has only to refer to his card for the four rounds
(it was a nine-hole course) in yesterday's match, as his worst nine
holes totalled forty-one and his best thirty-seven. If the turf could
only unearth a thoroughbred as reliable as Vardon, poolrooms in Greater
New York would be past history in very short order. Vardon's skill
probably never underwent a severer test than in the match yesterday.
Everything was against his exhibiting anything approaching championship
form. He had not only to contend against a biting north-west wind, which
temporarily got mixed up with a flurry of snow, but the course itself,
from the character of the land, is about as difficult to score over as
any in the country. The ground is one succession of 'kopjes,' while
seven of the nine holes are 'on the collar' all the time, and at an
angle of from twenty to thirty degrees. The course is only 2677 yards in
playing distance. On paper this gives the impression of being nothing
out of the ordinary, but confronted with it in actuality, it is about as
hard a proposition as any victim of the golf habit could tackle. The
only course one can compare with it here is Oakland, and the latter is a
billiard table by the side of it. At the finish of the thirty-six holes
Vardon said, 'I never felt so fagged out in my life. In fact I could
play seventy-two holes on the other side every day for a week and not
have been fatigued half so much.'" I do not remember that I ever
committed myself to such an extravagant statement as this, but the
course was certainly a very trying one that day. Yet on that occasion I
lowered the eighteen holes record for the course. Altogether I beat most
of the records of the courses during my tour. The first time I ever took
my clubs out on American soil, on the course of the Lawrence Harbour
Country Club, I reduced the record for the nine holes (held by Willie
Dunn) from forty-one to forty. Yet the weather was so bad just then,
and the clay greens were in such a state of puddle, that temporary
greens had to be made on the fairway. I won my first match by nine up
with eight to play. On one or two occasions I was obliged to beat the
record in order to win my game. Thus, when playing on the Wheaton links
at Chicago, Will Smith was three up on me at one time, but by beating
the links record I won at the finish by two up with one to play. This
was one of the very toughest struggles I had over there.
There was no mistaking the enthusiasm of the American spectators. They
came to the matches in great crowds--always a large proportion of
ladies--and they seemed bent on learning all that they could from the
play. Everybody seemed to be trying to practise my grip. All kinds of
theories were invented to account for the manner in which my shots came
off. On one occasion, after I had got in a good one with a cleek, an
excited spectator jumped the ropes, ran up to a friend of mine and
screamed, "Say, which arm did he do that with?" I looked to see if all
my arms and legs were intact, or if there was anything that appeared
unusual about them. I discovered afterwards that by "arm" he meant
"club." Many places of business were closed for the afternoon when I was
playing in certain districts, and on one occasion the Stock Exchange did
so. A letter to one of the papers, concerning the extraordinary manner
in which America was taking the golf fever, contained these
sentences:--"I went into a leading business house to-day and found the
three partners of the firm in a violent discussion. As I thought they
were talking business I concluded that my presence was unnecessary, and
started to edge away. Suddenly I noticed the head of the firm rush into
his office and rush out again with a cane. As the words were heated I
was just about to interfere when I saw a weapon appear on the scene, but
the head partner wasn't looking for blood. Instead of hitting anyone he
swiped the cane along the ground, and then I heard the words--'This is
how Vardon holds it.' I wanted to make an appointment with one of the
partners, but he told me that he wouldn't be in. However, I guess I'll
meet him, because I'm going out to Dixie myself." The professionals and
the golf shops suddenly began to do an enormous trade in sticks, and
Bernard Nicholls, the only man who defeated me single-handed, preferred
not to play me again for a long time. He said his victory had done an
enormous amount of good to his business, and he did not want to spoil
it. From numerous quarters I received all kinds of offers to "star" in
one way or another, some very big fees being suggested. Would I become a
store manager at a huge salary? Would I make an exhibition for so many
hours daily of driving golf balls in a padded room in the city? And so
on. I actually did accept an offer one day to do exhibition swings in a
room in a Boston store. I was to start at 9.30 and continue until 5 each
day, doing tee and other shots into a net for half an hour at a time,
and then resting for an hour before taking the next turn. There was a
fresh "house" of about two hundred people every time, and it was part of
the bargain that my manager should stand by and explain everything. But
he had had enough of it after one or two turns. Then I found it became
terribly monotonous, and to interest myself I kept trying to hit a
particular spot on the wall near the ceiling, until the stores manager
came forward in a state of great excitement, declaring that only six
inches from that spot was the tap of a patent fire extinguishing
arrangement, and that if I hit it the room would be flooded by a series
of waterspouts in less time than I could imagine! By four o'clock my
hands were blistered badly, and at that stage I had had enough and went
out. In the meantime I was the constant recipient of numerous presents
of all kinds, and the invitations that I received to dinners were far
too many for any professional golfer to accept. I do not mention these
things with any desire for self-glorification. They are ancient history
now, and nobody cares about them. But they serve to show the
whole-hearted manner in which America was going in for golf, and the
tremendous hold that it took on the people. We talk on this side of the
"golfing fever" and of people "going mad" about the game. Believe me,
the Britisher is a mere dallier in comparison with his American golfing
cousin.
An interesting incident happened when the American Championship was
played for on the Wheaton course, when, as I was informed, the game of
golf achieved the most notable victory that it had ever achieved in the
United States. This was the complete surrender to it of the veteran
champion and overlord of baseball, the American national game. How that
came about I will leave one of the Chicago newspapers to relate:--"Cap.
Anson surrendered to golf yesterday. The capitulation of the veteran of
America's national game took place on the links at Wheaton during the
race between Harry Vardon and J.H. Taylor. 'Cap.' says the game of golf
is a go. He has stood out against it and ridiculed it ever since it
began to get the people. Anson knows Charles S. Cox, Vardon's manager,
and accepted an invitation yesterday morning to look in on the game. On
the links he balked at the proposition of walking four miles in one trip
around the course, but he lined up with the crowd to see Vardon drive
off. The ball went higher than any fly 'Pop' ever saw in his life. It
sailed 220 yards. Anson was first to start the applause with a 'Good
boy. She's a homer.' Then he led the gallery to the first green. He was
puffing when he pulled up at the eighteenth hole, but he felt better
than if he had stolen second base. 'I'd like to take a crack at that
golf ball,' he said. 'You can put me down for a trial the first chance I
get. Wouldn't mind togging up in kilts just to give the Prince of Wales
a run for his money.'" For the sake of giving prominence to it, this
paragraph was put in a fancy border and let into the middle of the sheet
of newspaper, so the Chicago people evidently attached some importance
to the capitulation of the worthy captain, and I hope that by this time
he has had many thousands of cracks at the golf ball and that his
handicap is low.
I was intent on making a bold bid for this American Open Championship.
Victory in it seemed to be the one thing essential to make my trip the
greatest possible success. My friend Taylor, who had just beaten me for
the Open Championship at St. Andrews, had himself come over to the
States, and was also a candidate for the premier honours of American
golf. As it turned out, we had practically the whole contest at Wheaton
to ourselves, and a rare good duel it was, at the end of which I was at
the top of the list, but only two strokes in front of my English
opponent, while he was eight in front of the next man. The system of
deciding the championship was the same as on this side, that is to say,
four medal rounds were played, two on one day and two on the next. At
the end of the first day's play I was just one stroke better than
Taylor, my score for the two rounds bring 157 to his 158, and on the
second day I did 156 to his 157, so that on the whole event I was 313 to
his 315. Taylor waited on the edge of the green while I holed out my
last putt, and was the first to grasp my hand in sincere congratulation.
Beautiful weather, the biggest golfing crowd ever seen in America up to
that time, and a good links, made the tournament a great success. The
partner who went round with me during this championship competition was
Will Smith, the holder, who finished fifth.
I had some curious experiences in the course of my journeyings about the
country, and I am not sure that they were all good for my game. During
the early months I was down in Florida away from the cold and the snow.
I met some good golfers there. It was necessary to play an entirely
different game from that to which we are accustomed in this country.
There was no grass on the putting "greens." They were simply made of
loose sand, sprinkled on the baked ground and watered and rolled. When
there was a shortage of water and there was wind about, the fine part
of the sand was blown away, and the surface of the "greens" then
consisted of nothing but little pebbles. It was not easy to putt over
this kind of thing, but I must not convey the impression that these sand
"greens" were wholly bad. When properly attended to they are really nice
to putt upon after you have become accustomed to them. It was impossible
to pitch on to them, and one had to cultivate the habit of running up
from a very long distance. Thus I got into the way of playing a kind of
stab shot. The tees consisted not of grass but of hard soil, and one had
to tee up much higher than usual in order to avoid damaging the sole of
the driver. This provoked the habit of cocking the ball up, and as a
corrective all the teeing grounds in Florida sloped upwards in front.
Locusts were responsible for eating all the grass away from some
courses, and I had a unique experience when I played Findlay at
Portland. When we were on the putting greens, men had constantly to be
beating sticks to keep the locusts off the lines of our putts. If it
struck a locust the ball would come to a sudden stop. Acres and acres of
land about there were without a single blade of grass. The locusts had
eaten it all away. After we left Florida we reached some good courses,
and resumed the old kind of play. It has often been suggested that the
peculiar conditions of play in America, to which I was subjected for a
long period, resulted in a permanent injury to my game as played at
home, and in the light of reflection and experience I am persuaded to
think that this is so. I have played well since then, have felt equal to
doing anything that I ever did before, and have indeed won the
Championship, but I think I left a very small fraction of my game in the
United States.
In the way of other novel experiences I might mention that on one
occasion I played as "Mr. Jones." I wanted a quiet day, and did not wish
a too attentive public to know where I was. Three friends joined me in a
foursome, but when we went into the club-house after our game, another
anxious golfer went up to my partner when I was standing by, and
inquired of him whether he had heard that Vardon was playing on the
links. My friend declared that he knew nothing of such a rumour, and I
could hardly refrain from laughter as the anxious one went to pursue his
inquiries in other quarters. Another time two other professionals and
myself visited a course where we were unknown, and, hiding our identity,
pretended that we were novices at the game, and begged of our caddies to
advise us as to the best manner of playing each shot, which they did
accordingly. We deliberately duffed most of our strokes at several
holes, but this course of procedure tired us immensely, and so at last
we abandoned it and began to play our natural game. Imagine the
consternation and the indignation of those caddies! Each one of them
threw down his bag of clubs, and, declining to carry them for another
hole, walked sulkily off the course. On one occasion we camped out for
the night on the links on which we were playing, and a very pleasant
variation from the ordinary routine we found it.
The American newspapers, to which I have frequently referred, do their
golf reporting very well. Their journalism may be "sensational" or
whatever you like to call it, but the golfing section of it was usually
interesting, ingenious, and very intelligent and reliable. On the
occasion of one match in which I played, a paper gave up nearly the
whole of one of its pages to a large panoramic view of the links. The
flight of my ball and that of my opponent, and the places where they
stopped after every stroke, from the first to the last, were accurately
marked. Thus the whole game was illustrated in a single picture in a
very effective manner. As was inevitable, I was sometimes victimised by
interviewers who wrote "interviews" with me which I had never accorded,
containing most amazing particulars about my methods and habits.
Occasionally a reporter was turned on to describe a game when he knew
nothing about golf, and then the results were sometimes amusing. One of
these writers had it that I "carried away the green with my drive."
Another said I "dropped dead at the hole." When playing at Washington
against two opponents, I happened to beat bogey at the first hole. One
of the reporters was told of this achievement, but did not quite
understand it. Going to the next hole, we were walking through a bunker
when he came up to me and politely inquired if that--the bunker--was the
kind of bogey that I had beaten. I was told a very good story of
American golf reporting. A match was arranged between two well-known
amateurs, one of whom happened to be a very rich banker. One reporter,
who admitted that he "knew nothing about the darned game," arrived
rather late on the course, and borrowed the "copy" of an experienced
golfing journalist for information of what had already happened. When
this "copy" was duly returned with thanks, the late-comer remarked to
his obliging friend, "Say, you made a bad mistake in one part." "What
was it?" the other asked. "Waal, you say that So-and-so 'lipped the hole
for a half.'" "Yes, that is right." "Oh, go away; you don't mean to tell
me that a rich man like that would be playing for a paltry fifty cents.
I've altered it to 'lipped the hole for a hundred dollars.'" And I
remember that once when I was playing the best ball of two amateurs, one
of the reporters had been instructed by his chief to keep the best ball
score. I happened to lose the match on the last green, but on looking
through the paper the next morning I was surprised to see it stated that
I was beaten by not one but many holes, making this defeat in fact the
biggest inflicted on me during my tour. The paper said that it was. I
could not make anything out of it for some time, until at last I
discovered that the reporter had reckoned my score also in the best ball
figures! Obviously I could not beat myself. The best I could do was to
get a half, and that was how it came about that I never won a single
hole in the "Harry Vardon _v._ Harry Vardon and two others" match.