GOLF

Gisborne Times, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 12905, 4 July 1936, Page 11

GOLF

BRITISH OPEN CROWN

ONLY FIVE TIMES GAINED BY

AN AMATEUR

Of the 71 open . championships which, have now been held, since 18G0 only five have becfl. won by amateurs.The first of ;them was ; John Ball, the winner of-no fewer than eight British amateur championships, who won afc Prestwick in 1890. Bull was horn at HOyiakc. 7.3 years, ago. in the •hotel then owned by his father, which adjoins the link/ on which the njatr dies will ,bQ -played next week. ~ •In 1892 at MuirfieUl, and again in 1897 at Hoylake, the famous Harold H. Hilton upheld the, amateur standard. Then for nearly 30 years amateur 1 , had to bo satisfied with m nor places until the incomparable Bobby Jones won first in 1920 and later in L 927 and 1930. Before 1892 the open was decided by two rounds ol stroke play, and tho records show how the game hah advanced. Willie Park, of Musselborough, had the honor ol winning the first open championship with a, score of 171. In 1873 Tom Kidd •won at fit. And eyvs with- .179 —almost two “30V’. Sixty-three years later, over the same course, Bobby Jones played the first two rounds of the 1927 open which he won, in 1-10 strokes (G 8 and 72) —39 fewer strokes. When the competition was extended to 72 holes in 1832, Harold Hilton’s winning aggregate score wan , 305 at M,nil-field, but in 185-1- J. 11. Taylor won with 328, 43 strokes more than the present record of Sararer-, Cptton and Perry. A reduct on 01';43 ■strokes In a little more than 40 years. ; is a substantial drop, in spite- of the better conditions and equipment. The change from the “gutty” hall was responsible for the lower scores WHAT BOBBY JONES DID “Sandy”; -Herd, who; played, in the open for the 50th. occasion., was the first to win the open with a Haskell ball, in 1.902. The performance which perhaps finally Idled the “gutty” ball was James Braid’s open at Prestwick in 1908, when he alto used a rubber-cored Haskell ball. ’Many fine judges a r guc to thi-s day that- it was the- finest golf played over 72 holes. Two hundred arid ninety-one —three more than level fours—and : an 8 In the card !

That was Braid’s tragic 8 at the “Cardinal ’ hole, where his second shot glanced off the boarded side- othc- “C'ardnal” bunk r, over the Pow Burn and cut of bounds. Golfe V. argued that, if you could do three over fours for four rounds w.t'h an S n it, the rubber-cored ball was -superir. Bobby Jones achieved what- Bernard Darwin called the “wholly indecent and ]> ofane act ’ of playing four rounds at fit. Andrews in the 1927 “open” in th ce under fours.