AMATEUR GOLF

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 193, 30 July 1932, Page 8 (Supplement)

AMATEUR GOLF

MEMORIES IN BRITAIN WHEN TAIT WAS CHAMPION. ENTRY OF AMERICA. The final of another Amateur Golf Championship has been played. All through the week Muirfield Golf Course has been crowded with enthusiastic golfers: golfers with handicaps varying from scratch to 18, each one following his own particular hero, mentally applauding his fine shots and groaning inwardly over his fluffs and foozles, writes J. Cornwallis West in the London “Daily Telegraph.” Still, most scratch golfers will admit that, except possibly in the semi-final and the final, to play in the Amateur Championship is not nearly such a severe test, of nerves as the championship proper. Why is it that nearly all amateurs and many professionals loathe the sight of a card, whereas match play is a comparatively simple affair and Offers no such terrors! The first Amateur Championship I ever witnessed was when Freddy Tait won it at Sandwich in 1896. I had become an enthusiastic golfer two years previously, when cramming for the Army in Jersey, the nursery of many fine players such as the Vardons, Benouf, and others. The opportunity of seeing it arose through the fact that I knew I was to be detailed to proceed to Caterham to escort some recruits back to Dublin, where I was quartered. If I could arrive in England 48 hours early I could see the ante-final and the final matches.

“An Old Man’s Game.” I shall never forget my C.O.’s face when I explained my reason for asking for two days’ extra leave. The truth was that hardly anyone south of the Twded played golf in those days. Certainly there were some wonderful seaside courses in England at the time such as St. George’s at Sandwich,Deal, Eye, Westward Ho! and one or two others, whose members were all enthusiastic golfers, but there were very few inland courses. The ignorant considered it an old man’s game and looked down upon it. However, although by C.O. did not know the difference between a driver and a putter,

he gave me leave. I knew Freddy Tait slightly and had seen him play golf, and that was enough for me to want to see him perform again. Besides being the longest driver of his day, Tait was a very remarkable golfer, especially in match play, in that he would never admit defeat. An occasional bad hole made no difference to him; his opponents never knew what it felt like to have the match in his pocket.

A Hard Row. In 1896, for the first time, 36 holes had to be played in the final. The luck of the draw in that year was remarkable, as Tait, if successful, would have to take on such renowned golfers as Hutchings, Laidlay, John Ball, Horace Hutchinson, and Hilton. His best match was in the semi-final with Horace Hutchinson, whom he beat- 3 and 2. In the final he defeated Hilton easily by 8 up. In the following year, 1897, the Amateur Championship, held at Prestwick, was memorable for one of the finest matches ever played in that competition.

This was the final between Freddy Tait and John Ball. At the 36th hole they were all square, and it was at the previous hole that Tait made his never-to-be-forgotten shot, when, taking a niblick to a ball lying in several inches of water, 80 yards from the hole, he laid it dead. The match was not won until the 37th hole, when Ball got a three, or what is now called an eagle.

British golf suffered a severe loss in 1900, when, as an officer in the Black Watch, Tait was killed by a Boer bullet when the Highland Brigade was massacred at Magersfontein. Another championship I well remember was that of 1906, when it was won by Mr. Walter Travis, an American, vrtio beat Horace Hutchinson in the semi-final and Edward Blackwell in the final. It was tin unexpected win, as the British amateur golfers, owing to the success of an amateur team sent to the United States a year or two before, had no great opinion of American amateur golf. Nor was it a popular win; the conservative British golfer objected to the dome-shaped felt hat worn by Travis and the long black cigar which he smoked the whole way round; he also made an aggravating practice swing before each stroke, and, in addition, used an aluminium putter which looked more like a croquet mallet than a golf club, and which was subsequently banned by the St.Andrew’s Committee. Boom in Clubs. TTis viclorv had tin’ ••ffoc-t of causing an enorr i huom in aluminium clubs, so much so that the Mills company

produced a whole, set, from a niblick to a driver, made of the same metal, but their popularity was short-lived. The standard of golf, as pf all other games, has improved enormously in recent years. Young amateurs, such as the Hartley brothers, think nothing of driving a ball out of sight, and, indeed, Freddy Tait’s famous drive in 1893, when he carried 250 yards, with a total length of 341 yards, must be an everyday occurrence for them and others of the same calibre.

Tait’s best round at Sandwich in 1896 was 74, and constituted a record; since then the course has been considerably lengthened, but in spite of this 74 is not at all an out-of-the-way score amongst those whose handicap is on the plus instead of the minus side.