Ancient Golf Putter Returns to Dunedin as Otago Club Trophy

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27080, 14 May 1949, Page 5

Ancient Golf Putter Returns to Dunedin as Otago Club Trophy

By a Special Correspondent. About seventy years ago an old golf putter was brought to Dunedin from St. Andrews, Scotland. It belonged to Mr George Todd, sen, who settled in Dunedin in the late seventies. This putter was a prized boyhood possession, and whether Mr Todd included it in his luggage, “just for luck,” or whether he hoped to find some golf in the Scottish settlement on the other side of the world,’ is one of the minor mysteries of early colonial life. In the changing scene across the years, this putter, which is now about 100 years old, became a kind of heirloom in the Todd family, and was handed on from one member to another.

In peace and war this fine example of the club-maker’s art has travelled about New Zealand, and now, in the fullness of time, it has found a permanent home and an honoured niche with other historic trophies belonging to the Otago Golf Club. The actual presentation of the putter to the Otago Golf Club was made some time ago by Mr Frank McLean, of Wellington, a former member of the Otago Club. The original owner, Mr George Todd, was a foundation member of the Otago Golf Club when it was instituted in 1892. and for many years afterwards there was a member of the Todd family serving on the club committee. In making the presentation, Mr McLean said that he was asking the Otago Golf Club to accept the putter at the express wish of the Todd family, and in a letter to the club he went on to speak of some of the peregrinations of the putter since it was used in the early days of the first course on the Balmacewen Park estate.

At a recent committee meeting it was decided that the putter be instituted as an annual senior challenge trophy, and with this object in view it has been mounted on a special oak background with a suitable inscription.

The putter itself is a fine example of early Scottish craftsmanship. It has a long, flat-soled broad head made of some hard wood. The shank is shaped in a long taper which is spliced and bound in cobbler’s waxed thread to a stout hickory shaft that is topped with a rough leather grip. Of its antiquity there can be no doubt, and although its exact age can never be known it is certainly older than the Erovince of O.tago. Similar clubs have een preserved in the golf museum at St. Andrews, and from these prototypes a fair indication of the age of the Todd Putter can be gained. Judged by modern standards, the putter is an awkward and unwieldy weapon, but as a glance at early records will show some remarkable scores were put up by the ancients of golf with similar implements of. play. Although the general match conditions have still to be arranged, it has been decided that the “ Todd Putter ” will be competed for this year by two teams of six a side in four quarterly matches. These two teams have already been selected by their respective captains, T. B. Ferguson, Otago .provincial champion, and A. Gibbs, Otago Club champion, and the first match of what may prove an historic series will be played in the near future. Each year a medallion engraved with the names of the winning team will be suspended from the putter, and in this it will emulate a great tradtiion established in England by the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society in the annual competitions for the President’s Putter, which are played in bleak January days on the Kentish course at Rye.

Although without precedent in New Zealand and Australia, the general concept of the competition for the Todd Putter is, as a glance at its history shows, similar to that of the President’s Putter. This wooden putter, which originally belonged to Hugh Kirkcaldy, a famous Scottish professional of the early nineteenth century, was presented to the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society by .its captain for so many years, Mr John Low, and there are now hanging from it 23 silver replica golf balls representing those who have won it from the first tournament in 1920.

As the years go on, competition for the Todd Putter is certain to increase in prestige and importance, and with the St. Andrews Cross and Bruntsfield Medal it will form a , distinguished trinity, unique in the history of golf trophies south of the line.