~ CHAPTER 8. ~

Celebrated Golfers—Amateur and Professional.

It is singular that the two most famous names at present of amateurs of Scotland’s national game should be names of Englishmen. It may seem an invidious thing to put two men thus by themselves, on a pinnacle apart, and one would not dare to do so by way of expression of opinion; but when one can refer fearlessly to public form to back one, it is another matter. And certainly there is enough in the public annals to show that Mr. John Ball, junior, and Mr. H.H. Hilton have at this moment the best record of any amateurs. In the first place, both of them have won the Open Championship, wresting the first honours of the game from professional keeping. And this is an exploit that no one but these two gentlemen have accomplished. Mr. Hilton, moreover, has performed the very great feat of winning it twice, his latest victory being in the middle of Jubilee, on his native green of Hoylake. Mr. John Ball has won the great event but once, but that once may be said to have been an occasion of the kind that is known as epoch-making, for it was the first occasion on which an amateur had held the honour. Mr. Hilton’s two wins have both been subsequent to Mr. Ball’s, who is a considerably older man. Mr. Ball, however, besides this single win of the Open Championship, has won the Amateur Championship so many times that it becomes quite tiresome to have to count them.  It is either four times or five—what is one among so many?—and, as no one else has been Amateur Champion more often than twice, it is evident what a fine balance he has in hand over all other amateurs. Mr. Hilton, on the other hand, though twice successful in winning the bigger glory of the Open Championship, has never, curiously enough, won the Amateur.

Nevertheless, although these two amateurs stand thus away from the rest, on public form, golf is such a curious game in its uncertainties, and those at the top of the tree are so very equal, that there would not, we imagine, be the slightest difficulty in finding Scotsmen to back an amateur in a home and home match against either of these. The man whom they would choose as their representative would almost certainly be Mr. F.G. Tait; a Lietenant in the Black Watch. He held the Amateur Championship last year, and played remarkably well in the Open Championship this year, being beaten only by two players, of whom Mr. Hilton was one and James Braid, the Romford professional, the other.* A few years ago Scotland’s choice would almost certainly have fallen on Mr. J.E. Laidlay, one of those who have twice won the Amateur Championship, and who is the hero of a hundred fights. But for the last two years Mr. Laidlay has not been showing up in his old form. Mr. Leslie Balfour-Melville, a wonderfully good game player (whether at cricket, golf, football, or whatever he puts his hand to), was Amateur Champion two years ago, and though he is the eldest of the players whom we have named, by nearly a decade, would hold his own with any one of them.

It may seem strange that in the list of those who might be backed against Mr. Ball or Mr. Hilton we have made no mention of Mr. Allan, the present Amateur Champion. Mr. Allan distinguished himself, beyond all praise, in winning this great honour in the manner he did; but he came upon us unexpectedly.  His victory was something in the nature of a surprise. Probably no element of fortune helped him to it; but before we can give him our confidence in matches against these tried veterans we must see him once or twice again in the public lists.+

It is noteworthy that the two to whom we have accorded the highest place are both men of Hoylake, and their notable successes may be taken as a tribute to the excellent qualities of those links as a nursery of golf. It ought to be mentioned, though, in all fairness to Scotland, that both these Englishmen were demolished in the Amateur Championship of 1897 by a young Scotsman, Mr. Maxwell, who defeated Mr. Ball after a terrific struggle, but Mr. Hilton (who was markedly unfortunate) with considerable ease. Another young Scotsman, not out of his teens, Mr. Robb, of St. Andrews, played very finely, running into the final heat of the tournament. He certainly deserves a place, both by virtue of this and former achievements, among the chosen few.

It is the writer’s misfortune not to be a Scotsman; therefore necessity lays upon him an exceedingly delicate duty in compelling him to note that for the last four years a Scotsman has not been champion of Scotland’s national game. Almost it may be said that an Englishman has held it each year of the last four; but this would not be strictly fair to our dependencies, for Vardon (last year’s victor, and again victor in 1898) is by birth a Jerseyman. Bur Mr. Hilton, the holder in 1897, is, as said, a man of Hoylake; and J.H. Taylor, who won the great event twice consecutively, before Vardon, after a tie, took the honour from him, was born at Northam, in North Devon, and learned his golf on the links of Westward Ho! Yet it may be said, in justice to those that did not win, and without despoiling those that did of their glory, that just as Scotland would always back, and be justified in backing, one of her amateur sons to meet any English amateur, so she would always back, and be justified in backing, some Scottish professional to beat anyone that England might choose as her representative. As an illustration of the deceptive character of public form in this great game, it may be noticed that the choice of a representative for Scotland would very probably fall on Andrew Kirkaldy, although he has never been Open Champion. With all respect to the winners, there is a certain element of luck in these championship competitions. So many are so nearly equal, and there are so many uncertainties in golf, even in its highest classes, that though it is altogether impossible and inconceivable for a man to win a championship without playing a very fine game, yet it is extremely possible and conceivable for many others in the competition to be equally fine players and yet not to win. Every man has his days—good days and bad days—at golf, the fine player like (though his variability does not run over so wide a scale) an indifferent player. The championships occupy but few days in the year, and out of a large field of players approximately equal the honour is to him whose “day” coincides with the championship dates.

An upholder of Scotland’s honour, even more powerful, perhaps, than Andrew Kirkaldy, might be found in A. Herd. We have rather forgotten to rank Herd amongst the Scotsmen, so long has he been resident at Huddersfield, in the employ of the local club; but it is certain that there is no finer nor more consistent golfer in the kingdom. Yet he, singularly enough, even as Kirkaldy, has not won a championship. Competitions of equal importance, in respect of the entry list, he has won in plenty, but the championship he has always just failed to win. It has not happened to be his day. The general golfing opinion is very just in this particular. It does not allow its verdict to be guided exclusively by championship results, and is able to recognise the tremendous strength of some who have not been champions even as superior to that of one or two who have. H. Vardon, last year’s Champion, has a brother, Tom Vardon, who is very nearly an equally fine player, and beat his Champion brother not long ago in an exhibition match on a neutral green. Both learned their golf on the excellent links of Jersey, and both are now resident in England, where, both personally and by virtue of their golfing powers, they have made multitudes of friends. A remarkably easy style is that of Harry Vardon, the ex-Champion. Like Mr. Hilton, the Champion of 1897, he looks as if the game were no trouble to him, and he has the excellent gift of an even temper in prosperity and adversity alike. James Braid, of Romford, who was within a stroke of Mr. Hilton at Hoylake, in 1897, has an advantage over most mortals in his strength and resultant length of swing. He, too, is gifted with the most equable disposition, to his advantage both as man and golfer. But for a little loose play, the result no doubt of a slight natural nervousness, at the sixteenth and seventeenth holes of his last round, he would even have been below Mr. Hilton’s winning score.

The name of the first-class professionals is legion. It is in their numbers that they have the advantage of the amateurs. In the latter class there are generally half a dozen or that might possibly be backed on level terms against the pick of the professionals—though the latter would probably have the advantage; but if it came to a team match of some twenty aside, the balance in the professonals’ favour would be infinitely heavier. To name but a few of their leaders: there is Willie Fernie, of Troon, who has delivered lectures on the golfing swing; and Willie Park, who has written a book on the game, and is to play a great match with Vardon in July 1899. Willie Dunn has started a gymnasium, where he gives practical instruction and exercises, but this is in New York, where golf is pursued with all the fury of a new convert. There is Sayers, at North Berwick, where he seems to break his own record every other day; David Grant, his brother-in-law, is a fine player, too, of a less ambitious order. There is Jack White, at the Seaford Club, in Sussex.  There is David Brown, ex-Champion, at Malvern, on the course of the Worcestershire Club. There is Archie Simpson, at Aberdeen; Willie Auchterlonie, ex-Champion, at St. Andrews; young Kinnell, lately at Leven, and now gone to Prestwick; and there is “Old Tom” Morris, now, as always, at St. Andrews, the Nestor of them all.

There are a multitude more whose names we can only pass over in an apologetic silence: and as many as are the men, so many are the styles. Perhaps it is not too much to say that among them all the ideal of style is not to be found—only examples of different points of perfection. It would need a composite creation to embody them all. But if one had to make a choice, and pick out the finest style of any, combining the utmost power with the utmost grace—one would be less inclined to search for it among the professional than in the amateur ranks, and the suffrages of many would put Mr. Ball on the pedestal. At the same time grace is not always the sign of power. There have been one or two examples, within recent golfing experience, of beautiful styles that have altogether failed to achieve their ends; and there are instances without number of singularly ungraceful styles proving wonderfully effective.  It is probable that by degrees we shall arrive at greater uniformity of style than prevails at present. Golfers, in course of the recent spread of the game into corners of the earth where it was before unknown, have been in the habit of forming styles of their own, evolving the game out of their inneer consciousness, or from what they had learned from such games as cricket. And this produced some singular results when applied to golf. But new instructors, who either learned the game at St. Andrews, or whose knowledge is derived from that great elemental source, are on practically every green, so that no barbarians of the south have an excuse for failing to adopt the classical style.

Probably it would be generally conceded, whatever view we may take of the style of modern players as compared with that of an older school, that execution has generally improved. But, however that may be, it is almost certain that relatively the play of amateur golfers in general is much better than in the older days. Until some ten or fifteen years ago it was a very rare thing for amateurs to take any part in the Open Championship; and the notion that it could be won by any of them was regarded as quite chimerical. Now, as we have noted, an amateur has won it thrice, and one amateur has won it twice off his own bat, or club. The professional and amateur classes have thus been brought closer together. Maybe the latter give more time to it than they did a decade ago.

The victory of one amateur, Mr. Ball, made it likely that the victory would be repeated. It gave those who came after a better hope, and dispelled the nervousness that is likely to assail all but the least susceptible to such influences on finding an unprecedentedly great feat on the eve of accomplishment at their hands.

There are one or two amateurs who probably play as much golf as most of the professionals. Some of the latter have much of their time occupied with club making, but even this is not altogether wasted time, even from the strict golf-playing point of view; for the constant handling of the clubs that goes on in the shops is a means in itself of making the “feel” of the club familiar, and undoubtedly the power he has of making and altering his clubs exactly to his own fancy is a great point in the club-maker’s favour. There are one or two amateurs who are able to make and mend as well as the best professors of the art, and they have their reward. A boy, learnig golf as an amteur, would do well to pick up what smattering he can of the club-making mystery. It will serve him well in his golfing life, beside saving club-makers’ bills.

* N.B.—This was written previous to the Championship of 1898.

+ Unhappily, Mr. Allan was taken by a sadly premature death almost immediately after these lines were written.

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