166 THE AMERICAN GOLFER. ONDON, May

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1 66 THE AMERICAN GOLFER BY OUR BRITISH CORRESPONDENT. ONDON, May 92. It was freely prophesied during the winter that this would prove to be the busiest golfing season that we have ever had, and in previous notes I have given some hint of what we were to expect. The season has now set in with a great big rush, and it is the simple fact that never has the first month of the active part of the golfing year, meaning that following Easter, been anything like so busy as it has been this time. The days have been simply packed full of events, and some of the ordinary newspapers that do not pretend to make a speciality of golf and have generally been content to give but a very few paragraphs to it, have been in some cases devoting two or three columns to the results of meetings, and even at that giving nothing in very close detail. The competitions played have been of all kinds, amateur tournaments being held all over the country, while the professionals have now gone to work with a will. Without any doubt this is going to be the biggest boom year that the game has ever known. Golfers are said to be a lot of grumblers; and, to those not acquainted with the circumstances, it might seem that they are exceedingly cantankerous people for complaining that so early in the season they have been having too much fine weather, no rain and plenty of sun, whereas it too often happens at this time of the year that there is far too much rain and not enough sun. The case has, however, been very serious, for hardly a drop of rain fell throughout the month of April and all records were easily broken, while the sun blazed every day and all day long. The result was that the courses everywhere very soon became exceedingly dry and hard and unpleasant to play upon and were cracking long before the end of April, while the greenkeepers were in a dreadful state of anxiety, all their hopes being destroyed. Not until a drought of more than five weeks came to an end about a week back from now did the first rain fall, and there can be no doubt that what has happened has injured the courses for the whole of the year. However the conditions which have prevailed should have been somewhat to the liking of Mr. Fred Herreshoff who duly arrived from New York two or three weeks ago, although it means that he will have to do his real acclimatising later, and I should not be surprised now if the amateur championship tournament were played under very wet conditions. Mr. Herreshoff has kept himself very much in the background since his arrival, and, all the golfers being so busy, there has been less

2 68 THE AMERICAN GOLFER position to bother about him than might otherwise have been the case. I have not heard of his engaging in matches with any of our first class players though he may have done so and the fact kept very quiet. However we do know that he is practising hard all the time. I understand that he played his first game, after landing, at Hoylake, and that thereafter he proceeded to the neighborhood of Sandwich and played there. There has been so much going on that though we are so near to the time of the amateur championship, hardly anybody seems to realize the fact and the coming chief amateur competition of the year is not discussed. Mr. Hilton has been winning some club prizes down at Westward Ho! and this has led a few people to observe that he will take an awful lot of shifting from the championship tournament again this year, which is very likely the case. Mr. John Ball has also again been winning, and other people have consequently said the same thing about him. It seems almost certain that Mr. Maxwell will not play. However, we shall see in a very little while from now. Of all the team matches that are played in the old country in the course of the season there are two in which far greater interest is taken than in any of the others, and these are the amateur international match between England and Scotland and the University match between teams, representing the young golfers in residence at the Oxford and Cambridge Universities; and of these two matches the public is probably more interested in the latter than in the former even though it may be far less familiar with the names of the players. One reason for this being so is that the University match comes at the very beginning of the season and is often taken to mark the opening of the new year of golf, while the prospects of the sides are carefully discussed in the newspapers for many weeks in advance, and in recent years some very exceptional form has been shown by some of the young undergraduates, Mr. C. V. L. Hooman a couple of seasons back being taken into the English international side while still up at his University and winning the match for it after a sensational finish with Mr. Edward Blackwell. On the other hand there is so much jugglery and secrecy about the international match that the public think very little about it, and they are helped to this indifference by the fact that it takes place at a time when they are getting rather bored by big competitions and are very busy with their own game. Again, strange to say, the University match has taken place oftener than any other first-class match between sides. That which was really played on the course of the Prince's Club at Sandwich was the thirty-fourth in the long series, and it leaves the rival Universities just as they were in the matter of victories and defeats, for each side won four games and the match was halved, so that the score remains level, each side having achieved sixteen victories. The only other tie that ever took place occurred when the match was played at Wimbledon in 896. It might be mentioned also that this was the first time that an event of big importance had ever been played at on the Prince's course at Sandwich, which adjoins the course of the Royal St. George's Club on which the championships are played

3 7 THE AMERICAN GOLFER The Third Green, Sometimes Called "The Measured Mile" Green at Muirfleld, Where the British Open Championship is to Take Place This Year. in their turn, although it is fairly generally agreed that this is one of the very finest courses in the whole country and by many of the most competent judges is declared to be superior to St. Andrews or any other. British golfers, however, are very conservative in these and other matters, and perhaps it is just as well that they should be so; while clubs which are proprietary clubs, run in part for profit-making, also get on rather more slowly than others in these matters, and Prince's is a proprietary club, but probably the best of its class. I have already described it very fully in the pages of THE AMERICAN GOLFER. The Varsity match is played over thirty-six holes, eight players a side, and on this occasion it was very close all the way through, no fewer than five of the eight matches going to the thirtyfifth or thirty-sixth green. The last two games were exceedingly close, and it was not until the last hole was played that the result was fixed. Oxford, if she could have won that hole, would have won the match. There was a curious incident in the game between Mr. Holderness and Mr. Medrington at the second hole in the second round. Mr. Medrington, playing one off two, hit his cleek shot into a bunker and the ball was seen to drop into it, but nowhere could it be found. It was believed that it had burrowed its way into the sand; but, although some excavating work was done, nothing could be seen of it and it had to be given up as lost, Mr. Medrington therefore losing the hole. The results of the matches were as follows: Mr. J. F. Macdonnel (7 and 5) Mr. E. W. Holderness (7 and 6) Mr. A. J. Evans (3 and ) Mr. G D. Forrester Mr. L. L. S. Dodsworth Mr. J. L. S. Vidler Mr. A. R. Smith ( hole) Mr. M. Tennent Total OXFORD. Matches. 4

4 72 THE AMERICAN GOLFER Mr. F. M. M. Carlisle Mr. A. C. P. Medrington Mr. H. Gardiner-Hill Mr. H. M. Lloyd (3 and ) Mr. R. H. Fowler (3 and ) Mr. C. Gardiner-Hill (8 and 6) Mr. M. Woosnam Mr. B. P. Nevile (2 holes) Total CAMBRIDGE. Matches. 4 It happened that on the following week the new National County Golf Alliance, the ladies association which was formed by certain dissentients from the Ladies' Golf Union, were holding what they called an English championship, and most of the competitors were on the spot getting ready for the event. Thereupon the combined University players sportingly offered to play them a team match and to give them each a half. This duly came off on the following Monday and was interesting enough in its way. Singles were played in the morning and foursomes in the afternoon, and while a few of the ladies managed to win in the former the young men carried all before them in the foursomes, won all of the nine matches, and triumphed on the day by eighteen matches to five. One of the ladies, Mrs. McNail, who is a very long driver, distinguished herself by frequently driving past her opponent, while another lady, Mrs. Phillips, who defeated Viscount Castlerosse by three and two, had the distinction of not visiting a single bunker, which is a very unusual experience for anyone on this course which is as heavily bunkered as any in the world. Some other important foursome tournaments have been carried through, while the professional competition for the prizes given by the journals called the Sphere and Tatler are in full progress. In the case of the latter the players compete in qualifying tournaments held in sections in different parts of the country, and those who thus qualify individually are drawn together in foursomes by lot, and so they play through by match play. The qualifying competitions have been productive of some interesting golf, especially in the case of the southern division, including London, which was so numerous that the field had to be split up into two halves, who played on different courses on the same day, some of them on the course of the West Herts club and the others at Purley Downs. The top twelve were to qualify at each place. At West Herts P. J. Gaudin headed the field, and others who qualified in this division were Rowland Jones, J. H. Taylor and J. G. Sherlock. Taylor's score for the two rounds was 55 against Gaudin's 47. Most of the great talent which is now compressed into the metropolis (there are really all the best men in London now, for Herd and Edward Ray are now well settled down) turned out at Purley Downs, a good course situated high on chalk hills not far from Walton Heath. In this division, the twelve who qualified, with their scores, were: James Braid (Walton Heath)... E. Ray (Oxhey) Tom Ball (Raynes Park) Fred Robson (Cooden Beach) J. White (Sunning-dale) A. Herd (Coombe Hill) R. G. Wilson (Berkhamsted)... B. Nicholls (Seaford links) J. Hepburn (Home Park) J. Kinnell (Purley Downs) L. B. Ayton (Bishop's Stortford)... H. Vardon (South Herts) st Rd nd Rd. Tl Harry Vardon, it will be seen, came very near to not qualifying, but his play was really rather better than

5 74 THE AMERICAN GOLFER his score suggested. Braid's round of 72 in the afternoon tied with J. H. Taylor's competition record for the course. Brand's figures were: Out 2 In The final stages, when prizes to the cash value of $,75 will be played for, will take place at Hoylake a few days after the transmission of this despatch. Two other foursome tournaments that have taken place and have attracted much attention have been amateur events. In the first place there was the London amateur foursome tournament, which took place just after Easter. This competition, which is a knock-out match play affair confined to members of clubs within a reasonable distance of London, is now worked off all at once in three days on the same course, and this time it was held on the Mid- Surrey club's course at Richmond. The competition never has been a conspicuous success, but it just lingers on somehow. This year, after a tournament that was not vastly exciting, Northwood, represented by Messrs. R. W. Orr and J. Marshall, met Richmond, represented by Messrs. R. Temple Thomson and Mr. G. L. Leigh Clare in the final, and though Richmond were the holders Northwood beat them with ridiculous ease by five and four. Mr. Orr, one of the winning pair, is an old Scottish golfer, who has made his mark in the amateur championship tournaments though he has not come near winning. He only comparatively recently came south. Probably he knew more about the way in which the foursome game should be played than any other man in the competition, for he came from a part where that game is in greater esteem than it is in the south. The ordinary foursome is nearly dead in the great metropolitan golfing area, and many people cannot see any sort of sense in these so-called attempts to keep it alive. Men nowadays are not content to walk all the way round the links for half the proper amount of golf. Another important amateur foursome tournament is that which has again taken place on the Braid Hills, Edinburgh, for the trophy given by the Evening Dispatch newspaper. In this case the sides are drawn from the local clubs or societies that play on the fine course on the Braid, which is a public one, and consist of two pairs to each side. This year, after a contest which was watched by many thousands of persons, the winners were once again the four golfers who represented Stewart's College, who beat Portobello Change in the final by five and three. By way of making some sort of summary of other leading amateur events that have taken place, let me say that at the spring meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club at St. Andrews, this being, of course, the most important of the club meetings of the first part of the season, Mr. Edward Blackwell was once more successful in carrying off the chief prize, the historic Silver Cross, which he did with a score of 79, which was good considering that there was a fairly stiff breeze from the west which gave much trouble to the competitors on the homeward journey. For the second prize, the Bombay Medal, there was a triple tie between Mr. Walter Blackwell, Mr. Norman Hunter and Mr. G. G. Mellor at 83,

6 76 THE AMERICAN GOLFER and on these three playing off Mr, Norman Hunter won with 84. Nobody can win medals at St. Andrews in these days like Mr. Edward Blackwell, who has won about everything in amateur golf that is worth winning except the one big thing that Mr. Travis baulked him at. There is a common impression that the Royal and Ancient Club is the oldest in the land, and that its competitions are the oldest. Of course this is not the case, and the curious truth is that the oldest club and the oldest course are in London, within six or seven miles of the very heart of the great city, and the oldest spring meeting is also at this place, which is the public common at Blackheath, the club being the Royal Blackheath Golf Club which dates back from 68. Its spring medal has been played for continuously since 792, and it was played for once again towards the end of April and won by a golfer of no great renown, for indeed, magnificent as are the traditions of this club, and proud naturally as all the members are of it, the conditions under which the game is played there are not such as to tempt the best players to the place. To all intents and purposes the course is exactly the same as it has always been. The play is on a bare and flat public common, the only variations from dead monotony being a couple of old gravel pits, very large, and a small clump of small trees, duly fenced in. The public can roam all over the common, as they please, and, as this is a very populous part of London, they avail themselves freely of the privilege, especially the more youthful members of the public. Besides this, there are several footpaths intersecting the common which are constantly used, and many lamp posts. The last time I was there I saw a golfer risking a full brassey when a lamp post was, as he calculated, just about dead in his line and about forty yards in front. He felt convinced that his shot could not be true How Golf is Played on Blackheath Common Near London. The Royal Blackheath Club is the Oldest in England and Its Spring Medal Competition is Also the Oldest.

7 78 THE AMERICAN GOLFER enough to hit the lamp, and so he let fly, and you can guess the result. His ball hit the lamp and I have never seen a ball rebound so far, for it went back the best part of two hundred yards. As might be expected, the common is very hard, the grass is very tufty, and the lies are bad. The club, which is a rich one and has a fine clubhouse on the edge of the common does its best with the greens, but the public have access to them, and as it is the municipal authorities business to look after the place and they will not be meddled with,.not much can be done. There are but seven holes on the course, no room being left for more, and these seven are exactly the same as they have always been, the only change of any kind that has been made being the order in which they are played. Of course the place is kept up and golf is played on it plenty of it, too very largely for the sake of the traditions, and it is to be hoped that it always will be so. Playing there, I can tell you, is rather a trying experience. There is generally a crowd of little boys surrounding you when you are addressing the ball, they discuss your prospects of hitting it with each other, they will bet a cent or two that you miss it, and there is frequently a dog also taking a lively interest in the proceedings. Some day I will tell you more about this place, which is one of the wonders of the golfing world. Here and now I am only mentioning the subject in passing. Of other amateur events of some little consequence there has been the Army Championship, a regimental affair, which came off at Hoylake this year and was won by the Black Watch. Then there has been the Don Memorial Challenge Cup, played for again at Richmond, and won by Mr. H. E. Taylor, who followed this victory up with another one at the spring meeting at Sunningdale two or three days later. Mr. Taylor has been showing quite remarkable form this spring, and should go well in the championship. Also there was the Sussex County Championship, which was won by Mr. O. C. Bevan at Ashdown Forest, and I might mention also an event abroad, the Amateur Championship of Italy, in which some American players occasionally compete. It was played for this year at Florence, and was won by Mr. F. E. Dubs, a member of the Royal St. George's Club. Those were only a very few of the more interesting amateur events, picked at random, and now we may glance at a few more of the professional items that have been negotiated. It is rather early yet for the exhibition match season, as for the most part people are too busy with their own games in the early part of the year to busy themselves in watching others, however eminent, but for all that the leading players are getting well going with these exhibition matches, and have in fact been at them for three or four weeks. The great attraction throughout the season in this respect is to be Harry Vardon vs. James Braid, and this form of entertainment has been booked up for a remarkably large number of clubs. If one of the two should happen to win the Open Championship, than which there are many more unlikely things, the interest in these meetings will increase. It happened that the very first of the exhibition matches of any kind whatsoever to take place this season was

8 8 THE AMERICAN GOLFER a meeting between these two old friends and rivals, each five times winner of the Open Championship and each at his best, at St. Albans, a country place about twenty miles out of London. In the morning the two champions, and Penfold and Wallis, two minor professionals, the latter being the man attached to the course, played a medal round, Vardon coming out a good winner. He was in lovely form on this morning at the opening of the new season, and his score is a record for the course, as recently extended, though Wallis has been round in 73 from the forward tees. Vardon drove straighter than Braid, who was out of bounds at the seventh and had to lift and lose a stroke at the home hole. Penfold took 89, but the details of the other three were as follows: VARDON. Out 4 In BRAID. Out 4 In Out 5 In WALLIS In the afternoon a four-ball match was played, Vardon and Penfold beating Braid and Wallis by one hole. Vardon again was in great form, and his side's best ball score of 7 was practically his own score. The figures were: Out In BRAID AND WALLIS. Out 4 In VARDON AND PENFOLD. After that Vardon and Taylor came together in a match at Weybridge, another course just outside A Sign of the Times. A Notice Erected in a Ploughed Field at Humstanton, England, Intimating That Golf of a Popular Kind is to be Started There at Once. London. Both were driving long balls, and there was not much in it, but Vardon turned one up, and by holing an eight-yards putt at the seventeenth he won by two and one. He is still putting with the utmost confidence. The scores for this round were: VARDON. Out 4 In TAYLOR. Out 5 In In a four-ball match in the afternoon Harry Vardon was partnered by his cousin Walter Vardon, while

9 82 THE AMERICAN GOLFER Taylor had with him Mr. S. H. Fry, the well-known international amateur and championship finalist. Taylor and Mr. Fry won this time by three and one. All four men were driving wonderfully long balls, but their putting was weak. Scores: H. VARDON AND W. VARDON. Out 4 In TAYLOR AND S. H. FRY. Out 3 In Then at Leicester, Vardon, Braid. Edward Ray and George Duncan took part in a tournament. In the morning there was a four-ball match, Vardon being partnered with Braid and Ray with Duncan, and it ended all square, while a stroke competition in the afternoon resulted in a tie among Vardon, Braid and Duncan, each of whom did the round in 74. Most recent of all, Vardon met Edward Ray at the informal opening of the new course at Oxhey, near Bushey, also within the London area, this being the new course to which Ray has come south as professional. It is going to be a very fine thing, and rather less artificial than some of the others that have been constructed on the grand scale in recent times. The feature of this game was the most prodigious driving of Ray, who, always a long driver, was on this occasion at his very best. He sometimes outdrove Vardon by about fifty yards, and this seemed rather to upset the champion who began to go wrong frequently with his strokes through the green, cutting his iron shots and miscalculating distances. Ray was one up at the turn. The twelfth hole is 489 yards. Ray was on the green with two great shots and he holed his putt for a 3. I think we are going to see some wonderful things done this season judging by the taste that we have already had of them. Scores: RAY. Out 4 Home VARDON. Out 4 5 Home In recounting the deeds of the professionals, I should also mention that two or there weeks since a party of them went over to Monte Carlo in the south of France to play on the new course there which I have already described. The thirty-six holes competition was won by Arnaud Massy, the French champion, with a score of 47. He is always exceedingly difficult to beat anywhere on the continent, and is reported to be playing exceedingly well this season, and to have a good chance for the championship again. He has just come over to North Berwick for the summer season. In this competition Vardon took 5 and Braid 5, while Taylor was not so good as either. A foursome competition by strokes was also held in which the professionals were partnered by amateurs, the results being as follows: Arnaud Massy (Nivelle) and M. Vig liano, 72. B. Skoyles (Monte Carlo) and Mr. Percy Quilter, 75. Jean Gassiat (Chantilly) and Mr. Puxley, 78. J. H. Taylor (Mid-Surrey) and Mr. A. E. Clark, 79. James Braid (Walton Heath) and Mr. W. Lethbridge, 82. Harry Vardon (South Herts and Captain Cyril Foley, 84. Probably at one time or another

10 84 THE AMERICAN GOLFER many American players will see and play upon this new course at Monte Carlo, the famous gambling resort which attracts visitors from all nations, and to the description which I gave of it in a previous issue I may here add a few brief impressions of the professionals who visited it on this occasion. They declare it to be one of the most stupendous engineering feats that have ever been attempted in the way of golf course construction. It is perched upon Mont Agel at a height of 23 feet, and when the surrounding country is seen the spectator-player who gets up there is amazed at the splendid persistence of the promoters, the boldness of teh scheme, and the courage of the first person who even thought of the possibility of ever playing golf up there. The course has been literally hewn out from rocks and stones, and, although there are still plenty of them left, the grass is being made to grow nicely. Ten of the holes can be reached in one shot from the tee, so it is a short course, but in character it is so mountainous, and the possibilities of adventure are so numerous, that, to say the least, the golf obtained there is not insipid. The journey by motor up the narrow winding road to the course is in itself an adventurous thing. Besides all this, the ladies have been at it with all their might, and as already this is the very height of their competitive season, I must make some mention of their doings. Their busy time always begins with a big meeting at Ranelagh, when international matches and competitions are played. On this occasion England won the international match with a score of 626 against 63 by Scotland, 645 by Ireland and 77 by Wales. The Wimbledon club won the Pearson Cup, and Miss Cecil Leitch secured the scratch prize and gold medal for the best score of the meeting. Miss Field won the putting tournament. Following this there was the usual big open meeting at Barnehurst at which 5 ladies competed, Miss Doris Chambers winning the scratch prize with a wonderful score of 76 which beat the record for the course by four strokes, her figures being: Out 6 In Miss Cecil Leitch was second with 82 and Miss Lily Moore third with 83. After this Miss Cecil Leitch won the "Golf Illustrated" Gold Cup at How Mr. Harry Dearth Played Golf in a Full Suit of Armour in England on St. George's Day.

11 86 THE AMERICAN GOLFER St. George Doing His Best in the Circumstances With An Iron Shot. Bushey Hall with two rounds of 85 and 9, giving her a total of 75, and this series of meetings was wound up with another one at Parklangley where Miss Helme of Leatherhead won the scratch prize with a score of 82. All this took place in a little over a week, and the ladies went on from one meeting to another. Now when I write, they are all gathering together at Turnberry in Ayrshire, Scotland, for their championship meeting, which begins on the 3th inst. The entries number 8 which is four in excess of last year. Miss Dorothy Campbell, now of Ontario, is not defending her title and Miss E. Grant Suttie, who won two years ago, is another absentee. There are no American competitors this time, but Miss Florence Harvey, ex-champion of Canada and Miss Nancy Parbury, champion of Australia, are in, and as luck will have it, are drawn together in the very first round. No fewer than five of the sisters Leitch have entered, and two of them are drawn together at the outset. A brilliant meeting is anticipated, and I hope to give some account of what took place next time. The exigencies of the mail will not permit of my doing so this time. I think that with all these details I get rid of the vast amount of more or less important competitive golf that has been played here since this busy season opened. Amidst it all there has been a curious diversion of which I am sending some photographic illustrations. In this country we say that America is the land of freak golf, but there is a fair amount of it done here from time to time, and a very fine specimen has just been brought out. It happens that one of the best of our concert and stage singers, Mr. Harry Dearth, is a good golfer, and he was recently appearing at one of the London theatres in the part of St. George, the patron saint of England, in which part he had to appear clad in a full suit of shining armour and coat of mail. It was real, heavy armour made of medal and it jingled and clanked in the proper way when its wearer walked about. A man to

12 88 THE AMERICAN GOLFER whom he had been giving strokes saw him on the stage in this apparel, and said afterwards that if he would only play him in that costume he would reverse the odds and play him for anything he liked. A match for a wager was fixed up, but as Mr. Dearth would clearly have some difficulty in getting about, it was agreed that it should be over only nine holes. St. George's Day, April 23 was nigh, and it was agreed to play the match on that day at Bushey. It duly came off, and as it was a fine day never did armour worn by any man shine better than that worn by Mr. Dearth who did indeed present a strange spectacle on the first tee. The match was watched by a large crowd of spectators who travelled down from London specially for the purpose. It was a condition of the match that he should play exactly as he appeared on the stage, but after the first hole his opponent consented to the removal of one small piece of armour from the thigh, as this bit really made his shots impossible. As it was, the handicap was too much for him. He did very well with half shots with irons to which he tried to confine himself, but he satisfied himself that ordinary golf clothes are the best things for golf, and his opponent, Mr. R. G. Margetson, won the match by three and one. And now, finally, I must just make mention of some more serious matters, the news of which is just to hand. At the spring business meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club the Rules Committee submitted a report in which it was proposed to make certain alterations to the rules. It was stated that these would be printed and circulated among the members of the club as soon as the Committee had had time to draw them up, and they hoped that that would give golfers in general an opportunity to look into them and consider them before the September meeting, when they would be brought up for approval. This giving of notice marks a new departure and one which has many times been recommended. The nature of the new rules was not announced, but I have reason to believe that they will include a recommendation making more severe than it is at present the penalty for driving a ball out of bounds, there being a general feeling that the loss of distance only is not sufficient punishment. St. Of more interest and importance George is Badly Bunkered, But Makes a Good Recovery.

13 9 THE AMERICAN GOLFER than this, however, is the Rules Committee's announcement that they feel that bogey play is now so popular and general that they propose to adopt a code of bogey rules. The Committee will draw up such a code, and it will then rest with the club to decide whether this or any other code should be embodied in the rules of the game. So at last, after swearing that it never would have anything to do with bogey, St. Andrews has yielded, or is in process of yielding, and this does indeed mark an important departure in policy. The Club has now a difficult question to settle, for there are two rival codes of bogey rules in this country, one leaning to the stroke idea of the game like the American code, and the other to the match-play idea. There is likely to be a violent controversy between now and September upon this question. Mr. Walter E. Fairlie has been nominated for the captaincy of the Royal and Ancient Club in succession to Sir Ludovic Grant, whose year of office comes to an end in September.