THE BRITISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP

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1 THE BRITISH OPEN CHAMPIONSHIP FINE VICTORY OF EDWARD RAY HOW McDERMOTT FAILED BY OUR BRITISH CORRESPONDENT. The fifty-second Open Championship is a thing of the past, and the man who came through the ordeal best of all and became the champion golfer of the year is one who has never accomplished that feat before, though on several occasions he has finished high up in the list, and for years past there has been a feeling that he ought, on his merits, to become a champion at least once. That man is Edward Ray, now of the Oxhey Club near London, formerly of Ganton in Yorkshire, and a native of Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, like Harry Vardon. In the Foreign Notes in this issue, I have given some particulars of his career and his golfing ways, and there is no necessity to state any more facts concerning him here. It need only just be said that without any doubt he played the best golf of all who were at Muirfield, and his professional friends had so much confidence in him that in their betting they made him their favorite from the very start. He fully justified their confidence, for he headed his section in the qualifying competition, and then in the competition proper he took the lead at the start, never lost it, and at the finish was one of the easiest winners on record. To begin with, let me state the system on which this year's championship was decided, for in some respects it was a new one. The controlling authorities have for a long time been in doubt and difficulty as to how to work the qualifying competition, which, on account of the large number of entries that are sent in these days, is a necessity. All kinds of schemes have been tried, and none of them has been satisfactory. That which was adopted this year was perhaps in many ways better than the others, but it cannot be said for it that it was wholly satisfactory. It seems absurd to have three days for the qualifying competition and then only two for the championship, and it also seems hard on the competitors who play fine golf in the former that their scores should not count in the competition proper, as they do not. Thus Tom Ball made the record of the course with a wonderful 68 in the qualifying stage. (Copyright, 1912, by the American Golfer, Inc. All rights reserved.)

292 THE AMERICAN GOLFER However, the scores certainly cannot count while the various sections are engaged on different days and under different conditions.

2 292 THE AMERICAN GOLFER However, the scores certainly cannot count while the various sections are engaged on different days and under different conditions. The system, then, was that the field should be split up into three sections, called A, B and C, and, as there were 215 entries this year, nearly all of whom played, there were about seventy men drawn for each section. These sections played on consecutive days, and all the players in each section had to do two rounds, the top twenty and all who tied for the twentieth place then going forward to the competition proper which was decided in the old way by four rounds of stroke play, two on one day and two on the next. The three sections played on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 20, 21 and 22, and the championship proper was carried through on the following Monday and Tuesday, June 2 and 25. The Muirfield course belongs to the Honorable Company of Edinburgh Golfers, one of the oldest and most exclusive golf clubs in the country. Many alterations had been made on the links since the last championship was played on it, which was the amateur event in which Mr. Jerome Travers fared so badly. The order of the holes had been rearranged, some of them had been lengthened, and many new bunkers had been cut. On the whole, the changes certainly made for an improvement in the course, and, as it was for the championship week, it was certainly a first-class test of the game, the only real fault in it being the putting greens, which had some bad patches on them and were in a great state of stubbliness due to the young grass, helped by heavy rains, having been growing so quickly and having had to be so frequently cut. This to some extent accounts for the fact that the standard of putting all the way through the championship Edward Ray, the Open champion of 1912.

THE AMERICAN GOLFER 293 Geo. Duncan putting on the thirteenth green. was very poor indeed much worse than I have known it at any championship for years past.

3 THE AMERICAN GOLFER 293 Geo. Duncan putting on the thirteenth green. was very poor indeed much worse than I have known it at any championship for years past. The players complained that the difficulties of the kind I have indicated which were set them were considerably aggravated by the fact that the greenkeeper cut the holes day after day in bad places, which it was often difficult or impossible to get at. That the figures I shall hereafter quote may be better understood I will give the lengths of the various holes which were as follows: Out ,356 In ,089 Total length (yards) 6,5 Now for the play, the description of which, with so much of it being done, must be confined to the leading features. In Section A, which played on the Thursday, there were James Braid, George Duncan, Rowland Jones, Alexander Herd and a few other shining lights, and most important, from the American point of view, there were Mr. J. G. Anderson and J. J. McDermott, the only two American candidates at the meeting. So far as this section is concerned it is enough to say of the British com- petitors that James Braid was not putting very well, but qualified easily, and that the man who came out at the top of the list was George Duncan, with scores of and 73, which gave him an aggregate of 19. Many people were expecting him to win the championship this time, for he is playing better golf than ever and is not quite so hasty in his methods as he used to be. His 73 was a really brilliant performance in all departments of the game, and if he had had the least luck in the putting it would have been three or four strokes less. His short game was really magnificent, and he was driving a long and straight ball all the time. His card for the 73 was as follows: Out 3 In Mr. J. G. Anderson never really got on to anything like his best game, and he, like McDermott, was much bothered by the wind which on this day came from the west for the first time for weeks, and a west wind makes the course far more difficult than at other times. Although the first hole is a comparatively short one it is a difficult green to get at, and with the wind dead against the players on this

29 THE AMERICAN GOLFER occasion, everybody, including Braid himself, was needing wood to get there. Braid took to the hole in his morning round and 5 in the afternoon, and Mr.

4 29 THE AMERICAN GOLFER occasion, everybody, including Braid himself, was needing wood to get there. Braid took to the hole in his morning round and 5 in the afternoon, and Mr. Anderson was one of the comparatively few players who took it in 3 in his morning round. It was a promising beginning but it was not sustained. His shots were going wrong all the time up to the turn which was reached in a total of strokes, and he needed 3 for the return journey, his round being made up as follows: Out In If it had all been as good as the finish it would have served his purpose well. In the afternoon he was again very erratic, and another 87 left him with practically no chance of qualifying, his second round working out as follows: Out In As a matter of fact, the second card was not returned, and I had to take the figures from Mr. Anderson himself. Now for McDermott, and it is a rather sad tale. He was as usual in great confidence, and his extreme youth and lack of experience were to some extent discounted by this fact. But for all that it is experience that he needs, and that which he got at Muirfield will be very valuable to him in the future. He will not make the same mistakes again that he did then. He was set to start his first round about half past ten, immediately in front of George Duncan. A good number of spectators followed him for the first few holes. He made a fair beginning, but he made the mistake at the beginning of driving a high ball, and he kept on with it all the time. With the wind that was blowing at Muirfield on that day a high ball was always dangerous, and it was that and the hook which he puts on all his wooden club shots or did at Muirfield at any rate that The seventh tee at Muirfield, showing the wall and woods of Archerfield running parallel and close to the line of play. It was into these woods that McDermott drove three balls in the qualifying round, taking 8 for the hole and spoiling his chances of qualifying.

THE AMERICAN GOLFER 295 Continuation of the line of play to the eighth hole at Muirfield, where McDermott failed. is just beyond the bunkers in the distance.

5 THE AMERICAN GOLFER 295 Continuation of the line of play to the eighth hole at Muirfield, where McDermott failed. is just beyond the bunkers in the distance. eventually brought about his great disaster. He was bunkered just short of the green and on the left hand side of it with his first tee shot, but he got well out, and he only missed his 3 by an inch. At the second hole he was on the green in 3, and had then a run up of twenty yards, very nearly holing. The third hole he took in 5, which was one stroke too many, and he putted very badly on the fourth green. He was on in two, but a long way past the hole on a very large green. He ran up to within two yards, but then putted eighteen inches past the hole and missed the return putt. All this was not particularly good, but he was by no means in danger, and at the long straight fifth hole which follows he did much to put matters right, for he took it in an excellent. He had hooked his tee shot into the rough, but then with an iron club he played a splendid shot a little to the right of the green, ran up stone dead and put the little one down without any difficulty. There was, however, more trouble at the sixth, for he was bunkered to the right of the green with his second and was in such a The green position that he was obliged to play out in the direction of another bunker which caught him. From there he got out on to the green some fifteen yards from the pin, and in such a place that it seemed impossible to hole his putt, but, playing it very nicely, he ran it down and got out of it all very well with a 5. Then the most serious trouble came. The line of play to the seventh hole at Muirfield is alongside the stone wall which surrounds the course, and coming right up to the wall on the other side are the woods of Archerfield. The straight line to the hole is probably not more than about fifty yards from the wall, which was on the left. The main point is, however, that the west wind that was blowing right across the line of play in the direction of the wall and the woods, and McDermott's hook also, made a great tendency for the ball to go over towards the forest. If he had only thought this matter out beforehand he must surely have realized the danger of the situation, and played far out to the right for safety. He could not have given the matter a moment's consideration, but I cannot

6 296 THE AMERICAN GOLFER help saying that when his first shot went over the wall, he should have taken the warning. He added to all the other risks by playing another high ball from his seventh tee, and over the wall it went out of bounds, of course. The second ball was played in exactly the same way, and it went in the same direction. A third followed it into the woods. The fourth he kept a little lower, but he still hooked it and let the wind do its worst, and it was only prevented from going over by hitting the wall. From his next shot he was bunkered, he was on the green in six and holed out in eight. This was a terrible experience, and he exhibited no capacity for pulling himself together after it. It made it necessary for him to steady up if he was going to qualify, but there was still plenty of time and opportunity if he had done so. The eighth is a long hole and he took six to it, which was one too many, and he dropped another stroke at the ninth, and was out in the terrible score of 8. He started back badly, and was all over the place with his wooden club shots. The tenth, eleventh and twelfth cost him six strokes each, though they might have been got in fours, and were at any rate very simple fives. A stroke was dropped again at the short fourteenth, but another six was done at the fifteenth. After this he finished steadily. He nearly holed his pitch shot at the sixteenth, and the last two holes fell to him in the par each. These last three and the long fifth were really the only holes that he played properly. His score for the round was: Out In His case then looked very bad indeed, but he had still some confidence left and when I talked to him at lunch time he said he would make a desperate effort to do a 73 or something of that kind in the afternoon ana squeeze into the qualifying twenty after all. As a matter of fact, if he had only played anything at all like well in his second round he might still have qualified. A lot of bad scores were coming in (although I may tell you that his 91 was one of the very worst of the day but not quite the worst) and though, of course he did not know it at the time, 168 was the highest qualifying number when all the returns were made, so that if he had done a in the afternoon he would have been in. Duncan, as I have shown, did a 73 in the afternoon and Rowland Jones did a. McDerrnott started steadily, but after the turn he began to drop strokes again, and it was his weak homeward half more than anything else that finally settled him. In the circumstances it would not be of much use to describe all his shots, and so I will just give the figures, which were as follows: Out In This, of course, made his aggregate for the two rounds 172, which was four strokes too many to qualify with. He seemed very depressed when he had finished and stayed round about the scoring board for some time watching the cards coming in and hoping against hope that his would be good enough to get him through. At the time that he finished there were only about ten in that were better, but more than half the field were still playing, and long before they had all finished he knew that he was out of it and had done with the championship. There was a general feeling of sympathy with him, for most of us felt that if he had played like the

7 THE AMERICAN GOLFER 297 game that we knew he could play he would have qualified easily, and we should like to have seen him in the championship proper. I am not going to make any remarks about the comparative quality of British and American golf, but I cannot help thinking that many of your people who come over here for our championships do not sufficiently appreciate the magnitude of the task they are undertaking. They are in a strange country, on courses of a character quite different from their own, and so they are to some extent handicapped, but apart from that they are opposed to much bigger and stronger fields than they are at home, and they have got to realize that only their very best will be good enough and that even that might fail them. I am writing this sympathetically, for I should like to see the Americans do better than they are doing when they come over here, and so would the great majority of British golfers. We do not want them to win our championships, but we should like to see them last more than one round after coming so far. Mr. Travers fell at the first pop at Muirfield, Mr. "Chick" Evans made a good show at Prestwick but not good enough and he was beaten when he never ought to have been; Mr. Herreshoff and Mr. Vanderpool were beaten straight away at Westward Ho! and now M'Dermott fails even to qualify. There has only been one American success in England so far, and there will be no more unless the visiting players face the big problem before them in a more careful, thoughtful and thorough manner. I will now describe as briefly as I can what happened afterwards. On the following day, when the second section did its business, Edward Ray, who played very fine golf and had rounds of and, headed the list, Harry Vardon being 156 and J. H. Taylor 158. Ray was driving a tremendous ball all the time, and he reached the eighth green in two shots dead against the wind, being the only man to do so. On the Saturday, when the third section played its qualifying rounds, there was an extraordinary score of 68 made by Tom Ball, the professional attached to the Raynes Park Club near London, who has on two occasions been second for the Open Championship. This 68 is record for the course, and there is only one other championship course which has its record so low and that is Prestwick. It was not a bit of a fluky round, for it might easily have been two or three strokes less if putts that lipped the hole had gone down. was made up as follows: Out In In the afternoon he took things easily and did a, his aggregate of 1 easily placing him at the top of his section, Arnaud Massy being among the others who qualified in it. One of the amateurs, Mr. C. B. Macfarlane, did a 7, which is amateur record of the course in its altered state, but there were about a dozen other amateurs playing and only two others besides Macfarlane qualified. The amateurs indeed failed miserably at Muirfield. On the Friday Captain Hutchison and Mr. Jack Graham went out, and on the third day of the qualifying Mr. Robert Maxwell, Mr. John Ball, the amateur champion, and Mr. Hilton were among those who failed. Mr. Maxwell would have got in if he had played the sixteenth hole in the morning at all decently, but he lost his ball from the tee and then made a It

8 298 THE AMERICAN GOLFER howling mess of things afterwards taking nine to the hole. Mr. Ball, who never does well at Muirfield, was off his game, and Mr. Hilton did and, which was two strokes many for qualifying purposes. He was playing below his form and putting very indifferently. It turned out that sixty-two men qualified and went forward to the championship proper on the Monday and Tuesday. The play in the first and second rounds of the real competition, on Monday, was thoroughly good. George Duncan was the first to take the lead with a fine 72, but an hour later Edward Ray came in with a 71, and this, with the 71 that Braid did in the afternoon, were the best scores of the day. James Braid started in the morning by putting badly, but he was very good afterwards, and was at his best in the afternoon. Harry Vardon made two steady rounds of 75 and 72, and at the end of the day the position of the leaders was this: Edward Ray Harry Vardon James Braid George Duncan Ray was a good favorite then for the championship, for not only was he driving such an enormous length all the time but he was playing his short game very steadily and putting well. Both Braid and Vardon did something to help him in the critical third round next morning. The former was weak in his putting at the beginning, but struck an awful patch at the seventh, eighth and ninth, chiefly through bad bunker troubles for all of which he was not responsible his ball getting some bad kicks. Each of these holes cost him six, and it must be a very long time since Harry Vardon had three sixes in succession in the championship or any other game of golf. His round worked out to, which was a terrible thing. Then Braid opened badly with three 5's, and although he steadied down afterwards, this bad start proved very expensive Edward Ray bunkered alongside the fourteenth green in his third round for the championship.

9 THE AMERICAN GOLFER 299 Ray putting on the tenth green the last day of the championship. to him. On the other hand Ray made an excellent start, getting three 3's to begin with, reaching the edge of the green (330 yards) at the third with his tee shot. He was out in 36 and home in 0, his card being: Out 3 In The state of things at the end of this round, when only one more was left for play, was: Ray Braid Duncan Vardon Ray all the time was playing in front of Vardon and Braid and had not the advantage of knowing what he had to do to keep in front of them, Vardon was in the next couple behind him and Braid was six more couples after that. Braid could do nothing better than, but Harry Vardon made a most desperate effort to catch the leader up, although it seemed such an absolutely hopeless task. Still if Ray had faltered Harry would have been on to him. I don't think that in the whole of his championship career has the great Harry Vardon made a more magnificent effort than he did in this fourth round to retrieve the bad fortunes of the morning, and retain the championship title. It was magnificent, and showed the sterling qualities of the man. He knew that nothing but extreme brilliance would be of any use, and so he decided to go for everything and take every possible risk. He did so and nearly everything came off. His 71 was the best round of the day and it was a most sterling achievement, but it came too late, for Ray never let him in. His card was: Out In Ray perhaps was a trifle nervous for the first time in his life at the beginning of his last round, and at the eighth and ninth, where he dropped a couple of strokes, he said to Sherlock, his partner, that he felt rather afraid of Harry Vardon and was sure that the great Harry was doing wonders just behind him. However, he quieted down after that and played some beautifully steady golf to the end. At the sixteenth he tried to play short of the bunker guarding the green with an iron but was caught, and still made a fine recovery, losing nothing. He was bunkered at one or

10 300 THE AMERICAN GOLFER two other places, including the short fourteenth, but except for the sixteenth, just mentioned, he took every hole on the homeward journey in four, and his card of 75 was made as follows: Out In With that he was a certain winner of the championship at twenty minutes to four in the afternoon, and as soon as he had holed out on the last green there were roaring cheers from the two thousand people who were looking on and Ray was carried on the shoulders of some of his friends to the professionals' tent where there was much rejoicing. It was a most popular victory. The prize list and final scores were as follows: E. Ray, Oxhey, 50 Championship Gold Medal and Cup ( 25) H. Vardon, Totteridge ( 15) J. Braid, Walton Heath ( 10) Geo. Duncan, Hanger Hill ( 7/10) A. Herd, Coombe Hill ( 7/10) L. Ayton, Bishop's Stortford ( 3/6/8) R. G. Wilson. Berkhamstead ( 3/6/8) J. Gassiat, Chantilly ( 3/6/8) F. Collins, Llandudno Other aggregates were: A. Massy, Nivelle C. H. Mayo, Burhill J. H. Taylor, Mid-Surrey R. Thomson, North Berwick G. C. Fotheringham, Carnoustie H. Moran, Royal Dublin. H. McNeil, Portrush... T. Williamson, Notts... F. Leach, Northwood... 1st 2d 3d th rd. rd. rd. rd. Ttl T. G. Renouf, Manchester W. H. Horne, Chertsey.. J. D. Edgar, Northumberland W. E. Reid, Banstead Downs P. J. Gaudin, Fulwell... P. E. Taylor, Woodbridge F. H. Frostick, Bleakdown T. Ball, Raynes Park... Rowland Jones, Wimbledon Park C. Roberts, Woolton... J. B. Batley, Bushey Hall C. W. Pope, Fort William E. Jones, Chislehurst... J. Sherlock, Stoke Poges. Ben Savers, Jr., Royal Wimbledon W. M, Watt, Dirleton... J. White, Sunningdale... D. Grant, North Berwick. C. Johns, Ashford J. Lome, Bromley J. Ockenden, Wembley... Hon. Michael Scott, Royal North Devon C. Hughes, Chester. J. Adwick, Trentham... P. Robertson, Braid Hill. Josh. Taylor, Acton E. Cawkwell, Guildford.. C. R. Smith, W. Middlesex T. Fernie, Twinberry... C. H. Corlett, Dorset... W. Hambleton, Anson... A. Gray, Colchester A. G. Hallam, Manchester E. Sinclair, Leith J. Bradbeer, Porter's Parth C. Wallis, Verulam Mr. C. B. Macfarlane, Bushey Tom Beck, Clevedon Geo. Braid, St. Andrew's. J. Kay, Seaton Carew... S. O. Shepherd, Innerleven The following players did not complete the seventy-two holes; G. Mc- Dowall (Newmarket), G. V. Tuck (South Staffs), and James Hepburn (Home Park).

402 THE AMERICAN GOLFER. ONDON, July 10, 1912.

402 THE AMERICAN GOLFER. ONDON, July 10, 1912. 2 THE AMERICAN GOLFER BY OUR BRITISH CORRESPONDENT. ONDON, July, 92. Edward Ray, the new Open Champion, is in all respects a most interesting personality. He is now thirtyfour years of age, was born at