Fifty Years of Golf

by Horace G. Hutchinson

CHAPTER IV

THE SPREAD OF GOLFING IN ENGLAND

It seems to me that the establishment of the Club at Westward Ho! and the discovery that it was possible to play golf, and the very best of golf, in England, even as in Scotland, sent a new thrill of life into all the dormant golfing energies of the country. It stirred up the Blackheathens; then it led to the institution of the Golf Club associated with the London Scottish Volunteers, which was later to develop a schism, of which one division became the Royal Wimbledon Golf Club. The great man of the volunteers was the still present Lord Wemyss,[3] then Lord Elcho, and he was as keen a golfer as rifle shot. To us at Westward Ho! the Wimbledon Club sent down Henry Lamb, Dr. Purves and many more; but these two were perhaps their strongest. Of the Blackheathens I have spoken, but I want to give a special word to Mr. Frank Gilbert, both because he was especially kind, of all the others, to me as a boy and also because his gift of nomenclature survives in the popular name still often ascribed to one of the Westward Ho! holes. At times of excitement his aspirates used to fly. He was perfectly aware of it and did not in the least mind gentle chaff on the subject. I even think he often sent them flying purposely, for sake of effect. After all, he used just as many aspirates as anyone else, only that he used them in rather different places: that was all. The hole that his genius named was that which is now the ninth, and its naming was on this wise: after hacking his ball out of first one bunker, thence into another, and from that into a third, he exclaimed in accents of inspiration and despair, "I call this 'ole the halligator 'ole, because it's full of gaping jaws waiting to devour you." Therefore the "halligator 'ole" it remained for many a year afterwards and is so known to some even to this day. I remember another exclamation of his that gave us purest joy at the time, when, having made what he believed to be a lovely shot over a brow to a "blind" hole in a hollow he ran up to the top of the brae in exultation, only to turn back with tragic dismay on his face and on his lips the eloquent expostulation, "Oh, 'ell, they've haltered the 'ole." I used to play him for a ball—a shilling gutta-percha ball—on the match, and for a long while, when I was a boy, we were fairly equal, and how often, towards the end of the match, he would miss a short putt in order that he might pay me the shilling, and not I him, I should be sorry to say. I know it was pretty frequently.

And then this thrill of new golfing life started at Westward Ho! communicated itself to the many Scots established in Liverpool, so that in 1869 they so far organised themselves as to institute that which is now the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, playing at Hoylake. What that meant for us at Westward Ho! was that men of Hoylake came down to play matches with our local heroes and to take part in our medal competitions. There were Mr. John Dunn and Mr. John Ball, the father of our many times champion. Colonel Hegan Kennard was another who was associated with the Hoylake club, though his association with Blackheath was closer—of that venerable Club he was Field Marshal for very many years. But some of the first of the big matches, matches with sums of money depending on their result which seemed to me fabulous in days when a sixpence in the pocket was a rare coin, were those which were planned by the enterprise of Captain Molesworth—himself and Johnnie Allan in partnership against Mr. John Dunn and Jack Morris, who had come as professional to Hoylake. Now John Dunn made very much more show as a player than the old Mole. "The mole—an animal that keeps to the ground" was a definition which we used to be fond of quoting as we grew out of the years of veneration to those of impertinence. He had an absolute inability to drive the ball any height in the air. No other man ever played golf so cheaply as the old Mole: he had but three clubs, sometimes profanely stigmatized as Faith, Hope and Charity, a driving weapon of sorts, an iron and a putter, which he carried himself, never taking a caddie, and his ball was generally of the colour of a coal from long and ill usage. But he would bet you £50 on a match if you cared about it, and would play you with fine pluck to the very finish. He was in fact a miserable driver; nor was there any "class" or science at all about his iron play. But he would shovel the ball along, and up to the green somehow or other with his iron: he had a knack of getting there; and when once on the green there was not nor ever has been a better putter.

Now the man who has his wits about him, to perceive what this description implies, will see that it is the description of an uncommon good partner in a foursome. And he was all the better partner on account of the way in which the chances of any match in prospect were likely to be reckoned; for John Dunn might argue it out, "I can give Molesworth a third," which he probably could, "and John Allan cannot give Jack Morris a third," which he surely could not, "therefore we have the best of it." That looks logical, but it leaves out the important fact that the Molesworth qualities were just those of most value to a strong driver like Johnnie Allan, while his short game and his pluck were clear assets to the good. In fact he and Johnnie Allan used to get round the course in scores that Allan himself would not think amiss, and they had all the better of these matches against the men of Hoylake.

The Hoylake men came to Westward Ho! and Captain Molesworth took himself and his sons to Hoylake. Arthur Molesworth won the medal there when he was only a boy at school, and I remember with awe and admiration hearing his father describe how the boy had to sit beside the Mayor of Liverpool at the Club dinner and of all the mighty honour done him. And the present-day golfer should make no mistake about it nor doubt that this Arthur Molesworth was a very fine golfer. George Gossett beat him, in a set match that they played, but I think that Molesworth, who was several years younger, was really the finer golfer. Certainly he had greater power. He played in an ugly style, with a short swing, but his driving was long and he could play all his clubs. There were several years during which he was certainly the best amateur golfer that England had then produced, and I think he was better than any in Scotland. A few years later he went far towards proving it; but I will come to that story in its place.

An Old Westward Ho! Group.
From left to right: Mr. P. Wilmot, Mr. T. Oliphant (of Rossie), Major Hopkins, Hon C. Carnegie, J. Allan, Admiral Thrupp, General Maclean, Sir R. Hay, General Sir Hope Grant, Mr. T. MacCandlish (putting), Rev. T. Gosset, Colonel Hutchinson, Mr. J. Brand, Mr. Peter Steel, Mr. R. Molesworth, Mr. Lindsay Bennett, General Wilson, Mr. Eaton Young. Sitting: Mr. Baldwin, Colonel Hegan Kennard, Mr. George Gosset.
Mr. John Dunn (driving), Captain Molesworth, R.N.

Thomas Owen Potter (Hon. Sec. from 1882 to 1894 Royal Liverpool Golf Club).