Fifty Years of Golf

by Horace G. Hutchinson

H.H. Hilton.

Really it was rather hard luck: if only they had deferred that extension of the test, from thirty-six to seventy-two holes, for one year more I might have written myself open champion, but it was not to be; and as it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, so that extra day gave Hilton just the opportunity he wanted. I can see him now as he came up to the last hole—I had gone out to meet him hearing that he had been doing very well—walking along at top speed, chatting volubly with his friends, very pleased with himself, as he well might be, brimful of confidence and with the smoke trailing up from his cigarette, even while he was playing the ball, so that it seemed impossible that he could see through it to hit the ball correctly. But he did hit it mighty correctly, for all that, and won the championship. I believe he did several conjuring tricks during the course of the round, such as holding mashie pitches from the edge of the green. But however he did it, he won, and therewith, from that time forward, established himself as very distinctly the best amateur score-player that we have ever seen. Of that there can be no question.

So far as I can make out I played very little golf in 1893. Probably I was amusing myself with being ill, in some form or other, but in 1894, I had golf and greatness thrust upon me by being elected captain of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club. The local people showed me no little kindness, and made my year of office very pleasant. I stayed at the ever hospitable house of Alec Sinclair, most cheery of companions, just beside the links, and I see by the record that they were kind enough to let me win the first medal on the first day of the spring meeting and again the first medal on the first day of the autumn meeting. The following year I was not at the spring meeting, but at the autumn meeting I won the first medal on both days. The next year again I won the second medal on both days of the autumn meeting—rather a quaint record and one that I am proud of.

I am proud, because those Hoylake medals were not very easy to win. The local talent, with Johnny Ball and Hilton always on hand—Jack Graham was not yet a force to reckon with—was very formidable. But I remember that on one of these winning occasions I had a portentous piece of luck. It was playing to the then third hole. We drove from the present second tee, but the green was about where some estimable gentleman's dining-room now stands—far to the left of the present second green. It was a ridge and furrow green, so that though you could reach the hole with an iron club for the second shot you were grateful enough if you holed out in four. By some providential chance my second, with the driving iron, found its way into the hole, saving two clear shots. It is the biggest and best fluke I ever had on a medal day, and I took good advantage of it.

By way of showing what an extraordinary condition the handicapping at some of the Clubs had fallen into at that date, I may note that Johnny Ball, Hilton and I were all handicapped at Hoylake, for a short time about this period, at plus eleven! You see what the effect was—you see what kind of player a scratch player would be, when there were such penalty handicaps as this. As a matter of fact I believe the absurdity arose from a tender feeling for the too acute sensibilities of certain players who had been what was known as "scratch" in the old days and liked to style themselves so still, and yet could only be kept on the scratch mark, in any reasonable handicap, by penalizing the good players to such a terrific extent as this.

In that year, 1894, when I was captain of the club, the amateur championship was played on the Hoylake course, and I have a lively remembrance of it because it was the first time that I came up against poor Freddy Tait, as a grown golfer, and suffered at his hands and from the peculiar characteristics of his game. Again and again I had the better of him, in a tight and well-fought match, and again and again he came up, from somewhere right off the green, with a wonderful approach, which he followed by a good putt and so halved the hole. Going to the last hole we were all even. His second was away to the left, far off the green. He laid up one of his usual approaches and put himself within holable distance. My own second was a very good one, and I had a chance of a three. I know even now that I went for it all too boldly, rather tired by the recoveries of the gallant Freddy. He holed his putt. I, with a much shorter one to hole, missed: and so he won hole and match.

He was really but a lad then, though a strong and sturdy one, but in the next round he met his master in Mure Ferguson. That brought Mure into the final with Johnny Ball against him, and very gallantly Mure played. Johnny had some holes the better of him to begin with, but he was not, even then, playing quite like his old self, and he let Mure wear him down, and only by a very daring and splendid shot at the seventeenth hole did he take the lead and practically settle the match, and the championship.

Freddy Tait was the very keenest golfer, as a boy, that I ever saw. I had watched him at St. Andrews, growing up from small boy's to young man's estate, and acquiring the mastery of his clubs as he grew. He was a favourite with everybody. At this time, when he beat me at Hoylake, he was still in the hard-hitting phase of his game, rejoicing, as a young man will, in his strength, and delighting to let the ball have it. And he had great strength. Later, as his game developed, he grew to play more within himself with more reserve force to call up when occasion required it, than any other first-class player, and at times he played very finely and very accurately indeed. But at all times, even when he was not playing accurately, he was very dangerous, just by reason of this, his marvellous faculty for recovery, which he exhibited even in this match against me at Hoylake. You never had him beaten at any hole. That not only made him in himself very formidable, but it also made him very difficult to play against, because you never felt any confidence that you had him. I do not know whether it was this quality of his game, or some other influence more psychic and personal, but for some reason Harold Hilton appeared to find it almost impossible to produce his true game when he was brought up against Freddy Tait. He gives some account of it in his own reminiscences, showing too that by steadfast work and stern endeavour to get the better of that influence—really it was as if Freddy put the evil eye on him—he was succeeding in conquering it. He made a progressively better fight in their later matches. For Johnny Ball, on the other hand, Freddy had no terrors. I was surprised, looking through poor Freddy's biography, written by Johnny Low, to see how consistently Johnny Ball had the better of Freddy—I think with only one exception of any importance at all—in the many matches that they played together. I had thought the balance would have stood far more level, especially as Johnny was not quite at his best when Freddy began to tackle him. Their matches were well fought and close, but Johnny won a very big majority.