The amateur championship that year was full of wonders. It was won by Charles Hutchings, he being then a grandfather and fifty-two years of age. He knocked me out, among other better men, beating me at the last hole. And then he beat that brilliant and greatly to be regretted young golfer, Johnny Bramston. In the final he had to play Fry, and established a very big lead on him in the first round. He had about six holes in hand with only nine to play, and then Fry began to do conjuring tricks, holing putts from the edge of the green, and so on. In the event Charles Hutchings just won by a single hole after one of the most remarkable final matches in the whole story of that championship. And it is to be noted that these two finalists, who proved themselves better able than most others to adapt themselves to the new touch of these livelier balls—for nearly all the competitors used the Haskells—were extremely good billiard players. Fry had won the amateur championship of billiards more than once, and Hutchings was quite capable of such atrocities as a three-figure break. I think the sensitive fingers of these billiard players helped them to get the touch of these livelier balls which were so "kittle" for the approach and putting.
After the amateur came the open, in which I did not take a hand, but I heard a great deal of the preliminary discussions about it. Of course, if the amateurs were difficult to convince about the merits of the new balls, the professionals, who had their vested interest in the old, and did not know how these were to be affected by the coming of the new, were harder still to convince. However, the balls were too good to be denied. Andrew Kirkaldy, a shrewd man, and one, besides, who had no interest in the sale of balls, solid or rubber cored, was one of the first and most enthusiastic converts. "The puggy," he declared, "is a great ba'." He called it "puggy," which is Scottish for monkey, because it jumped about so. "Ye canna' tak' eighty strokes to the roun' wi' a puggy—the puggy will na' gae roun' in eighty strokes." However, on the morrow of making that brave statement, he contrived, even with the "puggy," to take several strokes more than eighty to go round the Hoylake course for the championship. Alec Herd was one of the most uncompromising opponents of the new ball until the very day of the championship. He had declared that he hoped everybody else would play with the Haskell, but that for his own part he meant to stick to his old friend. And then, on the day of the play, behold Herd, who had said these things, teeing up a Haskell himself on the first tee, and continuing play with it until he had won the championship! It was a bit of luck for him, hitting on the truth about the merits of the ball just at the right moment. I do not think he would ever have won the championship save for the Haskell ball. At the same time it is only fair to him to say this, that he was—at least I think so—quite unlucky not to win the championship two years previously. It was the year that Taylor won at St. Andrews, and at that date, and for some little while before the championship, Herd had certainly been playing the best golf of anybody. Then the weather changed, just on the eve of the championship. There came abundance of rain, which put the greens into just the condition that Taylor liked. He won that championship, and Herd, I think, was a little unfortunate not to win. But fortune restored the balance of her favours by giving him this win at Hoylake with the new ball long after we had ceased to think him a likely champion. Thus once again, "justice has been done." Therewith the Haskell ball made its reputation and came to stay. There was a talk of ruling it out, by the Rules of Golf Committee, but Hall Blyth, then chairman, agreed with me and others that it had won its way too far into popularity to be made illegal, and the idea of legislating it out was dropped.
CHAPTER XXX
AN HISTORIC MATCH AND AN HISTORIC TYPE
Willy Park, always a man of some practical ingenuity, as well as a magnificent golfer, had lately invented and patented a peculiar type of putter. He had also invented, by way of an advertisement of this crooked-necked club of his, the dictum that "the man who can putt is a match for anybody."
Now Park, besides his other fine qualities, was a very gallant golfer. It had been his way for some years, as soon as some man—be it Douglas Rolland, or any other—had come to the top of the golfing tree, so that everybody was talking about him and saying what a fine fellow he was, to challenge this fine top bird of the roost, and back his challenge with a £50 or £100 stake. There may have been a tinge of advertisement about it, for Park was a good man of business and the first of the professionals to realize what money there was in establishing golf shops, but chiefly, I think, he played these matches for the pure sport of the thing.
So now, Harry Vardon, being beyond dispute, at the tree top, Park must issue a challenge to play him for a money stake, a home and home match, two rounds at North Berwick and two at Ganton. Now you have to realize that in those days Harry Vardon was so great a man, there was so much keenness to see him play, that when he went out the gallery followed him, they watched his every stroke, and they paid no more attention than if he had no existence at all to the poor wretch who chanced to be partnered with him. They would trample on this unfortunate creature's ball without the slightest remorse: he was rather lucky if he were not thrown down and trampled to death himself by the throng.
The Amateur Side at Sandwich in 1894.
Standing (from left to right): A. Stuart, S. Mure Fergusson, John Ball, F.G. Tait. Sitting: H.G. Hutchinson, Charles Hutchings, A.D. Blyth, H.H. Hilton.