Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Gloss" to "Gordon, Charles George" / Volume 12, Slice 2

by Various

After the interregnum of 1871, the following were the champions:—

1872.	Tom Morris, jun., St Andrews	166—at Prestwick.
1873.	Tom Kidd, St Andrews	179—at St Andrews.
1874.	Mungo Park, Musselburgh	159—at Musselburgh.
1875.	Willie Park, Musselburgh	166—at Prestwick.
1876.	Bob Martin, St Andrews	176—at St Andrews.
1877.	Jamie Anderson, St Andrews	160—at Musselburgh.
1878.	Jamie Anderson, St Andrews	157—at Prestwick.
1879.	Jamie Anderson, St Andrews	170—at St Andrews.
1880.	Bob Fergusson, Musselburgh	162—at Musselburgh.
1881.	Bob Fergusson, Musselburgh	170—at Prestwick.
1882.	Bob Fergusson, Musselburgh	171—at St Andrews.
1883.	W. Fernie, Dumfries	159—at Musselburgh.
1884.	Jack Simpson, Carnoustie	160—at Prestwick.
1885.	Bob Martin, St Andrews	171—at St Andrews.
1886.	D. Brown, Musselburgh	157—at Musselburgh.
1887.	Willie Park, jun., Musselburgh	161—at Prestwick.
1888.	Jack Burns, Warwick	171—at St Andrews.
1889.	Willie Park, jun., Musselburgh	155—at Musselburgh.
1890.	Mr John Ball, jun., Hoylake	164—at Prestwick.
1891.	Hugh Kirkaldy, St Andrews	166—at St Andrews.
1892.	Mr H. H. Hilton, Hoylake	305—at Muirfield.
1893.	W. Auchterlonie, St Andrews	322—at Prestwick.
1894.	J. H. Taylor, Winchester	326—at Sandwich.
1895.	J. H. Taylor, Winchester	322—at St Andrews.
1896.	H. Vardon, Scarborough	316—at Muirfield.
1897.	Mr H. H. Hilton, Hoylake	314—at Hoylake.
1898.	H. Vardon, Scarborough	307—at Prestwick.
1899.	H. Vardon, Scarborough	310—at Sandwich.
1900.	J. H. Taylor, Richmond	309—at St Andrews.
1901.	J. Braid, Romford	309—at Muirfield.
1902.	A. Herd, Huddersfield	307—at Hoylake.
1903.	H. Vardon, Ganton	300—at Prestwick.
1904.	J. White, Sunningdale	296—at Sandwich.
1905.	J. Braid, Walton Heath	318—at St Andrews.
1906.	J. Braid, Walton Heath	300—at Muirfield.
1907.	Arnaud Massey, La Boulie	312—at Hoylake.
1908.	J. Braid, Walton Heath	291—at Prestwick.
1909.	J. H. Taylor, Richmond	295—at Deal.
1910.	J. Braid, Walton Heath	298—at St Andrews.

The Amateur Championship is of far more recent institution.

1886.	Mr Horace Hutchinson	at St Andrews.
1887.	Mr Horace Hutchinson	at Hoylake.
1888.	Mr John Ball	at Prestwick.
1889.	Mr J. E. Laidlay	at St Andrews.
1890.	Mr John Ball	at Hoylake.
1891.	Mr J. E. Laidlay	at St Andrews.
1892.	Mr John Ball	at Sandwich.
1893.	Mr P. Anderson	at Prestwick.
1894.	Mr John Ball	at Hoylake.
1895.	Mr L. Balfour-Melville	at St Andrews.
1896.	Mr F. G. Tait	at Sandwich.
1897.	Mr J. T. Allan	at Muirfield.
1898.	Mr John Ball	at Prestwick.
1899.	Mr F. G. Tait	at Hoylake.
1900.	Mr H. H. Hilton	at Sandwich.
1901.	Mr H. H. Hilton	at St Andrews.
1902.	Mr C. Hutchings	at Hoylake.
1903.	Mr R. Maxwell	at Muirfield.
1904.	Mr W. J. Travis	at Sandwich.
1905.	Mr A. G. Barry	at St Andrews.
1906.	Mr J. Robb	at Hoylake.
1907.	Mr John Ball	at St Andrews.
1908.	Mr E. A. Lassen	at Sandwich.
1909.	Mr Robert Maxwell	at Muirfield.
1910.	Mr John Ball	at Hoylake.

The Ladies’ Championship was started in 1893.

1893.	Lady M. Scott	at St Annes.
1894.	Lady M. Scott	at Littlestone.
1895.	Lady M. Scott	at Portrush.
1896.	Miss A. B. Pascoe	at Hoylake.
1897.	Miss E. C. Orr	at Gullane.
1898.	Miss L. Thompson	at Yarmouth.
1899.	Miss M. Hezlet	at Newcastle.
1900.	Miss R. K. Adair	at Westward Ho.
1901.	Miss M. A. Graham	at Aberdovy.
1902.	Miss M. Hezlet	at Deal.
1903.	Miss R. K. Adair	at Portrush.
1904.	Miss L. Dod	at Troon.
1905.	Miss B. Thompson	at Cromer.
1906.	Mrs Kennion	at Burnham.
1907.	Miss M. Hezlet	at Newcastle (Co. Down).
1908.	Miss M. Titterton	at St Andrews.
1909.	Miss D. Campbell	at Birkdale.
1910.	Miss Grant Suttie	at Westward Ho.

There have been some slight changes of detail and arrangement as time has gone on, in the rules of the game (the latest edition of the Rules should be consulted). A new class of golfer has arisen, requiring a code of rules framed rather more exactly than the older code. The Scottish golfer, who was “teethed” on a golf club, as Mr Andrew Lang has described it, imbibed all the traditions of the game with his natural sustenance. Very few rules sufficed for him. But when the Englishman, and still more the American (less in touch with the traditions), began to play golf as a new game, then they began to ask for a code of rules that should be lucid and illuminating on every point—an ideal perhaps impossible to realize. It was found, at least, that the code put forward by the Royal and Ancient Club of St Andrews did not realize it adequately. Nevertheless the new golfers were very loyal indeed to the club that had ever of old held, by tacit consent, the position of fount of golfing legislation. The Royal and Ancient Club was appealed to by English golfers to step into the place, analogous to that of the Marylebone Cricket Club in cricket, that they were both willing and anxious to give it. It was a place that the Club at St Andrews did not in the least wish to occupy, but the honour was thrust so insistently upon it, that there was no declining. The latest effort to meet the demands for some more satisfactory legislation on the thousand and one points that continually must arise for decision in course of playing a game of such variety as golf, consists of the appointment of a standing committee, called the “Rules of Golf Committee.” Its members all belong to the Royal and Ancient Club; but since this club draws its membership from all parts of the United Kingdom, this restriction is quite consistent with a very general representation of the views of north, south, east and west—from Westward Ho and Sandwich to Dornoch, and all the many first-rate links of Ireland—on the committee. Ireland has, indeed, some of the best links in the kingdom, and yields to neither Scotland nor England in enthusiasm for the game. This committee, after a general revision of the rules into the form in which they now stand, consider every month, either by meeting or by correspondence, the questions that are sent up to it by clubs or by individuals; and the committee’s answers to these questions have the force of law until they have come before the next general meeting of the Royal and Ancient Club at St Andrews, which may confirm or may reject them at will. The ladies of Great Britain manage otherwise. They have a Golfing Union which settles questions for them; but since this union itself accepts as binding the answers given by the Rules of Golf Committee, they really arrive at the same conclusions by a slightly different path. Nor does the American Union, governing the play of men and women alike in the States, really act differently. The Americans naturally reserve to themselves freedom to make their own rules, but in practice they conform to the legislation of Scotland, with the exception of a more drastic definition of the status of the amateur player, and certain differences as to the clubs used.

A considerable modification has been effected in the implements of the game. The tendency of the modern wooden clubs is to be short in the head as compared with the clubs of, say, 1880 or 1885. The advantage claimed (probably with justice) for this shape is that it masses the weight behind the point on which the ball is struck. Better material in the wood of the club is a consequence of the increased demand for these articles and the increased competition among their makers. Whereas under the old conditions a few workers at the few greens then in existence were enough to supply the golfing wants, now there is a very large industry in golf club and ball making, which not only employs workers in the local club-makers’ shops all the kingdom over, but is an important branch of the commerce of the stores and of the big athletic outfitters, both in Great Britain and in the United States. By far the largest modification in the game since the change to gutta-percha balls from balls of leather-covering stuffed with feathers, is due to the American invention of the india-rubber cased balls. Practically it is as an American invention that it is still regarded, although the British law courts decided, after a lengthy trial (1905), that there had been “prior users” of the principle of the balls’ manufacture, and therefore that the patent of Mr Haskell, by whose name the first balls of the kind were called, was not good. It is singular to remark that in the first introduction of the gutta-percha balls, superseding the leather and feather compositions, they also were called by the name of their first maker, “Gourlay.” The general mode of manufacture of the rubber-cored ball, which is now everywhere in use, is interiorly, a hard core of gutta-percha or some other such substance; round this is wound, by machinery, india-rubber thread or strips at a high tension, and over all is an outer coat of gutta-percha. Some makers have tried to dispense with the kernel of hard substance, or to substitute for it kernels of some fluid or gelatinous substance, but in general the above is a sufficient, though rough, description of the mode of making all these balls. Their superiority over the solid gutta-percha lies in their superior resiliency. The effect is that they go much more lightly off the club. It is not so much in the tee-shots that this superiority is observed, as in the second shots, when the ball is lying badly; balls of the rubber-cored kind, with their greater liveliness, are more easy to raise in the air from a lie of this kind. They also go remarkably well off the iron clubs, and thus make the game easier by placing the player within an iron shot of the hole at a distance at which he would have to use a wooden club if he were playing with a solid gutta-percha ball. They also tend to make the game more easy by the fact that if they are at all mis-hit they go much better than a gutta-percha ball similarly inaccurately struck. As a slight set-off against these qualities, the ball, because of the greater liveliness, is not quite so good for the short game as the solid ball; but on the whole its advantages distinctly overbalance its disadvantages.

When these balls were first put on the market they were sold at two shillings each and even, when the supply was quite unequal to the demand, at a greater deal higher price, rising to as much as a guinea a ball. But the normal price, until about a year after the decision in the British courts of law affirming that there was no patent in the balls, was always two shillings for the best quality of ball. Subsequently there was a reduction down to one shilling for the balls made by many of the manufacturing companies, though in 1910 the rise in the price of rubber sent up the cost. The rubber-cored ball does not go out of shape so quickly as the gutta-percha solid ball and does not show other marks of ill-usage with the club so obviously. It has had the effect of making the game a good deal easier for the second- and third-class players, favouring especially those who were short drivers with the old gutta-percha ball. To the best players it has made the least difference, nevertheless those who were best with the old ball are also best with the new; its effect has merely been to bring the second, third and fourth best closer to each other and to the best.