THE COMPLETE GOLFER
By Harry Vardon
CHAPTER XXIGOLF IN AMERICA
Good golf in the United States—My tour through the country—Mr. Travis's victory in our Amateur Championship—Not a surprise—The man who played the best golf—British amateurs must wake up—Other good Americans will come—Our casual methods of learning golf—The American system—My matches in the States—A good average—Driving well—Some substantial victories—Some difficult matches—Course records—Enthusiasm of the American crowds—The golf fever—The king of baseball takes to golf—The American Open Championship—A hard fight with J.H. Taylor—A welcome win—Curious experiences in Florida—Greens without grass—The plague of locusts—Some injury to my game—"Mr. Jones"—Fooling the caddies—Camping out on the links—Golf reporting in America—Ingenious and good—Mistakes made by non-golfing writers—Lipping the hole for a hundred dollars.
I have a higher opinion of both the present and the future of golf in America than that which seems to be entertained by a large number of eminent players in this country. I think that American golf is very good at the present time—much better than it is given credit for being—and I am convinced that it will be still better in the future.
I made a long golfing tour through the United States in 1900, when Englishmen for the most part regarded the game in that country with as much seriousness as they would have bestowed upon golf in Timbuctoo if they had heard that it was being played there. At that time it seemed to be taking a firm grip of our cousins, and I saw enough to convince me that America was coming on quickly, and that before long the old country would have reason to fear her. Everything that has happened since then has strengthened my belief, and the eyes of the British were at last fairly opened when[Pg 233] the Championship was played for at Sandwich in June of last year, when, to the chagrin of our own leading amateurs, an American, in the person of Mr. Walter J. Travis, became the victor, and took back with him across the Atlantic the Amateur Championship Cup. So far from surprising me, that event was exactly what I expected. When I was in America I played against Mr. Travis once or twice, and though he was then in the improving stage and evidently not at the top of his career, I felt that he was a man who might very likely do great things in the future.
Afterwards I followed his play with some curiosity and interest. I saw that in course of time he beat many good men whose form I understood precisely. I knew that he was one of the steadiest golfers I had ever seen—a man of fine judgment and marvelous exactness, who always played with his head, and was constantly giving the closest possible study to the game. I felt that when he came to play for our Championship he would make a very bold bid for it. When I heard that he was going to Sandwich last year, I made him my "tip" for premier honours, and before the first round was played I said to many friends, "Mark my words; if Travis gets anything like a fairly easy draw to start with he will go right through." And so he did. I saw him play on this memorable occasion, which will never be forgotten as long as any of the events of golfing history are remembered, and, in opposition to the opinions of other British critics expressed in many columns of print during the weeks following, it was and is my absolute conviction that his was the best golf played in that tournament, and that he thoroughly deserved to win. He played with his head the whole way through, and his golf was really excellent. It was only natural that our people should be very downhearted when they saw what had happened, for it seemed nothing else than a great disaster. I do not think that in the long run it will prove to have been so, for the inevitable effect of it was to wake up our British golf, which stood sadly in need of arousing. I[Pg 234] think that amateur golf in this country has been steadily depreciating for some time, and at the present moment I think that the standard of merit of our best players is lower than in the days when Mr. Harold Hilton, Mr. John Ball, jun., and the late Mr. Freddy Tait were at their best. And despite the American shock, I cannot profess that the outlook at the present moment is particularly encouraging. There are other good golfers in the States besides Mr. Travis, and, frankly, I think that unless we wake up in this country the Cup will go there again. For the moment our numerical strength in the Championship tournament is in our favour. When there are only half a dozen Americans entered out of a total number of over a hundred, the odds are evidently against them, but an "American invasion" is threatened, and then we shall see what we shall see.
The chief reason why it is difficult to feel optimistic about the prospects of amateur golf in this country is because the rising generation, upon whom we must depend for our future champions, do not take sufficient pains to make themselves masters of the game. They are too haphazard in learning it. The beginners on our side are too apt to say to themselves, "I will go and teach myself to hit a ball first, and then I will take a lesson," which is, of course, entirely wrong. Then one of their friends tells them to do a certain stroke in one way, and another tells them the opposite, and thus at the end of six months they have got into such a thoroughly bad style that it is the most difficult task in the world for a professional to set them right. Those who have the future of British golf at heart cannot afford to disregard or wink at these vagaries on the part of beginners, on whom we depend to constitute the national system in coming years. Now the national system of America is altogether different. They are not haphazard there. They seem to take a deeper interest in the game and its science, and they never think of trying to learn it by the chance methods which are so much in favour with us. They take the game with the utmost[Pg 235] seriousness from the very beginning, and obtain the very best advice that they can. The professionals never have a minute to spare, and their engagement-books are constantly filled up for three weeks in advance, so that without that length of notice nobody stands a chance of getting a lesson for love or money. That is the way in which the people of America are learning to play golf, and it is the proper way. It is slow but it is very sure; and unless I am very much mistaken, there will in the future be other players coming across the Atlantic to take part in our championships who will be as great as Travis if not greater, and if we on our part do not forthwith begin to take our golf more seriously it may be a sad day for us when they do come.
As I have said, American golf was only just budding when I made my tour through the country in 1900; but nevertheless I found that tour extremely interesting and enjoyable, and everywhere I was given the heartiest and most enthusiastic reception. Nobody even begrudged me the American Championship which I brought back with me, and nobody made any unkind criticisms of my play, or suggested that I did not in any way deserve the victory. My tour began in March and did not finish until the end of the year, but was interrupted for a short period at the beginning of the summer, when I made a flying trip home in order to take part in our own Open Championship. As it happened, the best that I could do was to finish second to Taylor, but I may add that this result was better than I expected, considering the sudden change of golf and climate that I experienced. I had to cover several thousands of miles in order to play the matches in which I took part in America. Of these matches I only lost two when playing against a single opponent, and each time it was Bernard Nicholls who beat me, first at Ormonde and then at Brae Burn. There was not a blade of grass on the course on which Nicholls won his first match from me, and I leave my readers to imagine what playing on a links consisting of nothing but[Pg 236] loose sand was like. Altogether I suffered only thirteen defeats, but in eleven of them I was playing the best ball of two or more opponents, which was the task that was generally set me. I won over fifty matches and halved two. Some of my victories were somewhat substantial. At Point Comfort I beat Willie Dunn by sixteen up and fifteen to play, and at Scarsdale I got the better of the same opponent to the extent of fifteen and fourteen. Such wide margins naturally suggest opponents of inferior ability; but if I may modestly say so, I do not think that was wholly the case. I consider that at that time I was playing better golf than I had ever played before or have done since. As was the custom there, I used to go out on the links in the very thinnest and airiest costume. In Florida it was too warm to play with either coat or vest, so both were discarded and shirt sleeves rolled up. Generally, like my opponents, I wore no jacket, but a neat waistcoat with sleeves which helped to keep the arms together. In such attire one was afforded a delightful sense of ease and freedom which considerably helped one's golf. Then again, whether it was due to the fine dry atmosphere—as I think it was—or not, the ball certainly seemed to fly through the air with less resistance offered to it than I had ever experienced before. Never have I driven so well as I did with the old gutty in America in that year. Many of the professionals whom I met were men who were taught their golf in this country, and were players who would usually hold their own in the best of professional company. The American papers gave very lengthy reports of all the matches in which I took part, the headlines and what followed them being frequently very flattering. There was "The Golf King," and many such as that, in type nearly an inch deep. Perhaps I may, without offence, be permitted to quote from the account given in a leading daily newspaper of the second match in which I defeated Willie Dunn—at Scarsdale—which I only do for the purpose of showing that the conditions of play were[Pg 237] sometimes really trying, and not at all conducive to big victories or record breaking. This paper said: "If it were necessary to dwell upon the extraordinary consistency of the champion's game, one has only to refer to his card for the four rounds (it was a nine-hole course) in yesterday's match, as his worst nine holes totalled forty-one and his best thirty-seven. If the turf could only unearth a thoroughbred as reliable as Vardon, poolrooms in Greater New York would be past history in very short order. Vardon's skill probably never underwent a severer test than in the match yesterday. Everything was against his exhibiting anything approaching championship form. He had not only to contend against a biting north-west wind, which temporarily got mixed up with a flurry of snow, but the course itself, from the character of the land, is about as difficult to score over as any in the country. The ground is one succession of 'kopjes,' while seven of the nine holes are 'on the collar' all the time, and at an angle of from twenty to thirty degrees. The course is only 2677 yards in playing distance. On paper this gives the impression of being nothing out of the ordinary, but confronted with it in actuality, it is about as hard a proposition as any victim of the golf habit could tackle. The only course one can compare with it here is Oakland, and the latter is a billiard table by the side of it. At the finish of the thirty-six holes Vardon said, 'I never felt so fagged out in my life. In fact I could play seventy-two holes on the other side every day for a week and not have been fatigued half so much.'" I do not remember that I ever committed myself to such an extravagant statement as this, but the course was certainly a very trying one that day. Yet on that occasion I lowered the eighteen holes record for the course. Altogether I beat most of the records of the courses during my tour. The first time I ever took my clubs out on American soil, on the course of the Lawrence Harbour Country Club, I reduced the record for the nine holes (held by Willie Dunn) from forty-one to forty. Yet the weather[Pg 238] was so bad just then, and the clay greens were in such a state of puddle, that temporary greens had to be made on the fairway. I won my first match by nine up with eight to play. On one or two occasions I was obliged to beat the record in order to win my game. Thus, when playing on the Wheaton links at Chicago, Will Smith was three up on me at one time, but by beating the links record I won at the finish by two up with one to play. This was one of the very toughest struggles I had over there.
There was no mistaking the enthusiasm of the American spectators. They came to the matches in great crowds—always a large proportion of ladies—and they seemed bent on learning all that they could from the play. Everybody seemed to be trying to practise my grip. All kinds of theories were invented to account for the manner in which my shots came off. On one occasion, after I had got in a good one with a cleek, an excited spectator jumped the ropes, ran up to a friend of mine and screamed, "Say, which arm did he do that with?" I looked to see if all my arms and legs were intact, or if there was anything that appeared unusual about them. I discovered afterwards that by "arm" he meant "club." Many places of business were closed for the afternoon when I was playing in certain districts, and on one occasion the Stock Exchange did so. A letter to one of the papers, concerning the extraordinary manner in which America was taking the golf fever, contained these sentences:—"I went into a leading business house to-day and found the three partners of the firm in a violent discussion. As I thought they were talking business I concluded that my presence was unnecessary, and started to edge away. Suddenly I noticed the head of the firm rush into his office and rush out again with a cane. As the words were heated I was just about to interfere when I saw a weapon appear on the scene, but the head partner wasn't looking for blood. Instead of hitting anyone he swiped the cane along the ground, and then I heard the words—'This is how Vardon[Pg 239] holds it.' I wanted to make an appointment with one of the partners, but he told me that he wouldn't be in. However, I guess I'll meet him, because I'm going out to Dixie myself." The professionals and the golf shops suddenly began to do an enormous trade in sticks, and Bernard Nicholls, the only man who defeated me single-handed, preferred not to play me again for a long time. He said his victory had done an enormous amount of good to his business, and he did not want to spoil it. From numerous quarters I received all kinds of offers to "star" in one way or another, some very big fees being suggested. Would I become a store manager at a huge salary? Would I make an exhibition for so many hours daily of driving golf balls in a padded room in the city? And so on. I actually did accept an offer one day to do exhibition swings in a room in a Boston store. I was to start at 9.30 and continue until 5 each day, doing tee and other shots into a net for half an hour at a time, and then resting for an hour before taking the next turn. There was a fresh "house" of about two hundred people every time, and it was part of the bargain that my manager should stand by and explain everything. But he had had enough of it after one or two turns. Then I found it became terribly monotonous, and to interest myself I kept trying to hit a particular spot on the wall near the ceiling, until the stores manager came forward in a state of great excitement, declaring that only six inches from that spot was the tap of a patent fire extinguishing arrangement, and that if I hit it the room would be flooded by a series of waterspouts in less time than I could imagine! By four o'clock my hands were blistered badly, and at that stage I had had enough and went out. In the meantime I was the constant recipient of numerous presents of all kinds, and the invitations that I received to dinners were far too many for any professional golfer to accept. I do not mention these things with any desire for self-glorification. They are ancient history now, and nobody cares about them. But they serve to show the[Pg 240] whole-hearted manner in which America was going in for golf, and the tremendous hold that it took on the people. We talk on this side of the "golfing fever" and of people "going mad" about the game. Believe me, the Britisher is a mere dallier in comparison with his American golfing cousin.
An interesting incident happened when the American Championship was played for on the Wheaton course, when, as I was informed, the game of golf achieved the most notable victory that it had ever achieved in the United States. This was the complete surrender to it of the veteran champion and overlord of baseball, the American national game. How that came about I will leave one of the Chicago newspapers to relate:—"Cap. Anson surrendered to golf yesterday. The capitulation of the veteran of America's national game took place on the links at Wheaton during the race between Harry Vardon and J.H. Taylor. 'Cap.' says the game of golf is a go. He has stood out against it and ridiculed it ever since it began to get the people. Anson knows Charles S. Cox, Vardon's manager, and accepted an invitation yesterday morning to look in on the game. On the links he balked at the proposition of walking four miles in one trip around the course, but he lined up with the crowd to see Vardon drive off. The ball went higher than any fly 'Pop' ever saw in his life. It sailed 220 yards. Anson was first to start the applause with a 'Good boy. She's a homer.' Then he led the gallery to the first green. He was puffing when he pulled up at the eighteenth hole, but he felt better than if he had stolen second base. 'I'd like to take a crack at that golf ball,' he said. 'You can put me down for a trial the first chance I get. Wouldn't mind togging up in kilts just to give the Prince of Wales a run for his money.'" For the sake of giving prominence to it, this paragraph was put in a fancy border and let into the middle of the sheet of newspaper, so the Chicago people evidently attached some importance[Pg 241] to the capitulation of the worthy captain, and I hope that by this time he has had many thousands of cracks at the golf ball and that his handicap is low.
I was intent on making a bold bid for this American Open Championship. Victory in it seemed to be the one thing essential to make my trip the greatest possible success. My friend Taylor, who had just beaten me for the Open Championship at St. Andrews, had himself come over to the States, and was also a candidate for the premier honours of American golf. As it turned out, we had practically the whole contest at Wheaton to ourselves, and a rare good duel it was, at the end of which I was at the top of the list, but only two strokes in front of my English opponent, while he was eight in front of the next man. The system of deciding the championship was the same as on this side, that is to say, four medal rounds were played, two on one day and two on the next. At the end of the first day's play I was just one stroke better than Taylor, my score for the two rounds bring 157 to his 158, and on the second day I did 156 to his 157, so that on the whole event I was 313 to his 315. Taylor waited on the edge of the green while I holed out my last putt, and was the first to grasp my hand in sincere congratulation. Beautiful weather, the biggest golfing crowd ever seen in America up to that time, and a good links, made the tournament a great success. The partner who went round with me during this championship competition was Will Smith, the holder, who finished fifth.
I had some curious experiences in the course of my journeyings about the country, and I am not sure that they were all good for my game. During the early months I was down in Florida away from the cold and the snow. I met some good golfers there. It was necessary to play an entirely different game from that to which we are accustomed in this country. There was no grass on the putting "greens." They were simply made of loose sand, sprinkled on the baked ground and watered and rolled. When there was a[Pg 242] shortage of water and there was wind about, the fine part of the sand was blown away, and the surface of the "greens" then consisted of nothing but little pebbles. It was not easy to putt over this kind of thing, but I must not convey the impression that these sand "greens" were wholly bad. When properly attended to they are really nice to putt upon after you have become accustomed to them. It was impossible to pitch on to them, and one had to cultivate the habit of running up from a very long distance. Thus I got into the way of playing a kind of stab shot. The tees consisted not of grass but of hard soil, and one had to tee up much higher than usual in order to avoid damaging the sole of the driver. This provoked the habit of cocking the ball up, and as a corrective all the teeing grounds in Florida sloped upwards in front. Locusts were responsible for eating all the grass away from some courses, and I had a unique experience when I played Findlay at Portland. When we were on the putting greens, men had constantly to be beating sticks to keep the locusts off the lines of our putts. If it struck a locust the ball would come to a sudden stop. Acres and acres of land about there were without a single blade of grass. The locusts had eaten it all away. After we left Florida we reached some good courses, and resumed the old kind of play. It has often been suggested that the peculiar conditions of play in America, to which I was subjected for a long period, resulted in a permanent injury to my game as played at home, and in the light of reflection and experience I am persuaded to think that this is so. I have played well since then, have felt equal to doing anything that I ever did before, and have indeed won the Championship, but I think I left a very small fraction of my game in the United States.
In the way of other novel experiences I might mention that on one occasion I played as "Mr. Jones." I wanted a quiet day, and did not wish a too attentive public to know where I was. Three friends joined me in a foursome, but[Pg 243] when we went into the club-house after our game, another anxious golfer went up to my partner when I was standing by, and inquired of him whether he had heard that Vardon was playing on the links. My friend declared that he knew nothing of such a rumour, and I could hardly refrain from laughter as the anxious one went to pursue his inquiries in other quarters. Another time two other professionals and myself visited a course where we were unknown, and, hiding our identity, pretended that we were novices at the game, and begged of our caddies to advise us as to the best manner of playing each shot, which they did accordingly. We deliberately duffed most of our strokes at several holes, but this course of procedure tired us immensely, and so at last we abandoned it and began to play our natural game. Imagine the consternation and the indignation of those caddies! Each one of them threw down his bag of clubs, and, declining to carry them for another hole, walked sulkily off the course. On one occasion we camped out for the night on the links on which we were playing, and a very pleasant variation from the ordinary routine we found it.
The American newspapers, to which I have frequently referred, do their golf reporting very well. Their journalism may be "sensational" or whatever you like to call it, but the golfing section of it was usually interesting, ingenious, and very intelligent and reliable. On the occasion of one match in which I played, a paper gave up nearly the whole of one of its pages to a large panoramic view of the links. The flight of my ball and that of my opponent, and the places where they stopped after every stroke, from the first to the last, were accurately marked. Thus the whole game was illustrated in a single picture in a very effective manner. As was inevitable, I was sometimes victimized by interviewers who wrote "interviews" with me which I had never accorded, containing most amazing particulars about my methods and habits. Occasionally a reporter was turned on to describe a game when he knew nothing about golf,[Pg 244] and then the results were sometimes amusing. One of these writers had it that I "carried away the green with my drive." Another said I "dropped dead at the hole." When playing at Washington against two opponents, I happened to beat bogey at the first hole. One of the reporters was told of this achievement, but did not quite understand it. Going to the next hole, we were walking through a bunker when he came up to me and politely inquired if that—the bunker—was the kind of bogey that I had beaten. I was told a very good story of American golf reporting. A match was arranged between two well-known amateurs, one of whom happened to be a very rich banker. One reporter, who admitted that he "knew nothing about the darned game," arrived rather late on the course, and borrowed the "copy" of an experienced golfing journalist for information of what had already happened. When this "copy" was duly returned with thanks, the late-comer remarked to his obliging friend, "Say, you made a bad mistake in one part." "What was it?" the other asked. "Waal, you say that So-and-so 'lipped the hole for a half.'" "Yes, that is right." "Oh, go away; you don't mean to tell me that a rich man like that would be playing for a paltry fifty cents. I've altered it to 'lipped the hole for a hundred dollars.'" And I remember that once when I was playing the best ball of two amateurs, one of the reporters had been instructed by his chief to keep the best ball score. I happened to lose the match on the last green, but on looking through the paper the next morning I was surprised to see it stated that I was beaten by not one but many holes, making this defeat in fact the biggest inflicted on me during my tour. The paper said that it was. I could not make anything out of it for some time, until at last I discovered that the reporter had reckoned my score also in the best ball figures! Obviously I could not beat myself. The best I could do was to get a half, and that was how it came about that I never won a single hole in the "Harry Vardon v. Harry Vardon and two others" match.
