Golf History – Page 2 – Golf Historical Society

Real Golfers No. 1: George Glennie

Thomson, Melville, Dougall, Glennie, Pirie, Gilmour, Fairlie, Morris

A Calotype of great players of the day at St Andrews circa 1855.

No. 1 – In the center is Mr. George Glennie, head and shoulders over the other gentlemen players in match play. I never knew a kinder-hearted and more sterling man. Early trained as an engineer, he went to Blackheath, where he was instrumental in putting fresh life into the old club. I hope to have a whole article on my very worthy friend, for the last match of any importance which I played was in 1874, with him as my partner, against Messers. Leslie Balfour Melville and Henry Lamb. The whole golfing world knows the name of George Glennie. He broke the medal record in St Andrews, for the Royal and Ancient Golf Club, in 1855, when he scored 88. This was not beaten till I gained the university Medal eleven years afterwords in 86. But there never was a steadier player, and never was there a more charming partner.

An excerpt from October 20, 1899, Golf Illustrated (UK). Golf and Golfers of the Old School, by Dr. J. G. McPherson.

A Matter of Course – The Life of William Herbert Fowler 1856-1941

A Matter of Course is a new book written by Derek Markham and published by Markham & Truett.

The story of legendary golf course architect William Herbert Fowler. The book is a proper biography of a most interesting life, mostly well lived.

I contributed research to the chapter, “American Adventures,” written about Fowler’s work in California, which included Los Angeles Country Club, Pebble Beach and the Del Monte Hotel courses, the Presidio, Burlingame Country Club, the no longer existing Ambassador/Rancho Golf Club, Olympic Club, Lincoln Park, Sequoyah, Del Paso, Crystal Springs, Menlo C.C., and others!

This is a small print of 650 books that can be ordered by emailing Philip Truett:
philip@truett.co.uk

or ordering online from Browns Books

Only Woman Golf Pro is Pasadenan

Mrs. Gourlay Dunn-Webb, who bears the unique distinction of being the only woman golf instructor in the country.

From an article published in 1919:

Pasadena has long been noted as being the home of many “best“ and various “onlys,“ but a new distinction has been added in the latter class by the presence here of the only woman golf professional in the country.

She is Mrs. Gourlay Dunn-Webb, is the niece of famous Willy Dunn, and is conducting a series of demonstrations at the Hotel Maryland.

Mrs. Webb comes from a family of noted golfers. Her grandfather and great grandfather on both sides were players and teachers, and her father, the late Thomas Dunn, was acknowledged the greatest teacher of his time. Mrs. Webb‘s mother was the first woman teacher in England, having taught golf in 1875 at the Royal Wimbledon Golf club.

Mrs. Webb was the next women instructor and taught the game at Prince’s Golf club, near London, one of the principal women’s golf clubs in England. Mrs. Webb can drive a ball 250 yards. The average woman’s drive is about 100 yards less.

She has worked out everything to her own satisfaction, dress as well as the method of procedure, playing the game to get the best results.

“It is simply wonderful,“ said Mrs. Webb, when I asked to give her opinion of the value of the game as an exercise and amusement. “It exercises every muscle in the body, even the toes, the head, the hands. It is the unique exercise. Golf is all a question of balance and poise, it creates a control of the body that no other game can give, and I’d say it is particularly beneficial for women.“

Mrs. Webb herself in action, with rare poise and control, is sufficient proof of the statement.

January 1919, Pacific Golf & Motor advertisement.

Aside from golf-instruction, this week Mrs. Webb is conducting the hiking expeditions from the Hotel Maryland.

Protected: The Highest Score on a hole in a major Golf competition in Southern California

Golf Terms: The Tee Box

The Teeing Ground, one club length from the hole – circa 1860.

The original teeing ground in golf was a one club length circle around the last hole played, known as the tigh in curling, which is the Scottish word for home, and is pronounced tee.

The ball had to be played off the ground until the 1800’s when players were allowed to use dirt to ‘tee it up’. After dealing with the damage done by golfers digging up dirt, greenkeepers began providing sand.

By 1875 the tee was between 8 and 12 club lengths from the hole, and in 1888 it became our modern version – between two marks, two club lengths deep, and laid out by the greenkeeper.

A typical wood and dirt Tee Box with sand dressing and a rubber tee – circa 1920

By the time golf reached America in the 1890’s, many teeing areas were level boxes made of wood, stone, or cement, and filled with sand, soil, dirt, bitumen or cement, and sometimes covered with coconut matting.

Walter Fairbanks on the tee box at Los Angeles Country Club in 1901

The tee box at Palm Beach, Florida circa 1904

These rigid teeing areas were the reason that modern wooden or plastic tees couldn’t be stuck in the ground and required a sand-pile to tee-up the ball. The tee box was obviously not named after the box used for sand.

The 9th Tee box at Virginia Country Club, now Rec. Park, Long Beach – circa 1911

The 5th Tee box at Coronado Country Club in 1919

Real grass teeing areas were standard on Scottish links courses and became standard on championship and private golf courses in the United States by the 1920’s.

As of 2021, there are still many hundreds of courses that still have tee boxes and matts throughout the United States.

Long Driving George Bayer at the Masters

At Jack Nicklaus’s 1st Masters in 1959, George Bayer won the Long Drive competition on the first hole of Augusta National with a 321 yard belt. Golf Hall of Famer Frank Stranahan came second with 293 yards.

At 245 lbs and 6 foot 4 inches tall, Pasadenan George Bayer hit regular 365 yard drives and was the first modern professional to drive over 400 yards. He was discovered by Bob Hope at the Inglewood City Championships in Los Angeles.

In 1960 the USGA came up with a new ball measuring machine to stop the touring pros from averaging more than 260 yards to save golf courses from having to buy more land to lengthen their layouts!

For George they said they had nothing, because they couldn’t stop muscles!

*George Bayer smoking one 321 yards on #1 at Augusta to win the 1959 Masters Long Drive.*

Golf Balls of the 20th Century: The Transatlantic Bomber

Dr Bull : “You boys, Haskell and Kempshall are much too lively.” (G.I., Sept 05, 1902)

By 1902, golf was changing. The new rubber-filled Haskell and Kempshall golf balls were replacing the long-used, and loved, gutta-percha balls. The old gutta was shorter on the carry, but more controllable. The new balls were known as “bounding Billies,” because they bounced and ran through bunkers and hazards with nothing able to stop them. Amateur champion Walter J. Travis actually drove a Haskell 382 yards on the Garden City links in January 1903.

In Southern California, where long dry summers meant hard-pan fairways, summer golf nearly ceased to be when players opted for the new longer-distance rubber balls.

At the Los Angeles Country Club, at Pico and Western boulevards, the club’s bowling alley and ping pong tables replaced summer golf until irrigation arrived about ten years later.

_________________

Here is a short piece from Mr. J. L. Low, published in the Athletic News (UK), Summer 1902, about the impact of the Transatlantic Bomber:

“The mind of the American man is exceedingly cunning, and he has devised a ball which makes it easier for the ordinary mortal to go round a golf course in a low score.

Let us admit this fact, and say, ‘We acknowledge that your ball is easier to play with than a golf ball, but you need not make any more, as we don’t wish the game made easier, our links being laid out to test the strength and skill of a golfer playing with a ball made out of certain recognized material.’

Or there is another course open to us, and that is to counteract this unfortunate inventive power of making the game easy by making the courses longer and more difficult. On courses which are at present of good length the holes would need to be lengthened by about thirty yards in order to give good driving its former advantage ; and there are other ways of making the rubber ball tremble within its skin.

But of the two ways of escaping the curse of these new balls and restoring the game to its old position as one of the most difficult of games, the former seems the more simple and less expensive ; the cost of altering our courses is, in fact, too great to contemplate.”

“In the meantime it cannot too extensively be advertised that scores made with patent balls are only equal to scores made with gutta balls from ‘short tees.'”

The Go lf Ball

More Like A Bowling Green Than A Golf Links – Prestwick

To the Editor of Golf Illustrated (UK), July, 1903

Sir, I have just read your criticism of the Prestwick course in your paper of the 15th inst.

The two bunkers you mention as having come in for special condemnation are the only two on the course that a long driver has ever to think of, except when the ground is hard and there is a following wind, as was the case during the late championship. As you remark, the hazard at the sixteenth which caught balls going to the thirteenth as well as going to the sixteenth, has plenty of room for the hazard to be avoided. In playing to the sixteenth, if the ball is driven to the left it is perfectly safe, but if the player has pluck and accuracy he can go straight for the hole between the hazard and the Cardinal, and is rewarded by reaching the green.

With regard to the Pot, going to the fifteenth, it has been a bone of contention for very many years. You observe that the bunker is not only hidden, but is the only good and safe line to the hole. This is not the case, for if the ball is played to the right there is a path down which it can run, and very often goes as far as a ball which carries the bunker.

The late Willie Campbell – and he was by no means an abnormally long driver – when playing with me, carried the bunker nine consecutive rounds. One fine summer evening I saw Mr J.H. Whigham drive six balls over it. This was done at a time there was a discussion going on about its fairness. In my opinion, three fourths of the players who now grumble at the hazard would carry it if it were filled up. The truth is, they funk it. They have the same feeling that a short driver has at every hazard, and they say it is not fair because they ought to use their heads at one hole if they cannot trust their hearts.

The whole tendency for years has been to remove all difficulties from courses. The horse mower is in constant use and nearly the whole course is now cut and rolled and made to look more like a bowling green than a golf links.

Instead of filling up the bunkers complained of, the course would be much improved if many more similar ones were made, to punish long, erratic driving.

During the late championship I had talks with several old golfers. Archie Simpson said to me, “I mind when I was here if I got round in 80, I thought I was playing grand golf ; look at it now.” I met James Kay at the thirteenth hole. He said, “This is easy golf ; I have had nothing but teed balls.” Willie Park and Andrew Kirkaldy expressed the same opinion. One of the New School said to me the course was in beautiful order, but he thought more of the long grass should have been cut round the greens. The one thought of the New School seems to be to remove anything that might spoil a score. They think it is golf to get into the hole in the fewest number of strokes, forgetting, as Sir Alexander Kinloch so well expressed it, “That this is not golf, and, please God, never will be golf. Golf is to get into the hole in one stroke less than your opponent.” To eliminate chance from any game is to spoil it.

I do not agree with your criticism of where the holes were placed on the second and sixteenth greens. With regard to the former, the Cup has been the place for medal play from time immemorial, and to get near that hole is one of the best shots on any links. As the ground was hard and a following wind during the championship, it was exceedingly difficult ; but it was not impossible, as I saw J.H. Taylor play it to perfection, and he was rewarded with a two. To place the hole in the centre, or far end of the green, is to make it what Mr J.L. Low called it in an article he wrote about Prestwick – a “featureless hole.”

I am, Sir, etc.,

Jas. S. Higginbotham

(This letter is noticed in “Tee Shots.” – Ed.)

Transcribed by jib jones.

What’s in a Name? Golf Masters Invited to Augusta National

THE OLD-TIME PARADE

AUGUSTA (Ga.) March 19. – This masters’ tournament at Augusta, starting on Thursday, will carry more than one important chapter from the blue book of golf. (H. Grantland Rice, March 1934)

Henry Grantland “Granny” Rice, the sports writer for the New York Herald Tribune, syndicated columnist, and editor of The American Golfer magazine, was also a founding member of the Augusta National Golf Club, and very close friends with Bob Jones and Clifford Roberts. It was Rice and Roberts who asked Alister MacKenzie to design the 19^thhole at Augusta.

But more importantly, it was Granny Rice who called the Augusta National Golf Club Invitation Tournament the “masters.” And he did so before the first contest was held in March of 1934.

Clifford Roberts wrote a different story in his 1976 autobiography, not mentioning Rice. But either Roberts had forgotten, or he never read any of Granny’s articles!

“The Old-Time Parade” was in reference to the large number of golf’s amateur and professional masters who were invited to play in the inaugural Augusta National Golf Club Invitation Tournament. Here are some from Grantland Rice’s list:

Professionals:
Freddie McLeod – 1908 U.S. Open champion
Macdonald Smith – 1910 U.S. Open runner-up
Walter Hagen – The Legend!
Long Jim Barnes – 1921 U.S. open, 1925 Open, 1916 & 1919 P.G.A. champion
Jock Hutchison – 1920 P.G.A., 1921 Open champion
Leo Diegel – 1928 & 1929 P.G.A. champion

Amateurs:
Johnny Goodman – 1933 U.S. Open champion
George Dunlap – 1933 U.S. Amateur champion
Ross Somerville – 1932 U.S. Amateur champion, Six-Time Canadian Amateur champion
Chick Evans – 1916 U.S. Open, 1916 & 1920 U.S. Amateur champion
Jess Sweetser – 1922 U.S. Amateur, 1926 British Amateur champion
Gus Moreland – Texas Star
Johnny Dawson – California Star

Canadian gets First Ace at Augusta National in 1934

The 1932 United States amateur golf champion, and Canadian legend, Charles Ross “Sandy” Somerville, became the first golfer to score a hole-in-one at Augusta National golf club, which he did during the second day of the first masters invitation tournament on the 145-yard, par 3, seventh hole (now the 16th, after the nines were reversed).

Augusta National Golf Club hole No. 7 circa 1934.

“Somerville used a niblick. The ball hit in front and bounced into the cup.” (A niblick is like the modern 9 iron, or wedge) – NYT March 24, 1934

Somerville, who was a six-time Canadian amateur champion from London, Ontario, was not otherwise having a stellar day, as his front nine 39 became a 78 by the end of it.

Robert T. ‘Bob’ Jones and C. Ross ‘Sandy’ Somerville at Augusta National G.C.

Earlier in the week, “Sandy” was paired with Bobby Jones in the two ball foursomes. The duo scored 76 and were not in contention. The 1934 “masters” was the first, and was Jones’ return to competition since he had retired after winning 3 1/2 legs of the so-called “grand slam” in 1930.

More on “Silent Sandy” at London Ontario golf.