IRISH GOLF TIMELINE - 1910
In
the news
On 3 June 1910 Mr Asquith,
the Prime Minister and Mr Reginald McKenna, the first lord of
the Admirality played a foursomes match around Royal Portrush.
They arrived on the Admirality boat the Enchantress, which docked
at Portrush.
Many of the clubs in
Dublin (Rathfarnham, Royal Dublin) cancelled their normal competitions
as a result of the death of King Edward VII. King George signified
his pleasure with the Curragh Golf Club becoming the Royal Curragh
Golf Club as reported in the Irish Times on the 29 September 1910.
Hewson recounts the
story of a field of corn which was cut adjacent to a golf course
and 100 balls were found the farmer was at liberty to sell the
balls with the exception of those which had the owners name -
selling those would result in the farmer being liable to prosecution
although from a practical standpoint it might have been quite
difficult to do.
Golf is: "a
science, the study of a lifetime, in which you may exhaust yourself
but never the subject. It is a contest, a duel, a melee, calling
for courage, skill, strategy and self-control. It is a test of
temper, a trial of honour, a revealer of character. It affords
the chance to play the man and act the gentleman.".........and
so say all of us.
Harry Ferguson had accomplished
the feat of being the first person to achieve powered flight in
Ireland on the 31 December 1909 when at Hillsborough, Co. Down
he remained airborne for a distance of more than 100 yards. He
repeated the feat in Newcastle in his monoplane completing the
flight "of almost three miles along the foreshore at a low
altitude varying between fifty and five hundred feet" in
an attempt to win a £100 prize offered by the town for the
first powered flight along the strand. While no strictly golf
related he must have had one of the first aerial views of the
famous Newcastle links.
The House of Commons
gave its deliberation on Sunday play when a railway company to
over the RPGC saying it was up to the Portrush Urban District
Council to decide if Sunday play should be allowed. Another victory
for the Sabbatharians!
Publications
In 1910 Bernard Darwin's
classic golf book - The Golf Courses of the British Isles was
published and included paintings (48 colour and 26 sepia illustrations)
by Harry Rountree - cost 21s. The mis-spelling of Rountree's name
on the cover of the book was blamed on a sub-consious link with
Rowntree's Chocolates - it wasn't the first instance of this erratum.
Despite his legal training Darwin took a position as journalist
for the Evening Standard in 1907, his first article described
Lord Dunraven's private course near the town of Adare in Limerick.
From here Darwin joined the London Times and wrote for Country
Life one of the premier magazines in circulation at the time.
Darwin was the grandson of the famed naturalist and evolutionist
Charles Darwin. Harry Rountree, a New Zealander, illustrated the
book and sixteen pages were set aside for the courses in Ireland
including Dollymount, Portmarnock, Lahinch, Portrush and Newcastle.
The most striking watercolour is entitled: 'Coming Home' depicting
golfers taking the horse and carriage ("vis-à-vis"
or side-car) crossing from the Portmarnock Golf Club to Baldoyle.
It was Darwin's first book in a publishing frenzy that produced
over thirty titles and further fifty-or-so golf club handbooks.
Late March saw the publication
of The Irish Golfers' Guide at a cost of one shilling and edited
by Lionel Hewson. The use of "freak" clubs (e.g. croquet
mallet putters, socketless mashie (C.O. Hezlet)) was a topical
issue again and the Irish Golfers Guide sought the opinion of
the more accomplished players on the subject when producing its
Who's Who.
Course
design and development
W.C. Pickeman designed
a golf course at Bagnalstown, County Carlow. The Athgarvan (Curragh)
Club (nine holes) was founded. Dun Laoghaire opened it clubhouse
doors with Thompson the professional procured by the club with
a little assistance from Harry Vardon.
Thomas
Hood opened his shop in 73 Middle Abbey Street. Marley Grange
was secured for the purpose of opening a new golf course within
a short distance of the Rathfarnham tram and Thomas
Hood had provided a favourable report as to its suitability
as a golf course. The new course would be the Grange Golf Club
and although it size was sufficient for an eighteen-hole lay out
they proposed to have a nine-hole course to start with. Both Thomas
Hood and J.J. Mckenna provided
favourable reports on the suitability of the land for the Howth
Golf Club. These plans for a golf course at Howth may have eventually
fallen through by the end of 1910. Mr Cecil Bancroft was commissioned
to lay out the second eighteen-holes at the Kingstown Golf Club.
New clubs that raised
their head during the year were Ballina, Edenderry, Carrick-on-Shannon,
Howth, Robin Hood (later Newlands), Castlebar. Omagh and Marley
Grange. The Malahide professional C.H. Wilkinson laid out the
Ballina Golf Course.
Killarney became an
eighteen-hole track the sub-soil is so sandy that it has many
attributes of a seaside course while still remaining an inland
course. Willie Park visited to make improvements to Killarney
and took in Tramore en-route.
Equipment
and Invention
Hewson looked back over
the previous ten years and asked if golf benefited from the advancements
to which his answer was a resounding no. The additional expense
incurred from the rubber-cored ball couldn't offset the truer
strike as golf clubs were lengthened without any discernible difference
in the challenge there posed to the ordinary golfer. One editorial
suggested a system for 'Registration and Identification of Golf
Balls', which would include a golf club and member reference and
name and presumably a method of returning the golf ball to its
original owner once lost.
Another golf ball hit
the market, the MANOR, which was relatively inexpensive (1s 6d)
and considered second only to the Orange Spot golf ball. The price
of rubber had sent 2s golf balls to a half a crown (two schillings
and six pence).
In 1910 Arthur F. Knight's
(the inventor Schenectady putter) of the patented a hollow steel
construction for shafts, despite there being previous patents
for steel shafts, this is considered the patent which began a
revolution for this new shaft. However it would be 1925 and 1929
before the USGA and the Royal & Ancient respectively legalised
their use.
Rules
The Royal and Ancient
Rules committee banned the mallet-headed (the head not on one
side of the shaft) putter including the infamous and controversial
Schenectady putter used by Walter Travis to such good effect in
the 1904 Amateur Championship. The special correspondent for the
Irish Times was one golfer who breathed a sigh of relief on hearing
the news of this rule change. The Americans were none to pleased
at the barring of their beloved Schenectady putters and refused
to adopt the new ruling resulting in a schism in the rules between
the USGA and the Royal & Ancient - it would be a further forty-two
years before the rules converged again.
Championships
Ladies'
Home Internationals Westward Ho!
On 30 April Scotland
won the Miller Shield, at Westward Ho, for the third time in succession
since Ireland's victory in 1907.
Ladies
Championship 3-6 May - Westward Ho!
Gladys Ravensroft won
the curtain raiser, the strokeplay championship held on the 2
May with a round of eighty-four strokes. The first notable scalps
were Maud Titterton when she was beaten by Miss Mabel Harrisson
playing out of RPGC and Cecil Leitch. Miss Ravenscroft destroyed
the Irish Champion, Miss Ormsby, by 7 and 6 in the third round.
Harrison and Violet Hezlet were the only Irish players to make
it through to the fourth round but both went out in the fourth
and fifth rounds respectively. The eventual winner was Miss E.
Grant Suttle, the Sunningdale player.
The
Amateur Championship 30 May - 3 June Royal Liverpool Club - Hoylake
[160 entrants]
H.M. Cairnes caused
a huge upset by taken the reigning (and 1903) champion, Robert
Maxwell, out of the picture by 2 and 1 unfortunately this only
set up a match with the redoubtable John Ball playing at his home
club…there was only ever going to be one result, despite
Maxwell's victory over Ball in the international match played
before the Championship, 5&4 was the final margin of victory.
The was only a very small cohort of Irish players represented
and with Lord Annesley and Cairnes out in the second round and
A. V. Macan, the Malahide player,
out the third (albeit by only one-hole to James Laidlay) all hopes
rested with Lionel Munn but he eventually succumbed to F.C Carr,
the Handsworth player, in the fourth round by one hole. 'Johnnie'
Ball went on to win his seventh amateur championship (winning
eight in all), to date, this represents three more than his nearest
rival, Sir Michael Bonnallack
Hopes of one of the
Irish clubs staging the Amateur Championship in 1912 seem a real
possibility.
Irish
Ladies Championship 7-9 June - Newcastle
The scratch competition
before the event saw Miss Ormsby and Ms G. Lauder shoot 91 and
a play-off would be held later in the week to determine the winner.
Mabel Harrison beat last year's champion, Miss Ormsby, and favourite
in the fourth round by 1up. The final was referreed by Lord Annesley
and Miss Harrison wouldn't be denied notching up a 4 and 3 victory
against Miss Magill.
Exhibition
matches
6 June: The final of
Moran vs Cahill duel over 72 holes
(Skerries/Dollymount) ended in victory for Moran by 17 and 15.
June 8-9 Rosapenna Golf
Club
Lord Leitrim was trying
to organise a professional tournament at Rosapenna between Tom
Ball and Duncan vs Vardon and Herd to be played June 8-9 (Day
1 - 36-hole singles and Day 2 - 36-hole fourball). Herd may have
replaced Braid in this event probably because of his dislike of
travelling by sea even a four-hour journey between Hollyhead and
Kingstown filled him with dread.
On the Thursday Vardon
was pitted against Duncan and the largest crowd followed this
match against the King and a young pretender to the throne. Vardon
covered the first nine in 39 strokes two shots less than his opponent.
They match each other in the inward nine but Duncan's card was
somewhat ruined by a seven on the sixteenth. Herd shot lower than
Ball (80 vs 81). In the afternoon Vardon was out of sorts and
while Duncan was playing majestically albeit his putting was haphazard.
The final scores over the thirty-six holes read: Herd 155; Duncan
155; Vardon 157 and Ball 158.
Tom Ball and Duncan
won the fourball on Friday by 1up keeping a fight back from the
Vardon/Herd at bay having been 4up by the turn in the afternoon.
A large contingent including the Scottish and Irish press stayed
at the Rosapenna hotel after which discussions with these great
players showed Ball disenchanted with the way golf was becoming
a study and Vardon declaring that he wouldn't pass a strict examination
of the rules of the game.
An eagerly awaited match
11-13 October between Harold Hilton and Cecil Leitch took place
a Walton Heath where Hilton had given up a half a stroke a hole
and three thousand people were there to witness the proceedings.
Cecil Leitch eventually won the match by 2up.
The Irish Professional Championship 9-10
June 1910 - Royal Dublin Golf Club (Dollymount)
Heavy rain on the course
had taken its toll on the greens, which were heavy and sluggish
as the professionals started play in the fourth championship and
the putting reflected this in the morning round. However, the
local professional, Michael Moran,
took the course record in the afternoon round with a 72.
Out 5,5,4,6,4,3,2,3,4=36
In: 3,4,4,3,4,5,4,5,4=36 Total 72
Moran's total of 150
gave him a seven shot lead at the halfway stage over James
Edmundson.
The next day Moran played
the Dollymount course in 70 strokes and another course record
and the championship was his. His four round total was 296 (78,72,70,76)
ten shots ahead of his nearest challenger Martin Cahill (Skerries)
306 (82,77,74,73) with James Edmundson,
in third place, a further thirteen strokes behind Cahill 319 (78,79,81,81)
and tied with H. Hamill.
In the Amateurs vs Professionals
match which following Moran pipped Lionel Munn by a single stroke.
With fourteen players on either side the Professionals won out
by 12 and 9 playing singles and foursomes matches.
Irish Close Championship 14 -17 June - Royal
Dublin Golf Club (Dollymount)
The 19th Amateur close
championship (44 entries) got off with twelve first round matches
the most notable of which was Cairnes and Macan, the former winning
out with a 5 and 3 victory. Another casualty of this early round
was Captain Boyd. Munn was in fine form on the second day's play
shooting level fours for the holes played with victories of 9
and 8 (Orr - Stillorgan Park) and 8 and 7 (Elvery - Dublin University).
In the semi-final Jameson
beat E.B. Maxwell (Portmarnock), a cousin of Robert Maxwell now
stationed at the Curragh, by 5 and 4. Munn had an altogether more
difficult time of it only securing victory against Captain J.P.
Curran by 1 hole.
Surprisingly J.F. Jameson
won the final by 2 and 1. Jameson had the better of the first
round shooting 76 one better than his opponent. The second round
saw Munn further adrift with a 79 which was four shots off the
eventual winner. Jameson is slight in stature but his timing is
such that it allows him keep up with even the longest of hitters
- during the winter he would practice much of his golf in France.
The quality of his game was attributed to the coaching of John
McKenna, the Malahide professional, who was now based in Germany.
Hewson was a little
aggrieved at the Northern golfer who put his handicap down as
2 (when he had a much longer handicap) and playing Portrush in
74 strokes as a joke for inclusion in the Irish Golfer's Guide
Who's Who - he wasn't amused.
The
Open Championship 21-24 June 1910 St. Andrews Golf Club
The first day of the
Jubilee championship was cancelled in the early afternoon due
to thunderstorms a first for the event. Despite George Duncan's
course record 73 in the first round Moran found himself well placed
on 77 in joint ninth place. Another good round of 75 left him
within striking distance but finished with 79,81 and a 312 total
and in joint 14th place thirteen shots behind the eventual winner
James Braid. No other Irish player figured in the Open Championship
this year.
The new motorboat built
by Messrs Reid of Portstewart and fitted with an engine from Messrs
Hayward of Belfast at Portmarnock gets it first try out.
Irish
Open Professional Championship 6-9 July 1910 Portmarnock Golf
Club
A professional tournament
has been arranged at Portmarnock between 6-9 July 1910, the format
consists of a thirty-six-hole strokeplay qualifier with the best
32 players moving on to the matchplay stages each over 18 holes
with a thirty-six hole final. It was eleven years since a professional
tournament was last held at Portmarnock and the minimum prize-money
of 250pds would certainly attract a big field. First and second
prize were £50,£30. It was hoped that the Great Northern
would put more carriages than usual on their trains to Howth while
the championship was being played. Messrs Harrison & Co. erected
marquees to provide refreshments for visitors and the club motorboat
and launch were free to all visitors. A telegraph office was set
up.
Over 1,500 spectators
watched the closing stages of the match. The only hiccup was with
the catering on the Wednesday when the petrol (petrol joints came
loose) in the motor launch failed and delayed catering staff by
up to two hours and left them unable to cope with the number of
spectators. Ted Ray rowed the boat in heavy winds on the Wednesday
morning while the motor launch was out of action.
Ted Ray won the thirty-six-hole
qualifier but was knocked out in the matchplay stage by Michael
Moran. Moran only just scrapped through the qualifiers seemly
more concerned with perfecting his swing in the company of Harry
Vardon than the actual score. Once through Moran had a close match
with Sydney Ball, the Wrexham player, only winning by one hole
and achieved a similar margin against Ted Ray. George Duncan from
Hanger Hill eventually defeated Moran by 2 and 1 in the quarter-finals.
James George Sherlock, the Stoke Poges professional, won the championship
by 2 and 1 over Harry Vardon, the victory was very much attributed
the Sherlock ability on the putting surface with 7-8 putts in
the 4-15yards all making the hole. Sherlock won 50pds and a golf
medal and Vardon 30pds and a silver medal, Mayo and Duncan took
away 20pds each - the prizes presented by Mrs Jameson.
It was very much considered
"Sherlock's Year" despite a poor showing in the Open
Championship he managed many of the other main events that year
including the News of the World Matchplay played at his home club
where he beat George Duncan. Sherlock (picture below) was not
up to this consider a tier-one player but was a reknown putter
despite the mashie being the favourite club in his bag.
Irish
Open Amateur Championship 30 August - 2 September Portrush Golf
Club
Of the 160 entries only
forty were Irish in the nineteenth championship, the course at
6.600 yards is considered one of longest courses in existence.
The competitors faced a two-hour journey from Belfast to Portrush
albeit in reasonable comfort given the dining facilities available
to them. In the strokeplay competition preceding the matchplay
championship Lionel Munn's 77 (plus 4) secured him victory ahead
of Anthony Babington (scr.) who carded a 79. Many of the Irish
players exited in the second and third rounds and conditions weren't
conjusive to low scoring.
By the fifth round of
the Championship proper only three Irish players remained A. Jeffcott
(Portmarnock), A.K. Sparrow (RPGC) and Lionel Munn (North West).
Ernest Carter another RPGC player
went out in the fourth round to Major H.L. Fleming of Edinburgh
Burgess by 5 and 3. By the end of the fifth only two remained
Munn and Sparrow recorded 8&6 and 5&4 victories respectively.
The sixth round saw Sparrow defeated by the Yorkshire Champion
L. Butler Smith (Wakefield) but Munn continued in devastating
form with a 5&4 victory followed by a 3&2 victory over
George Wilkie (Leven Thistle) in the semi-finals. Munn now faced
Gordon Lockhart the Prestwick player in the final with an estimated
1,500 spectators watching the proceedings. Munn (38, 35) had already
an unassailable lead against Lockhart (43,40) by the end of the
first round when he went in 8up, the match finally ended up 9&7
in Munn's favour allowing him to secure his second victory in
the Championship.
South
of Ireland Championship 6 - 9 September Lahinch Golf Club
Dr. G.R. Girdlestone
(Oswestry Club - Shropshire) beat S.H. Fry (Felixstowe) in the
36-hole final by 4 and 2 both were also members of the host club,
Fry had entered the previous weeks Amateur Championship as a Lahinch
player. Girdlestone beat Jameson (who might have been favourite
at this stage), the Irish close champion in the semi-finals by
1up with Fry beating R. de Rose (Lahinch) by 5 and 3.
Interclub
Championships
Seventeen clubs entered
the Barton Cup, which was won by Milltown. Dublin University and
Helen's Bay took the honours in the Senior and Junior Cups respectively.
Continental
European Championships
1910 saw Peter
Gannon's success in the Italian (Florence) and Swiss (La Boulie)
Open Amateur Championships.
US Championships
US Amateur
Championship
William C. Fownes Jr.
at the Country Club (MA)
US
Women's Amateur Championship
Dorothy Campbell (Scotland)
at Homewood Country Club. Campbell beat Nonna
Barlow by 4 and 3 in the quarter-finals.
US
Open Championship
Alex Smith (Scotland)
at Philadelphia Cricket Club, St. Martin's Course
Sources:
The Irish Golfers' Guide:
Lionel Hewson (edited)
Royal and Ancient Championship
Records 1860-1980
The Shell International
Encylopedia of Golf: Donald Steele and Peter Ryde
