19 Feb 2010
When the Musselburgh Golf Course, circumscribed and intersected by the horse- racing track, had become 'disagreeably crowded’, The Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers moved to The Howes, east of Gullane an area that had been the site of the East Lothian horse races and a well-known training centre. This led some to claim that the move was merely from one race course to another but here the virgin land was lush, green, springy and less sandy than other links' with fine, healing turf several inches thick and inter-twined with liquorice roots to keep it together: "Withoot a doot it's the finest turf that ever was seen" said head groundsman David Plenderleith.
Old Tom Morris laid out the new course which opened with a three-ball match on the 3rd of May 1891 and hosted the Open Championship less than twelve months later. Andrew Kirkaldy famously disparaged the infant course as, 'naething but an auld water meedie' to which Longhurst' later riposted: 'It may have been. It certainly is not now.' When Muirfield had gone through the changes of puberty and reached adulthood, Donald Steel was moved to call it 'the brightest jewel in East Lothian amid quality, variety and an abundance of golf courses'.
From the first Amateur Championship, played at Hoylake in 1885, the host club had assumed total responsibility for the arrangement, organisation and conduct of the Championship. With experience gained through hosting the Open Championships of 1892 and 1896 both the Honourable Company and the Muirfield course were developing a reputation for leadership and innovation, so the record 74 entrants, including five former, and four future, champions made a strong field. The winner was Jack Allan, a 21 year-old Edinburgh final-year medical student who had taken up golf only five years before and never had a formal lesson. He played bare-headed in all weathers, wore boots with smooth soles devoid of nails or tackets and was content to trust his own judgments on the course, choosing as his caddie the smallest boy he could find on the Gullane Road. In this respect he was to be emulated sixteen years later by Francis Ouimet who chose ten -year old Eddie Lowery as his caddie when he won the 1913 US Open.
In the final, two shots by Allan after lunch dictated the result: at the seventh hole Allan played his ball into, and then out of the pond beside the seventh green, to halve a hole he looked like losing. Then on the eleventh hole, which ran on the line of the present ninth hole, controversy occurred. Allan's hooked second shot hit the wall and rebounded onto the fairway where his opponent's caddie picked up the ball and pocketed it. The hole was awarded to Allan who wrapped up the match on the sixteenth green. Allan graduated in October and only five months later he died from tuberculosis.
The Championship of 1903 attracted 142 entrants, with 79 Scots and 60 Englishmen, another record, and also saw a Muirfield innovation whereby the tournament was expanded to five days. The Championship itself was totally dominated by Robert Maxwell, a member of the Honourable Company and the R&A but who entered from Tantallon Golf Club, as he had done when he entered for the Championship in 1897. Generally regarded as almost unbeatable over his home course of Muirfield, his form throughout the Championship was described as 'devastating', until the final when his performance was upgraded to 'rampant' as he crushed, by 7&5, Horace Hutchinson, twice a Champion himself. Hutchinson explained to Darwin that his difficulties occurred because Maxwell was 'driving inconveniently far' but no winner could have been more popular in Scotland.
The introduction of the wound-rubber Haskell ball, first used at Muirfield in the 1906 Open Championship, had placed a severe strain on the old courses designed for the gutty, and it was clear that Muirfield would require considerable strengthening if it was to continue providing a searching test in future championships. By 1909, when the Amateur Championship returned, extensive additional land had been acquired to the north-east, beyond the original wall, while changes to the holes and layout meant that the course had grown to 6,230 yards.
Darwin delighted in the freedom from the constraint that had been created by the old wall, a small part of which still remains as a minor intrusion to the sixth hole. The Championship itself threw up some curiosities. Another record entry of 170 entrants attested to the growing popularity of golf, but with so many applications admission was limited to those with a handicap of scratch or better. Jerome Travers, the reigning US Amateur Champion, played in his shirt sleeves without a coat, puzzling the spectators who were as yet not familiar with the different forms of transatlantic golfing dress.
As before, Maxwell submitted his entry from Tantallon Golf Club and over his home course he was impregnable, instituting a 'reign of terror' over his opponents and defeating two fellow club members on his way to the quarter-final' in which JE Laidlay, NF Hunter and Captain C Hutchison were also all members of the Honourable Company. This was the first Championship in which four members from the same club had reached the last eight. Darwin, who had lost in the quarter-final of the Championship the previous year, won his match to reach a semi-final against Maxwell, whom he had known at Eton as a rower and footballer rather than a golfer. On the fourth green Maxwell benefited from what Darwin called 'Champion's Luck' when his ball cannoned off Darwin's ball and into the hole, but as Maxwell needed only 65 shots for the sixteen holes that he required to win it is clear that his victory did not rely on luck alone. Laidlay, twice a previous winner of the Championship and creator of the overlapping grip commonly attributed to Vardon, lost, while Hutchison defeated Robert Andrew, so the final was contested between two Etonian members of the Honourable Company.
It was widely expected that Maxwell's form would annihilate Hutchison, but this did not occur. Darwin, in his role as golf correspondent, followed the match in which 'the golf was of the highest quality, play went so smoothly and even, there were so few mistakes ... no anguish and only enjoyment in the watching' and Hutchison was one up with two holes to play. Devastatingly undeterred, Maxwell played these in three shots and then in four shots to win, one up. Itis worth noting that the 36 holes were completed in a total of four hours: still the quickest final on record.
Maxwell was Captain of the Honourable Company in 1912 and 1913, but had become a virtual recluse from the golf course, although remaining a Trustee of the Company and an increasingly influential administrative figure. He urged the purchase of even more land to the north and hired H S Colt and T Simpson to re-create the course in the form that we know it today. A biographical sketch by Norman Mair gives a picture of a man of exceptional golfing ability, administrative vision and talent coupled with the drive to 'get things done,’ arguably the largest character and most influential member in the history of the Honourable Company, than whom no one was regarded with more whole hearted admiration.
In 1914 J L C Jenkins from Troon, won the Amateur Championship at Royal St. Georges and the intrusion of the First World War which caused suspension of the competition saw him remain as Champion until 1920 when the competition was re-started, once again at Muirfield. However, on the 8th of December 1919, with Robert Maxwell presiding, a meeting of 26 golf clubs agreed to ask the R&A to become the supreme ruling authority for the future management of the Amateur and Open Championships. The new Championship Committee met for the first time on the 5th of March 1920, with the still reigning Champion, Jenkins, and Maxwell named as committee members.
Having been 'Champion' for six years Jenkins defended his title vigorously until he was overcome in the fourth round, while two Scots, Tommy Armour and Bobby Cruickshank, later destined to garner professional fame in the USA, both went out in the third round, Cruickshank being defeated by the eventual winner. Maxwell could not resist a last opportunity to play on his home course, but, entering as usual from Tantallon Golf Club he lost in the second round. The final was contested by two men who were both extraordinary athletes. The second American to reach the final, R A (Bob) Gardner from Chicago, was one of the greatest athletes the USA ever produced, twice US Amateur golf champion, world champion pole-vaulter, the first to clear thirteen feet, and a double rackets champion while Cyril Tolley played golf, cricket and tennis at Oxford University. Tolley had been a Tank Commander who fought in the battles of Ypres and Cambrai, was awarded the Military Cross and was interned as a prisoner of war. Repatriated in 1918 he went up to Oxford a year later and played on the golf team captained by Roger Wethered.
At the start of the 1920 Summer term Tolley was, by his own admission, playing golf so badly that he had packed his clubs away and was concentrating on cricket and tennis: 'Never had I detested the idea of playing golf more’. Despite entreaties from Wethered, Tolley refused to enter for the Championship at Muirfield, but on the day the entries closed he apparently relented and sent in his entry form. Curiously, his story changed a few years later when "... I met Wethered in the street.
It was the day the entries for the Amateur closed. Tolley was persuaded to “wire my entry to Mr Arthur Croome at Rye to forward it to the Royal and Ancient Club. It was number 168 and the last one to be received:” Apparently, the entry was received by wire.
These discrepant explanations have created a frisson of intrigue as to whether or not it was Tolley who actually sent in entry form 168. Was it Wethered, possibly concerned that his colleague might still refuse or miss the deadline to enter, who wired the entry form and paid the entrance fee or did Croome wire it and pay the entry fee? As it is no longer possible to seek clarification, we cannot, like Pooh-Bah, obtain '... corroborative detail, intended to give artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative', and we are left with the idea that perhaps Tolley became the only Champion without himself entering the competition. In the event, 165 competitors started and the two outstanding athletes contested a dramatic final. Gardner was the favourite and in command throughout the morning, being two up at lunch. In the afternoon Tolley, a committed pipe smoker who played his shots with a pipe in his mouth, rallied from three down to three up with four holes to play but found the match all-square after 36 holes. The First (37th)at that time was a one-shot hole to a well bunkered and fast, sloping green. Gardner drove first, a fine shot to the green and Tolley countered with an even finer shot that finished inside Gardner's, about four yards from the hole, following which Gardner laid his approach putt dead, guaranteeing his three. Tolley, who had previously armed himself with a £5 note to give to his caddie in the event of victory, pulled this from his pocket, handed it to the Caddie and then holed his birdie putt to win. ‘Tolley had a capacity for holing long putts which was made
the more impressive by a habit of walking after the still moving ball with a view to picking it out' and, as Jones was to remark later, ‘Tolley was one of those players who had a flair for the spectacular .. , and he played the game in the grand manner'.
This Muirfield final is still ranked as one of the classic battles of international amateur golf, and the sporting demeanor of the two finalists, coupled with the excitement, held spellbound one important spectator. The impression created was such that on his return home, USGA President George Herbert Walker donated the International Challenge Trophy for team competition between the two countries, and on the 21st of July 1921, Hoylake hosted the first 'unofficial International' match between eight-man amateur teams from Britain and the USA. The Walker Cup match, as it soon became known, remains the acme of the genre of amateur team competition in golf. It is of passing interest to note that Tommy Armour, who in 1921, played for the British team and in the 1926 Ryder Cup for the USA team, is the only man to play for both sides.
In an effort to ease crowd control, for the first time spectators were charged an entry fee. With the Walker Cup scheduled for St. Andrews the next week 24 Americans entered for the Championship, and Muirfield was given its first opportunity to assess Bobby Jones who was 'in the plenitude of his powers', already a US Open and double US Amateur Champion. He was clear favourite to win and he moved untroubled to the fifth round. But Muirfield has never been in awe of great players and rarely makes concessions to those who carry champion's titles, and so it was with Jones. His opponent was Andrew Jamieson known locally as a neat, unobtrusive, efficient golfer with a smooth swing, a beautiful putter and a cheerful temperament, who if given a piece of luck or an early lead, had the ability to play uncommonly well. He was and he did, and that was that, by 4&3, without Jones winning a single hole, although later it was disclosed that Jones had been suffering from a 'stiff neck'.
Jamieson played in the Walker Cup match, losing to Jones in the foursomes but winning his singles match. He won the Scottish Amateur Championship the following year but throughout his life he was known as 'the man who beat Bobby Jones'.
Jesse Sweetser, US Amateur Golf Champion in 1922, had been an athlete running the quarter-mile for Yale University and also won the NCAA (Universities) Golf Championship, with a grooved swing that was sound and impressive. A man of considerable charm he arrived at Muirfield suffering all week with 'severe flu'. The early rounds were uneventful for Sweetser who beat fellow countryman Francis Ouimet. But in the semi-final he met the Honourable W G Brownlow (later Lord Lurgan) who displayed unruffled calm and, dressed in a small peaked cap, a clerk's long black coat and silk gloves, matched Sweetser shot for shot, holing putts with an imperturbable and sphinx like air. He was two down at the Seventeenth when he switched to a wooden-headed putter, and holed putts of 45 and 35 feet to win the last two holes. Sweetser prevailed eventually at the 21st hole but it was a close-run match.
The final produced a remarkable display of sportsmanship from Sweetser. His opponent, AF Simpson lived in Edinburgh and a friend agreed to drive him to Muirfield in plenty of time for the final the next morning, but inexplicably failed to arrive. Simpson was forced to order a taxi for a frenetic drive and then incurred a further delay caused by a flock of sheep obstructing the road. Meanwhile, at the course it was clear that Simpson was likely to miss his starting time therefore leading to disqualification, whereupon Sweetser claimed 'indisposition' and disappeared to the toilet where he remained until informed that Simpson had arrived. After all this it was not surprising that Sweetser had a comfortable victory by 6&5, and he continued his success by winning both his Walker Cup matches in the following week. During his two weeks in Britain and on the return voyage Sweetser suffered several life-threatening pulmonary hemorrhages from tuberculosis, originally misdiagnosed as severe 'flu, and on his return home he was carried from the ship on a stretcher. He was sent to Asheville, NC, where he spent a year recuperating and eventually was successfully cured.
In a brief literary footnote, Gerald Fairlie, author of the Bulldog Drummond stories of derring-do, broke his record in the Championship by reaching the second round for the first time without the aid of a bye or walkover: such achievements serve to inspire us all.
For the first time the entry limit was set at a handicap of 4 on the recently-introduced National Handicap System, but even so 235 golfers entered. With only five Americans in the field the terror usually engendered by these invaders lasted briefly. It should be noted that Henry Longhurst, who would later inherit Darwin's mantle as the outstanding British golf writer, entered for the only time, and was defeated in the first round 4 &3 by a local player, Burnside, while Darwin himself was knocked out in the second round. John de Forest, later to become Count de Bendern, had been the losing finalist in the previous year and once more reached the final where he played Eric Fiddian.
Darwin wrote glowingly of the re-modeled arena: 'Muirfield was wonderfully engaging, everything went smoothly and the weather was appalling except for two days’. Fiddian was a powerful and attractive player with a tendency to hit his drive hard on the head from time to time while Darwin described de Forest as having great heart, a good hitter with a style complex and not very pretty but with great power and with putting as his strength. After ten holes de Forest was seven up when he succumbed to the 'waggling' disease becoming 'stuck' at the address, standing as though hypnotised by the ball and quite unable to make the first movement of the backswing while he continued to waggle the club as though terrified. This made it difficult for the spectators, and more so for his opponent, until they and he became accustomed to the intervals during which they all had to stand and wait. In the end de Forest won by 3& 1 but the performance was marred by the hesitatingly slow pace in which 35 holes took six and a half hours to play, leaving Darwin almost too exhausted to make his radio report where he suggested that this final would not be remembered as one of the great ones. It remains the longest however.
With the R&A celebrating their bicentenary in the following week entrants came from twelve countries outside the British Isles, and fourteen of these reached the fifth round. This was the year that 'seeding' of players was introduced, so Muirfield was maintaining its reputation for innovation, and controversy would soon follow. In the quarter-final match the reigning Amateur Champion, Irishman Joe Carr, played Peter Toogood, the reigning Australian Amateur Champion who had brought his family with him after having the winning ticket in his State Lottery. All square after nineteen holes Carr pulled his drive on the twentieth, incidentally the only hole that remains virtually unchanged from the original Morris design, into a depression of severe rough where rainwater collects and once was almost developed as a water hazard. After a lengthy search Carr's ball was found in muddy ground and unplayable, but an official deemed the site as casual water and from his free lift and drop, Carr played his second shot to the green and holed the putt to win.
In the semi-final Carr, supported by a posse of Irish priests in the large crowd following his matches, played the American W C (Bill) Campbell who cycled to the course each morning and made a point of befriending the local Parish Minister, doffing his hat as he passed. Prior to the start of the match the Minister informed Campbell that he had prayed for him that morning. With Campbell winning at the Sixteenth it would seem that the single prayer with 'home field advantage' carried more weight than several prayers from the 'visiting team'.
The final, with Doug Bachli from the town of Rosebud near Melbourne and Campbell from Virginia, guaranteed an eleventh foreign winner of the Championship. Bachli's short game was immaculate but the morning round was even, Campbell lunching with a one-hole lead. On the second hole of the afternoon Campbell copied Carr's shot with a hook into the damp rough, and on this occasion his ball was not found so potential controversy was averted. The game turned and 'Bachli caught and passed him down the stretch and closed him out on the 35th green’. Given Muirfield's early association with horse-racing Herb Wind's equine parlance was an appropriate summation, and perhaps brought some measure of consolation to Australian followers distraught at the decision for Carr, although for most this would be remembered as the Championship that Campbell lost.
The entry fee for competitors was raised to £10 and with 350 entries received, including 57 from the USA, a ballot had to be introduced. Muirfield's reputation for innovation was holding. Only four of the 76 potential entrants with a handicap of 2 were fortunate in the ballot, double winner Joe Carr, failing to get in, and quadruple winner Michael Bonallack being unseeded. The opening round brought one major surprise when Alan Liddle from Alloa, who had never before played Muirfield, even in practice, defeated Neville Sundelson, the South African Amateur Champion and holder of the Brabazon Trophy. After this surprise normal service was resumed with a firm, cold westerly wind throughout the week.
In the final, Trevor Homer from Walsall, who won in 1972, had a consistent, constant, slow stately swing, great strength, maintained his poise under pressure and was described as 'a genuine amateur in the true meaning of the term and not an embryo professional' . His opponent, American Jim Gabrielson who entered the competition mainly because of his desire to play Muirfield, also had a smooth, rhythmic swing, and had lost to Homer in one of the early rounds of the 1971 Championship at Carnoustie. The last day was calm, and of the first 25 holes played only four were exchanged, three going to Homer who led at lunch but went out to practice before the second round. In the wind of the early rounds Gabrielson had played with the 1.68" American size golf ball, but for the calm Final he elected to switch to the smaller, 1.62” British ball.
The final was close throughout until the fateful 36th hole which was played in a manner encouraging to those of us whose game is not always perfect, and therefore worth describing. Standing one up on the tee, Homer drove into a bunker while Gabrielson found the fairway. Homer required two shots to extricate his ball and played his fourth shot to the green before Gabrielson had played his second, a six-iron which was directed left by the slope at the back edge of the green into the greenside bunker. At this point some of the crowd headed towards the first tee convinced that extra holes would be required, but from a difficult lie and stance Gabrielson played out and across the green into the 'island' bunker: from here he reached the green but still outside his opponent. Gabrielson's putt was too strong so Homer putted and missed to be followed by Gabrielson who missed again, leaving Homer, who was looking on in abject disbelief, with two putts to win from two feet. At this point Gabrielson walked over, picked up Homer's marker conceding his six to win the hole and the match. At the prize-giving ceremony Homer complimented the head green keeper on the immaculate condition of the golf course, pointing out that while he had found three blades of grass out of place, these were not all on the same hole. Following his success, Homer turned professional, confirming the dangers of forecasting, but he found little success and a lifestyle not to his liking, so some time later was re-instated as an Amateur.
An entry of 510 competitors set a new record. When 21 year-old Leiden University psychology student Rolf Muntz and his Dutch colleague entered the Championship the Dutch Officials booked their return flights for the Friday, but they might have guessed better. Muntz, with good looks, a pleasant demeanor free from affectation or histrionics in his game, had a well-organised swing, proved under pressure, and hit the ball a long way. Like Bobby Jones, Muntz had a mental approach that eliminated all thought of his opponent's play, concentrating his own game on the 'card and pencil' mentality of playing against par, and this psychology became very apparent as he continued to win. He also had good genes from his mother who was herself an international golfer. Before the tournament he purchased a lightweight putter in Edinburgh for £10 and used it with considerable success. The wind blew all week and surprisingly, no American, Australian or South African players progressed beyond the third round. Receiving a bye into the second round Muntz would eventually play some 28 holes less than his final opponent, but first, in the semi-final, Muntz had to defeat Cassells, the beaten finalist from the previous year.
In the final he met Welshman Michael Macara, who had undergone three episodes of back surgery two years previously. Having played more golf in the week than had his youthful opponent, Macara was probably the more tired and his tendency to fade the ball became more pronounced as the match progressed. Muntz was one up at lunch but in the afternoon his long, straight driving took its toll on Macara and soon saw him 4 up. On the eighth hole Muntz took the 'Hagen Route' driving onto the practice ground, obviating the dog-leg, and thence playing to the green, before pulling away from his tiring opponent to win by 7&6, the first Dutchman to capture the Amateur Championship and the first from his country to win any major title outside the Netherlands.
A week of breezy winds with sunshine lasted until the final day as Sergio Garcia attempted to emulate Olazabal's victory of 1984. With 537 entrants this was the largest field ever and another record for Muirfield, but this did not intimidate Garcia who was in unbeatable form, arousing memories of Maxwell dominating at Muirfield. None of Garcia's opponents survived beyond the sixteenth hole, as he made his way to the semi final where he met the 6 foot 7 inches tall Mark Hilton, who was not prepared to be so easily overcome. The semi-final was a close contest requiring five extra holes before Garcia triumphed with a par 5 at the 23rd hole, the farthest from the clubhouse and requiring a long trek back. In the Final he was to meet Welshman Craig Williams, who had progressed steadily, but not with the same degree of domination as Garcia.
After the pleasant weather all week, the Saturday morning was wet and miserable with the spectators requiring waterproofs and umbrellas, so it was with some surprise that they saw Garcia wearing his dark glasses, perhaps to counter the glare from the brightly coloured umbrellas. He made a slow start and was two behind after four holes but with a brief and temporary respite from the rain, he turned the tables and went into lunch four up. In the rain after lunch he won the first two holes to increase his lead, was seven up after ten holes and finally won by 7&6. Williams admitted that he had spent far too much time in the rough because 'I could get out of it earlier in the week, but with it being so wet I couldn't'.
Muirfield can be expected to provide enthrallingly close matches, some good and some bad luck, some unusual shots and situations, some triumphs and some disasters, but encompassing all these with some outstanding golf, good sportsmanship, and a truly merited Champion. If the reigning Champion, Matteo Manassero, defends his title he will still be too young to possess a driving license and so may be forced to cycle each day to the golf course, in which case perhaps Muirfield will, as at the 1896 Open Championship, again provide 'secured stabling for bikes at a cost of one shilling per day'. The course will almost certainly provide innovation and controversy and the winner will join the pantheon of other Champions knowing that he has won his title over one of the world's greatest courses and tests of golf.
It should be intriguing.
This article first appeared in the December 2009 issue of Through the Green by R A P Burt, MD
