When the Golf Journalist had to Play

Golfing Herald welcomes back guest author Peter Shaerf. As with his previous article (Beware the Quicksands), ‘When the Golf Journalist had to Play’ is another true story, this time recalling the events surrounding the 1922 Walker Cup and the esteemed golf writer and journalist Bernard Darwin.

There is no great mystery to the founding of the Walker Cup but the first tournament had a most fascinating quirk which will likely never be repeated.

Origins

The cup itself was the brainchild of George Herbert Walker who was President of the United States Golf Association (USGA) in 1920 and then latterly remembered as the maternal grandfather and great-grandfather of two U.S. Presidents.

In the summer of 1920, Walker was in Britain as part of the USGA delegation meeting with the Royal and Ancient (R&A) on the rules of golf. Walker attended the British Amateur that year and witnessed the final where American Robert Gardner narrowly lost to Britain’s Cyril Tolley on the first hole of sudden death. It was during this trip that Walker played with Norman Boase of the R&A who was newly installed as Chairman of the Championship Committee. The idea of an international match between British and American amateurs was discussed and embraced. Walker had, in 1919 and 1920 promoted and developed two matches between American and Canadian amateurs and as a true internationalist was seeking ways to expand the reach of the game.

Precursor

The intrepid William Fownes had led the American team in the Canadian matches and in 1921 when in England for the British Amateur he led an American team to a resounding 9-3 victory over their British counterparts. It is interesting to note the roster of the American team that day included Chick Evans, Francis Ouimet and Bobby Jones whilst the British team numbered Tommy Armour (still an amateur at that point), Cyril Tolley and Roger Wethered. This match was the precursor to the Walker Cup much as a similar styled professional match at Gleneagles around the same time was an early precursor to the Ryder Cup, albeit the nurturing of that concept took another seven years to materialize.

National Golf Links

Stepping into the picture now was Charles Blair MacDonald an original founder of the USGA and a member of the R&A Rules Committee and the architect of the National Golf Links of America.

‘The National’ as it was respectfully known opened for play in 1911 and was revered by many cognoscenti of the game. Horace Hutchinson rated it “so high that I am almost afraid of stating it too strongly” and Bernard Darwin (soon to be the feature of this story) wrote of a visit in 1913 that the course that MacDonald had built was a ”monument more enduring than brass”. George Walker was also a member of the club and so given its prominence and social status as being at the centre of New York’s summer society retreat on the shores of Southampton, that this should be the place for the first Walker Cup. It was interestingly mooted early on that The National, along with St. Andrews should be the permanent homes for the matches but the USGA did not pursue this approach, wanting the matches to be played across a more diverse spread of venues to enable more people to see the matches.

Funding

World War I Britain was still in the midst of recovery and rebuilding and heavily reliant for growth on the largesse of America. To send a team to the U.S. for such matches was a not insignificant cost requiring a transatlantic crossing and a stay of at least three weeks in the host country and the R&A resorted to outreaching to various clubs and golfing societies to solicit funds to send the team to the inaugural matches. This though was the age of the gentleman amateur and such were the work commitments of reigning British Amateur Champion, Ernest Holderness, that he was unable to commit to the trip. Nevertheless, a formidable British team including Roger Wethered and Cyril Tolley left England on the ‘RMS Carmania’.

Golf Correspondent

Accompanying them was 45-year-old Bernard Darwin, the golfing correspondent for The Times of London and a none too shabby player in his own right having reached the semi-finals of the 1909 and 1921 British Amateur and had appeared for England on six occasions against Scotland in the annual amateur match, albeit the last time had been twelve years previously.

Darwin was the grandson of naturalist Charles Darwin and was raised by him and his wife after the premature death of Bernard’s mother. Despite starting off a career as a barrister Darwin moved to journalism and covered golf for The Times and Country Life starting in 1907. The first journalist to cover golf on a major scale for a national newspaper Darwin had an ardent following and was a prolific writer. Indeed by the time of his death in 1961 aged 85 he had written over thirty books on golf.

Darwin was considered as a capable reserve should one be needed but his selection as such was merely an add on to his presence as the reporter of the event.

Upon Arrival

The team arrived in New York but in Darwin’s words perhaps they got there too soon and stayed too long for they had many ‘good dinners’ and ‘excursions to different courses, involving long motor drives and big lunches’. Included amongst such excursions was a trip to the venerable Pine Valley (which itself was to host the Walker Cup in 1936 and again in 1985). Eventually, they returned to The National and were hosted with extreme generosity and an abundance of attention by Macdonald.

Team America

A few days before the matches were to start the American team started to arrive. Perhaps it was the finest American amateur team ever assembled…Jesse Guilford, Bobby Jones, Chick Evans, Francis Ouimet, Robert Gardner, Jesse Sweetser, Max Marston and William C Fownes. A formidable crew that numbered at the end of their careers fifteen U.S. Amateur Championships (not to discount the 8 other major championships won by Bobby Jones and the U.S. Open titles of Evans and Ouimet!). At the time of the matches Jones’ career was just beginning and he had won nothing of note save three Southern Amateur titles.

Into the Breach

The matches were due to start on Monday 28th August but over the weekend the British Captain, Robert Harris, the Scottish international who would go on to win the 1925 British Amateur, fell ill. Harris had only been appointed team captain on the trip across and the illness must have been severe enough for he was unable to fulfil even the captain’s duties in a non-playing capacity. Into the breach stepped the intrepid journalist Bernard Darwin.

From Journalist to Playing Captain

Suddenly appointed Captain, Darwin changed his demeanour from reporter to player. Darwin paired with Chris Tolley in what was, in fact, the very first Walker Cup match. Describing himself as a “sad encumbrance” to Tolley, they were soundly beaten by Jesse Guilford and Francis Ouimet by the score of 8 and 7 over the 36 hole match.

Britain lost the first-day foursomes by three matches to one and then rapidly down on Tuesday in the singles but the final score became somewhat respectable winning the last three matches with Darwin as the ‘tail’ beating Fownes on the 35th hole, and making the final score 8 to 4 in favour of the host team.

The Sweetser match, level after the 36th hole and with no formula agreed to settle such an outcome the President of the USGA (with the two Captains playing against in each other and at that point still out on the course) sent the pair off to a sudden-death playoff which Chubby Hooman won with a birdie at the first extra hole. Darwin himself made it clear to Bill Fownes as he stood dormie on the 35th tee and having just learned of the Sweetser result suggested that in the event of a half they both would have ‘earned an immediate drink with no further demands on them’.

Reflection

As Darwin himself mused some 21 years later in recalling the matches that whilst the team thought they had not done very well they had done “distinctly better than any team since”.

And of course, no other team has had a golf commentator or journalist dive into the fray!