James Braid: A Man of Character (1952)
by Bernard Darwin
From James Braid by Hodder & Stoughton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
James Braid (February 6, 1870 - November 27, 1950) was a Scottish professional golfer, who was one of the "Great Triumvirate" of British golfers in the early 20th century alongside Harry Vardon and J.H. Taylor.
Braid was born in Earlsferry, Fife, Scotland and played golf from an early age, working as a clubmaker before turnover professional in 1896. Initially his game was hinded by problems with his putting, but he overcame this after switching to an aluminium putter in 1900. He won The Open Championship in 1901, 1905, 1906, 1908 and 1910. In addition Braid won four British PGA championships in 1903, 1905, 1907 and 1911 as well as the 1910 French Open title. He was also runner-up in the British Open in 1897 and 1909.
In 1912 Braid retired from tournament golf and became a club professional at Walton Heath. He was also involved in golf course design, and is sometimes regarded as the "inventor" of the dogleg. Among his designs are the "King's Course" and the "Queen's Course" at Gleneagles the 1926 remodelling of the British Open/The Open Championship venue Carnoustie Golf Links.
The future golfing historian will doubtless perceive that during the lifetime of James Braid and his distinguished contemporaries the position of the golf professional became an altogether different one, alike in reward and in social status. It is not so certain whether he will appreciate how much that difference was due to their fine example in character and conduct. Unquestionably their chance came with the immense spread of the game in their time but it was by the way they took that chance that they showed themselves the men they were. In their boyhood's days there were very few greens that needed or could afford a professional and so, unless he was one of the few lucky and resolute ones, he never rose far above the status of the caddie from which he had originally emerged, and when hard times or old age overtook him he ended as he had begun. If he was inclined to drink too much, as he often was, he was not greatly to be blamed, for his life produced naturally many idle hours and drink was one obvious way in which to pass them.
At the time when James and his contemporaries were emerging from boyhood the professional's opportunities were improving. In the later 'eighties when he was seventeen or eighteen the game was spreading like wildfire over England and the demand for someone who should combine the greenkeeper, the club-maker and the teacher was in consequence rapidly increasing. But even so it did not till a few years later offer a very inviting prospect and it is easy to understand how James's parents thought that a safe steady-going job as a joiner was a wiser investment than a plunge into the wild unknown England, where their lovable but reprehensible relation, Douglas Rolland, had taken sanctuary from the stern edicts of his native land.
By the time James had decided to take the plunge the prospects in England were perceptibly brighter, and not only there, for the game was likewise booming in Scotland. There was now a real chance for a steady man to make a decent living and, if he were an outstanding player, something more than that. But the margin of profit was still small and the player's rewards inconsiderable. To win a prize of £10 on the way to the Open championship brought with it the comfortable assurance that at least the expenses of the visit were provided for. To be a good player was by no means enough; the professional must be ready to turn his hand to anything: mending a club one minute; rolling the green or if need be digging a new bunker the next; ruling as caddie master over a herd of boys. It was a hard and busy life and beyond all these multifarious duties the club professional must be ever ready to make himself pleasant to all sorts and conditions of members, most of them ready no doubt to be pleasant themselves, but a few of them exacting and unreasonable to an infuriating degree. All these difficult things James and his great contemporaries achieved in a truly remarkable degree; always dignified and always respectful; steadily raising the whole status of their profession as they raised themselves; models of good and natural manners on and off the course. They set a wonderful example and the good they did will live long after them.
Apart from this universal esteem and respect felt for himself and his colleagues, James had a truly remarkable power of inspiring affection. This became more and more noteworthy in his later years, for we have as a nation a deep and genuine feeling for a grand old man in any walk of life and not least a grand old game-player. But throughout his career he had had the gift of making people fond of him. Up to a point it is not difficult for a prominent player of games to inspire personal liking, and it is perhaps easier for golfers than for the heroes of other games, since in the nature of their game they are surrounded and hemmed in by potential admirers, longing to repeat a single word overheard or, still better, to extract one addressed to themselves. To suffer them gladly is one of the tasks to which the Champion must school himself, and he must also learn, if he can, to make some pretence of remembering the man who said 'Well played' at the 10th hole on a course never visited before or since some dozen years ago. A golfer who, like the members of the Triumvirate, [Braid, Taylor and Vardon] plays in the course of years at numberless different places must inevitably be in the position of having met in a flash of lightning thousands of people of whom he has not the faintest recollection. But they remember him vividly, often crediting themselves with a familiarity with the great man which is wholly illusory, and retailing the mildest of small stories of what he said or did. Even as the Duke of Wellington was 'much exposed to authors' so James was much exposed to spectators of this kind and nobody was better qualified to deal with them. His invincible tranquillity made him endure their untimely interruptions and his memory was such that he sometimes did, contrary to all the laws of probability, really remember them.
These qualities naturally made for a general liking, but such a popularity as almost any champion can command, is very different from the real, deep affection that not only his friends but thousands who had barely exchanged a word with him felt for James. His was not merely that negative popularity such as is sometimes gained by silent and reserved men. James was beyond all doubt reserved, almost to a point of being secretive; he did not like garrulous people; he said very little and could hardly ever be said to let himself go. He certainly never seemed to go out of his way to seek affection, and if he felt it for others, as I am convinced he did, I doubt if he ever expressed it in words. He might have felt it altogether too gushing and barely decent to do so; yet it was an essentially positive affection that innumerable people felt for him and one that grew ever warmer with the years. James was a monument of two invaluable qualities, common sense and discretion. It is impossible to think of his doing or saying a foolish thing and though he heard much he revealed nothing. If, as has been said, 'philosophy is nothing but discretion', then James was well worthy to be called a philosopher. Moreover he had more than common sense, he had wisdom. I think that on any problem of which he was by experience competent to judge he would have given as sound advice as it was possible to obtain. If he did not feel competent, nothing would have induced him to say a word. 'His virtues walked their narrow round' but within that round there could not have been a more trustworthy counsellor, nor one who would think out a question more thoroughly before giving an opinion on it. It may be said perhaps that the natural bent of his mind was cautious and conservative. He would look more than once before he leaped, and his first inclination was to say, 'I would not do it'. But there was about him this comforting and compensating quality that if his advice was in favour of doing it, whatever it was, it was pretty sure to be the right and wise thing to do. The very last words he spoke at a meeting of the Professional Golfers' Association almost immediately before going into the nursing home for his operation, were extremely characteristic of his restraining wisdom, 'Take care you don't cut your own throats'. He had, as everybody must have, his likes and dislikes among people, but it would have taken an extraordinarily keen observer to guess at them from his calm, dignified, unchanging good manners. As he was a generous man in his everyday life, so he was a generous opponent at golf, and the same high praise must be given to his illustrious adversaries. They were constantly trying to beat one another and for several years the highest honours were very nearly confined to their small group. Each of them wanted with his whole soul to win, for no one can attain to such a position as was theirs without a fierce desire for victory; but they remained magnanimously equal to either fortune. It is not in human nature never to feel some grievance against the Fates in defeat and some envy of the victor, but whatever they felt they gave no sign of their emotions and remained models of good losing as of good winning.
In the evening Braid would often go across the road from his house to the social club in Walton, of which he was an original member. Here he would occasionally play darts but his more regular game was billiards. A great player he was not but he drove the balls about the table with much of that 'divine fury' which Horace Hutchinson had attributed to him in golf so many years before, sometimes with results very disconcerting to the opposition. The club never taught him to smoke. He had given it a very brief trial in his youth and decided firmly against it. His life at home remained in many ways as it always had been. Though he made so many journeys he would never have a car, but stuck to a train, not on economic grounds but because he was always prone to car sickness. He also refused to have a telephone and that was probably an example of his natural shrewdness; he knew that he would be given too little peace if he had it.
I suppose the thought of retiring must now and then inevitably have occurred to him but only as an ultimate and distant possibility. When the reporters asked him on his eightieth birthday whether he meant to retire he entirely and, I am convinced, genuinely denied it. Why should he retire? He loved his work and the play that was part of it. Whenever there was a competition at Walton Heath he was there to start the players and if need be to help manage the crowd. When the Daily Mail tournament was played there during the last summer of his life I saw him positively run, not very far and not very fast, but still run to shoo away an intrusive onlooker. He would have been lost without his life's work and it ought perhaps to be a cause for thankfulness that he never had to endure life without it.