DARKEST BEFORE THE DAWN
From GOLF BETWEEN TWO WARS by Bernard Darwin
Publihed by Chatto & Windus, London 1944
FROM 1924 to 1930, except in one single year, the Open Championship was won by Walter Hagen or Bobby Jones. They did not both come every year; each seemed rather in the nature of a mouse playing when the cat was away and it was only at St. Anne's in 1925, when Bobby won and Hagen was third, that we saw them opposed to one another. Of these two I have said a good deal already and So let me turn to the single one in those seven years when neither came over and Jim Barnes won, namely 1925 at Prestwick. This too must be reckoned an American victory, but it possessed at least this circumstance a little soothing to national pride, that Barnes was not only born in this country but "in spite of all temptation had remained an Englishman". He had sturdily refused to be an American citizen; he was still above everything an intensely patriotic Cornishman and this, apart from his many other pleasant qualities, endeared him to us.
I had first seen Barnes, I suppose, though without realising that he was a future champion, when he was a lanky boy in Whiting's shop at Lelant and I spent a never-to-be-forgotten week at Christmas there, in which we lay basking on the grass while the rest of England was in the grip of fog and frost. Next I had seen him in Francis Ouimet's year at Brookline when he had a chance of winning in the last round but faded a little away. He had been sixth in Duncan's year, at Deal; third to Hagen and Duncan at Sandwich; ninth when Hagen won at Hoylake; and he had won the American Open in 1921, won it easily, which is a difficult thing to do. So he had certainly earned his turn at Prestwick. He was not only a very fine player but technically a very interesting one by reason of his height. Of all the champions I can think of he must be decidedly the tallest, and great height combined with slimness of build is not an unmixed advantage. Bobby Jones is a good example of a comparatively small man using all his height by standing up to the ball; Barnes is an example of the tall man who must needs cancel some of his height and gets well down to the ball without undue stooping. Get down he did; he seemed to use rather short clubs and had a fairly wide stance, but he kept his legs taut and was firmly propped upon them; his stance was the very opposite of that broken-kneed old cab-horse stance (I speak feelingly) noticeable in some stoopers. Moreover if he got down well he kept down superbly well; his finish was a model for the tall man who is inclined to spring up too soon after the ball is hit. Everything he did was pleasant to watch, not least his putting with a cleek and again, as was natural, a wide stance.
This Prestwick Championship has come to be regarded in retrospect as a duel between two exiles, Barnes from England and Macdonald Smith from Scotland, and so in the end it proved; but this is a view unjust to Ray and Compston who each finished one stroke behind Barnes and two ahead of Smith. Still it is hard to fight against abiding impressions and it is to those two figures from America that memory clings. It was they who set the pace in the first rounds, changing places with startling rapidity. Barnes began with a 70, streaking right ahead of the field, while Mac Smith was in the ruck of the other likely ones with a 76. In the second round Barnes fell away with a 77 and Mac Smith to the unbounded joy of the Scottish crowd had a wonderful 69 and led by two strokes. On the last day Barnes was among the early starters, a fact that was to be of great advantage to him, but he made little use of it at first, for he fell away again for a'Jg. He had come back to his horses, for Compston had caught him and Ray and Abe Mitchell were but two behind him. As for Mac Smith, with an eminently sound third round of 76 he now seemed to be out by himself. Barnes again was off early, before the bulk of the crowd could catch him, and this time he did get his blow in first; he played very well indeed for 74.. It was a good last round but Barnes was convinced that it was not good enough, and certainly tfie prospect of such a player as Mac Smith wanting only 'a 78 to win was not too encouraging. J. H. Taylor would have none of this hopelessness; Barnes had got his card in and the other fellows would know what they had to do; he shook his head; he was very emphatic about it and he was right. Compston had a 75, very good but not good enough by that one fatal stroke; Ray had a gallant 73 to tie with Compston. Out went Macdonald Smith with 79 to tie and 78 to win and the whole turbulent, enthusiastic Scottish crowd went with him.
Poor Macdonald Smith was not unnaturally sad and bitter at the end of the day and blamed the crowd for his failure. They may have stopped him from winning, but assuredly that was the last thing they intended to do. They wanted the Scotsman to win and all that was wrong was that too many of them wanted it too much. It has to be admitted that Prestwick is not a good course for spectators. The crowds are very big and very keen and some of their number are imbued with the spirit of the miner on his holiday who traditionally remarked "Players be d d. I've come to see." Moreover the ground especially near the clubhouse is very ill adapted for the purpose since the spectators watching one player get inextricably mixed with those watching another. The Loop becomes as a whirlpool of people, and the steering them round the great width of the Cardinal bunker is a problem in itself. There used to be one member of the club who regularly took charge of the Cardinal and was supposed to know more about it than any man alive; his was an awful task.
This crowd of Macdonald Smith's meant unquestionably well, but despite all the stewards could do they did sometimes press very close. Other people, Vardon and Taylor for instance in 1914, have endured as much and played their game, but that is not to say that Mac Smith had not a good deal to bear. It is unnecessary to follow the round in any detail; it was a tragedy of frittering and some time before he had ended in 82, Barnes was practically safe in his haven. Nor is it necessary to speculate on what might have happened in other conditions. From what I have seen of Macdonald Smith, for whom I have a great admiration, he seems to me a player who can play a great last round when the chance of winning has almost gone, and not such a great one when the chance is there for the taking. The whole affair was unfortunate and the Prestwick Club, not over-fond of the storm and stress of an Open Championship, has never, I think, asked for one since. That is sad, for here was the original home of the Championship Belt, but the greatest number recorded as entering for the Belt was seventeen and a modern Championship does make very stern demands alike on a club and its course.
The tale of Champions from America does not end with Bobby's last win in 1930. There were three more to come in a row, Armour, Sarazen and Densmore Shute. 1931 saw the Open Championship played for the first time at Carnoustie, the nursery of many famous Scottish golfers, and it seemed a pity that Bobby Jones should not be there to play on the home green of his boyhood's model, Stewart Maiden. It has every qualification for a championship course; it is long, interesting and difficult and it possesses in particular a fine, crucial finish amid the lethal windings of the Barry Burn. Save where the crowd is apt to get a little entangled amid the loops of that famous and ubiquitous stream, it possesses plenty of space in which spectators can be and are well controlled. It was not quite so long and fierce in 1931, as it was when Cotton won there seven years later, but it was stern enough. Incidentally it was made fiercer for some people and kinder for others by a rather inconstant wind which twice changed in the course of the day. It was kind to Armour who won, unkind to Sarazen, who philosophically remarked that "you must have the breaks".
Armour, who had been Open Champion of America in 1927, won this Championship in the most gallant possible way by coming up from behind with a last round of 71. It was particularly interesting to see him play again, since we had seen him play as an amateur in the Amateur Championships of 1920 and 1921 and for Britain in the first unofficial international at Hoylake. I had also met him, still as an amateur, in the United States in the summer of the first Walker Cup match. He had in those days possessed a fine and notably rhythmic swing; he looked like a golfer of high class but he had been, judged by expectations formed of him, just a little bit disappointing. When he returned in his new capacity it was apparent how much professional training had done. His style as graceful as ever appeared more strictly workmanlike, stripped of all superfluities and exuberances, and the high standard of American putting had made a far better player of him on the green. There are certain remarks which it becomes for a time the correct thing to make about certain players. One commentator adopts them from another till there swells up a great chorus of voices repeating the same strain. At about this time it was eminently the right thing to see that Armour was the best iron player in the world; it was an opinion to be taken as read. Beyond doubt he was a very fine one, hitting the ball a beautifully crisp blow, "like the shutting of a knife" to use another well-worn simile; but whether he was notably better than several other players I do not know. Enough that he was thoroughly well armed at all points.
One thing I do recall distinctly about him; it made his victory the more meritorious because it must have increased the strain on him; he was suffering from that waggling disease of which John de Forest was a victim when he reached the final of the Amateur Championship in 1931 and won it in 1932. He was not completely a victim; he could play his long shots confidently enough with the minimum of preliminaries but when he came to short pitches and even to putting he could not make up his mind to take the plunge but must hover shivering on the brink, postponing the decisive moment. I recollect one shot, I think, in his last round, at a short hole on the way home. He had put his tee shot just off the green and was left with a short and not very easy chip. He took so many rapid little waggles as to induce in the onlooker a tendency to scream aloud; it seemed as if there could be no end and that he could "Tire the sun with waggling and send him down the sky". Yet he went on till, as I suppose, he felt the right instant had come and he laid that most important chip dead. If he had not the mastery over his waggles he had it over himself, and that is what counts.
Armour was deservedly champion but the most memorable figure at Carnoustie and the one that drew the greatest crowds and evoked the greatest sympathy was the Argentine, Jose Jurado. The Duke of Windsor, then Prince of Wales, came to watch the Championship and had scarcely eyes for anyone else. Jurado was a most attractive player as well as a very fine one: small, dapper, agreeably smiling, with a swing like a flash of greased lightning and altogether a dashing and pleasant way with him. He had played in the Championship at Sandwich three years before when he had been for three rounds in the very forefront of the battle and had tailed off rather sadly in the fourth with 8o, as compared with the 72'S and 73's of the five players who finished ahead of him. Now he was more mature by three years; he was not a stranger in a strange land but had many friends and admirers here, and almost from the start he made the pace. He began steadily with a 76 and followed this up with a brilliant 71 which put him at the head of the field, with a formidable cluster close at his heels, Armour with 72 and 75, Farrell 72 and 77, Sarazen 744 and 76, Macdonald Smith, who had been practising steadily for a long while on his native heath, 75 and 77. Nor, though he gradually faded from our view on the last day, must Henry Cotton be omitted, for he shared the lead with Jurado. He had returned from a long visit to the United States a profound believer in the "from inside out" swing. He had hardly obtained that complete mastery over it which he later attained and bent the ball much more pronouncedly to the left than he does today, when the turn of the ball in the air is rather a suggestion than a fact. That turn was very plain to see at Carnoustie and looked a little as if it might get out of hand, but he played truly' admirable golf for those first two rounds and cheered all patriotic hearts.
On the morning of the last day Cotton was disappointing with a 79 and as a winner must be written off. Alliss, with a 73 had come up to take his place as chief British hope, but once more the cup seemed destined to go abroad, for the invaders were bunched thick round the. top of the tree. urado had shown not a sign of being afraid of his own score and a 73 put him at the head with 220. Mac Smith had made his effort with a 71 and was 223. Armour, Sarazen and our own Alliss were at 225 and there was no need to look further. I did not myself see Armour again after he had laid that vital chip dead but news came back of fine fours at the long homecoming holes near the end and presently his 7 r was bruited all over the course. Now Jurado must be watched above all others, Jurado, with a 75 to win, a score very well within his powers but leaving little margin. Nobody knew whether Jurado knew; the general impression was that he did and this turned out to be wrong. He had not heard of Armour's score, but as he drew near home the strain was obviously telling and there came one or two rather wild strokes and one tee shot puffed high in the air and a very short way. Still he struggled bravely on with no major disaster and on the last tee wanted a four for a 76 to tie. Two long, very long, shots were needed to carry the burn guarding the home green, but he would surely go for it if there was a chance. He hit a fine tee shot; then played short with an iron, pitched home in three, tried hard for his four but did not get it. There was a general sigh of sympathy, and only after he had holed out was it realised that he had not known what he had to do. Here is one of those baffling and utterly unsatisfactory `ifs'. If he had known he might have gone for the green, and further he might have played better or he might have played worse before he came to that last hole. The only thing that one can say is that, humanly speaking, he would have played differently. After that came the almost inevitable spectacle of Macdonald Smith not quite doing it (I watched his drive at the sixteenth plump into a bunker with the sound of a death knell) and Armour had won, with Jurado second and Sarazen and Alliss (with another brave 73) equal third.
In 1932 the Championship was played for the first time on Prince's, Sandwich, a worthy battlefield, which has temporarily through the war ceased to be a golf course but must surely rise again from its ashes when peace comes. About the Championship itself there is not much to say for it was won too easily for excitement, but there will be plenty to say about the winner, Gene Sarazen. He began with a 7o and a 69 and was winning all the time. He had a 7o again in the third round and seemed more safe than ever. True Havers had done a wonderful 68 in that third round (this was a very low scoring Championship) and when Sarazen, with no more than a little human faltering, had finished in 74, there was I suppose a chance; but 68's do not happen twice at such a juncture and it was a very small chance indeed. Vividly do I recall a tall, fat gentleman among the spectators who said to me optimistically, "Havers only wants a 69 to win." I replied with some emphasis, "Only." "What!" he exclaimed. "Don't you think he'll do it?" and we parted for ever. Havers in fact took 76 and was ousted from second place by Macdonald Smith, who finished with the courage of hopelessness, in 70. Charles Whitcombe and Padgham were close behind Havers. Armour, the holder, was a long way down the list, but still the cup could avail itself of its regular return ticket. Gene Sarazen has been one of the most faithful and, to me, one of the most engaging of our visitors from across the Atlantic. He is a wise little, strong little man, with a round olive face and a charming grin which is never far away, beaming when he holes a long putt, still there though'perhaps with a wry twist to it when the ball hits the hole and stays out. Perhaps it is pure fancy on my part but of all our invaders I should put him down as in method most like one of our own golfers. I should have guessed that he had learnt his game in some British caddie shed. His swing seems to me to have nothing typically American about it, save its merits; there is something care-free and casual about his game, more especially about his way of tackling a putt, which reminds me of generations of boys whom I have seen chipping round English clubhouses with their master's clubs. He is in fact of pure Italian blood, though he was born in the State of New York and began life as a caddie at Apawamis, a course the name of which recalls a certain famous and fortunate shot of Harold Hilton's which won him the American Championship at the thirtyseventh hole. Gene may have seen it for he was then nine years old and was already an experienced person who had carried for a whole year.
It was in 1922 when he was 20 years old that he suddenly brought fame to himself and to Titusville by winning the American Open by means of a fourth round of 68. Nobody had then heard of him and not many perhaps of Titusville. It was really little more than a trial run for him and he did not take it too seriously. He was sleeping, as he once told me, in a sort of dormitory of his fellow professionals. They all went to bed early, but Gene, not realising the solemnity of the occasion and liking to amuse himself, used to come home late and pick his way circumspectly through the sleepers. If his win was surprising he soon gave evidence that it was no accident, for he proceeded to win the Professional Championship and then to do what perhaps no else could then have done, win a set match of seventy-two holes against Walter Hagen, a match that Hagen had no intention of losing if he could help it. It was in the autumn of that year that I first met him in a hotel at Boston, when he grinned pleasantly and rather shyly, and said (it is the one thing I remember), "I have a very very great respect for Walter Hagen's golf." No doubt the sentiment was mutual.
With the glory of these victories upon him Sarazen came here in 1923 to play in the Championship at Troon, impressed everybody in the qualifying rounds and then failed to qualify. It must have been a blow but he said he would come back if he had to swim across, and a few years later he became one of our regular visitors. In the meantime his game had for a while suffered a slight set-back, perhaps because he had originally played entirely by the light of nature and then set himself, as any wise player must at some time, to think about the game. He had experimented with the overlapping grip in place of his natural interlocking grip, which is also that of Francis Ouimet and the Whitcombes. From this unavoidable sickness of thought, from which some good young players never wholly recover, he emerged a sounder and better player than ever before and in 1928 was second to Hagen at Sandwich. That time he might almost have won, but for one little outbreak of a naturally excitable Latin temperament, usually kept under stern control, which made him dash too swiftly at a ball in the rough with his wooden club at the Suez Canal hole. At Muirfield in the following year he was ninth: then at Carnoustie he was fourth and at last at Prince's he won. He made no sort of mistake about it, for his winning score of 283 was the best yet recorded and has since been equalled but never beaten.
All through that Championship he played with victorious confidence but he also played with his head. With the ground fast and full of running he several times took his spoon off the tee lest he should go too far. At one hole, the fifteenth, he regularly did so, that he might have a longer pitch to play and so with a higher shot have a better chance of stopping the ball on that perilous little plateau. He putted throughout very well and so boldly that he almost seemed unlucky in often hitting the hole without the ball dropping. In short it was just about as convincing a win as I remember to have seen and the inspiration of it abided with him, for he went home and won the American Open, finishing with a 66 to beat the unlucky Perkins, who had been hailed the victor, by three whole shots. Still one more Championship remains before the tide turns, that at St. Andrews in 1933. It may seem ungracious to set it down as rather a dull one, and yet that is my impression. It appears quite unjustifiable for it ended in a tie between two players who were in the hunt up to the last moment. Yet I cannot rid myself of the feeling and can only think that we had grown heart-sick and that five Americans out of the first sixafter we had won the Ryder Cup too-made the last straw. The play was interesting enough to be sure, with the ground hard which makes St. Andrews more typically itself, and a strong wind which blew against the players homewards and was rather too much for many of them in the fourth round. How hard the ground was and what strength there was in the wind at times was shown by a single shot, which will be remembered, and perhaps disbelieved in, when the rest is forgotten. In one of his rounds Craig Wood playing the long hole out (the fifth) drove his ball from the tee into one of the bunkers in the face of the hill in front of the green. The hole as played that day was 53o yards long and the ball ended about z oo yards from the hole. That the thing happened there is no shadow of doubt, and as to how it happened I give it up.
I begin to wonder why I called this a dull Championship for, as I look at the scores and recall more of my feelings at the time, there seems plenty of excitement. With the last round to go three- men led at z 16 and two of them Englishmen, Cotton, Easterbrook and Diegel. Craig Wood was 217, Sarazen 218 and Shute with three consecutive 73's 2 r g. No doubt it was the disappointment of the last round that soured me, for Cotton was very disappointing with 79, and though Easterbrook was in it till the end his 77 was too high by that one fatal stroke. Trying rightly for a four at the seventeenth, a desperate enterprise, he went over the green, over the road and on to the patch of grass under the stone wall. He retrieved himself very well but there could be no four. Shute once again a model of steadiness had a fourth 73, and Craig Wood, not quite so consistent-one of his rounds was 68-tied with a 75. Both had played finely but I cannot get it out of my head that Sarazen ought to have won that Championship for he played the best golf there. In his second round he played out so brilliantly that he could take a six at the eleventh and yet finish in 73. He got into the Hill bunker, and that is still a bunker, deep, horrible and precipitous, to strike terror into any man. It was a crooked tee shot and there was no bad luck, but still three niblick shots to get out-it rends the heart. There had moreover been a question raised by a spectator as to whether he had not in fact taken seven. Both markers, for he had two, were quite positive and there was an end of the question, but it naturally distressed Sarazen. Even so on the last day he might well have won but for one or two mistakes, as I thought, of judgment, in particular an attempt to carry Hell when it was entirely unnecessary.
There is another man who no doubt thought that he ought to have won, Leo Diegel. At last Will-o'-the-Wisp seemed honourably and faithfully to be leading him to the pot of gold. He was getting very restive in the fourth round but still he looked as if he would do it. I remember at one green on the way home he made a deplorably short approach putt and then banged the next one in. "Now he'll surely win," said I, for that was just the thing to hearten any man, a shocking mistake greatly retrieved, but it was not to be. On the home green the very converse happened; with two to tie he laid a fine long approach putt close to the hole and utterly failed to hit the next. Poor Diegel! he could never quite take what the gods gave him.
The next day's golf felt very flat by contrast and was from the onlookers' point of view not much more than an exhibition. It had an amusing start when Wood, having put his second into the burn, waded in and played it out-an almost foolhardy thing to do so early, and bringing no particular profit. The game did not live up to its start. Shute got a lead and kept it, playing again very steadily: he won with 149 against Wood's i54.. It is darkest before the dawn and it felt very dark after that Championship.