Joyce Wethered (1901 - 1997)
Something akin to a miracle occurred on the road to the Sheringham Golf Club in 1920. An 18 year old girl set out as a third string player for her county, and returned as the best female golfer in the world, arguably the best female golfer of all time. Bobby Jones, when asked late in life who he thought was the best golfer ever (male or female), unhesitatingly choose her - and others were similarly impressed.
Joyce Wethered went to the tournament to accompany her friend and golfing better, Molly Griffiths, and while she was there she thought she might as well enter. By the end of the week she was the 1920 English Ladies Championship and she had accomplished this by beating the great Cecil Leitch, formerly thought to be unstoppable. With sixteen holes to play she was 6 holes down, and pundits were murmuring the usual platitudes; "A brave showing for so young a girl"; "Well she couldn't have expected to hold up against someone of Cecil's experience"; "The collapse was inevitable - youngsters can't take the heat"; and more pablum of similar ilk. However Joyce concentrated like no other woman golfer had ever concentrated before; reeled off a string of birdies and came back to win 2 and 1.
The Record
For the next 5 years she was virtually unbeatable. She won this tournament 4 more times in a row and also won 3 British Ladies amateurs during the same period, reaching the semifinal and final the two times she did not win. In all she lost only two matches during this period of time! And then at the age of 23 she retired, and apparently played virtually no golf for the next few years.
If her career had stopped there she would still have been considered one of the golfing greats, but fate and circumstances decreed that she would not retire. She would never play in another English Ladies championship, but in 1929 the British Ladies Amateur was to played at St. Andrews, and Joyce had always wanted to play there. So she entered. During Joyce's retirement another great female player had been developing on the other side of the Atlantic - Glenna Colette. She also appeared to be unbeatable and word was out that she was entering the 1929 tournament. The partisan British press started playing up the idea that Joyce was coming out of retirement to challenge this transatlantic interloper (it must be remembered that by 1929 the American men were very much dominant over their British rivals) and show that at least in the distaff side Britain could hold its end up. Joyce always denied this. To quote from her auto biography
"The fact that Glenna Collett and I actually met in the final lent some color to the rumor, but I feel I should never be justified in entering for the sole purpose of hoping to prevent some other particular player from winning. ...simply loved the idea of playing at St. Andrews, and had looked forward to it for some time"..."felt relieved of any responsibilities that might be thrust upon me ...as I was no longer a regular player in competitions." (Ed: slightly paraphrased)
During the early rounds it was obvious that Joyce's game was somewhat rusty, but by determination and talent she clawed her way into the finals against Glenna. Let Joyce take up the story"
"The final round was a match of the most extraordinary vicissitudes. Never has a close game swung in such a pendulum fashion. Glenna's first nine holes of the match, which she did in 34, was the finest sequence of holes I have ever seen a lady play. By the ninth green I was faced with a deficit of five holes."
Joyce almost went 6 down at the 12th hole, however from this point on she started playing better. At lunch she was only two down. After lunch Joyce began winning hole after hole, and although Glenna fought back the end came at the 35th with Joyce winning 3 and 1. During the afternoon match the usually staid and correct Scottish public began to sense that something big was in the air and excitement crescendoed until with Joyce's victory mayhem broke loose. As Glenna described it:
"We became the center of a squeezing, swaying and almost hysterical mob," Collett said. "The Scots, nice as they are, really were pulling for her. The bobbies had to escort us to the clubhouse. I thought if I had beaten Joyce that day I wouldn't be here to recall the tale."
This was the last match Joyce played as an amateur. Shortly after this the Wethered family lost all their money in the Wall Street crash, and Joyce forfeited her amateur status by working in the Golf department of Fortnum and Mason. It was not the end of her golf career though. She played in several international matches including the first Curtis Cup team in 1929, against France in 1931, and against the United States in 1932. There was also one final huzzah as a player which came when she toured the United States in 1935. She played a series of exhibitions against male and female players, including beating the great Babe Zaharias. She also played against Bobby Jones. Here's what he later wrote:"I have never played against anyone and felt so outclassed". About the only events she played in latter years were mixed foursomes, and even here she compiled an impressive and unbeatable record. She won the famed Worplesdon foursomes 8 times in 15 years, with 7 different male partners!
One feature of her game was how she stunned male companions with her play. Here are just a small sample of quotes. Walter Hagen was much impressed:
"As I watched her I thought there wasn't a male golfing star in the world who wouldn't envy the strong, firm strokes she played," ... "She hit her shots crisply, like a man expert, but without having any mannish mannerisms to detract from her charm as a gracious young sportswoman."
Bobby Jones
"accounting for the unavoidable handicap of a woman’s lesser physical strength, she is the finest golfer I have ever seen."
Said a Scottish professional:
"Why mon, she could hit a ball 240 yards on the fly while standing on a cake of ice."
Francis Ouimet:
"... and a nasty wind swept across the line of play from right to left. Such a wind is in my opinion the most difficult of all winds to play against, because the common tendency is to play the ball to the right and allow for wind driftage. Miss Wethered had hit a fine drive and brassie down the fairway and was left with about a hundred and twenty yards to the green. I have seen any number of first-class male golfers under similar conditions play well to the right, allowing the wind to bring the ball back on line.. I observed Miss Wethered closely to see just what she would do. Out came a straight-faced iron club from her bag and she took her stance. A short back swing and a smart, decisive stroke met the ball. It traveled low and started to the left, and then began to turn into the wind. The ball was hit just hard enough to accentuate the curve as it bored ahead. The wind tried hard to blow that ball off line, but it was too skillfully struck to permit such a thing. Finally landing on the green, it took one hop and stopped dead in its tracks three feet from the cup. That was enough for me, because then and there I decided I had seen the finest woman golfer of them all. Miss Wethered reached the final round, to be beaten by Miss Leitch, but she had definitely established herself as a great golfer which later years have conclusively proved. As with Bobby Jones, some day someone may come along to take her place in the sun, but so long as golf is played, it will be difficult to visualize one better than Joyce Wethered."
Gene Sarazen:
"... Joyce Wethered, the most perfect of all swings ..."
Why was she so good
In considering why Joyce was so good it is necessary to look at her background, her natural gifts, her mechanics, and her temperament.
To sum up: She came from a great background; she had above average physical attributes; her golf mechanics were impeccable - even today watching her swing fills one with awe, and Gene Sarazen considered her swing the best he had ever seen; she was blessed - or cursed - with a fierce competitive temperament and with formidable powers of concentration. Together with this she had a pleasant personality that did not thrust herself to the front and that made people instinctively like her.
Joyce was from a well off family with a golfing background. Her father was a good 6 handicap, and her brother was an Oxford player who won the British Amateur and went on to tie for the British Open Championship. They holidayed at Bude in Cornwall, where she learned to play golf, and they also had a house near Dornach. Joyce had no formal instruction - she took but one formal lesson in her whole life - but she was always a deep student of the game. Surrounded as she was by her brothers Oxford friends she was always exposed to new theories and ideas:
"I have spent a considerable amount of time in wondering how other people play their strokes, with the idea of helping myself - many good players came to stay with us (and) new theories and experiments were constantly in the air."
She also confessed to watching the champions of the day and trying to imitate what she considered applicable to her swing. She was particularly impressed by Vardon, Taylor and Bobby Jones. Just before her breakthrough match with Cecil she had changed her swing from a flatter 'Scottish' like swing to the more upright swing that she was to use for the rest of her golfing career.
Joyce certainly had the physical equipment for the game. She was just six foot and looks athletic and graceful. Just looking at a video of her swing makes one realize that she was an exceptionally coordinated person. As mentioned above this was the one thing that all her male contemporaries commented on. They were awed by grace and effortless power. It was even broadcast that if she had been male she would have made the Walker Cup team in her own right - and nobody disagreed! Having said that, there was nothing 'mannish' about her, and she was extremely feminine. One look at her wedding photos, or again at her swinging a golf club in her long white cotton dress confirms that.
Playing with Roger and his Oxford contemporaries, usually off the back tees, honed her competitive instincts ...
"Those who do not have the competitive instinct in their blood are certainly saved much bother and anxiety ... On the other hand there may be a danger of turning into a cabbage at the game, even to being incapable of making a good fight for a match."
... and reading her book, particularly the intense description of her matches makes one realize how much she relished the challenge of a good match, and how much she enjoyed pulling her self back from the brink of disaster. Her concentration was phenomenal, as was her ability to ignore what her opponent was doing. She often had to be informed that she had won the match - which puts one in mind of another fierce competitor Walter Travis, although he had to be informed when he lost the match rather than when he had won it! As for her concentration an incident occurred in her famous match with Lietch. A railway line runs by the 17th hole. As she was putting what proved to be the winning putt an express train went thundering by. When asked later whether it had disturbed her she famously replied 'What train?". Joyce herself points to this as probably the chief factor in her success:
"If I could only bring myself to forget the excitement and importance of the match I was playing in, then I gave myself an infinitely better chance of reproducing my best form."
and talking about her success against Leitch:
"People either adored Leitch or they didn't," Wethered told Golf Monthly. "She was the big noise in women's golf when I came on the scene and what made her stand out was the fact that she had so dominant a personality. Perhaps because I had an ability to disappear in a cocoon of concentration, I was never mesmerized by Cecil to the same extent as others."
Finally the remarkable thing is that everyone liked her, they just couldn't help it. She was indeed the Bobby Jones of her sex! Even Collette Vare who was the victim Joyce's partisan support has absolutely nothing bad to say, not even a hint of bitterness creeps through towards Joyce.
Later life
Like Bobby Jones she stepped off the world stage at her peak, but also like Bobby Jones she remained active in golf and prospered in outside activities. When she returned from her American tour in 1937 she married Sir John Heathcoat Amory, and became Lady Emory. She retained an active interest in golf and became first president of the English LGU in 1951. Interestingly she had her amateur status restored so that she could hold this position 'untainted by commercialism'! Her main interest turned to gardening, and her garden at Knightshayes Court, near Tiverton, Devon became world renowned, indeed it is still maintained by the national trust. For her British botanical collections she was awarded the Royal Horticultural Society's Victoria Medal of Honour - a rare privilege.
Joyce lived long enough to see the changes in ladies golf. Interestingly the only thing she envied them was their ability to wear casual clothes! She also lived long enough to see the acceptance of women in golf. Even for a player of her stature it was often difficult:
"There were too many clubs where you had the feeling you were not wanted, Often women wouldn't be allowed in the club-house. I well remember, while waiting for my male partners to emerge from the locker-room at Sandwich, I kept my hands warm on the radiator of someone's Rolls-Royce."
Actually in her quiet unassuming way it was Joyce who pioneered most of these changes, and when todays leading lady professionals pick up their checks they should give a tip of the hat to Joyce Wethered - possibly the finest woman golfer ever!
Golfing Memories and Methods by Joyce Wethered London: Hutchinson, first edition 1933, 255 pages, illustrated, cloth.
No Place: Flagstick Books, 2000, 255 pages, illustrated, decorative cloth. Foreword by Robert S. Macdonald.
F.B 2006