The Greatest of Golfers
by Robert T. Jones Jr.
A Tribute to the Rare Skill of Miss Joyce Wethered
First published in American Golfer 1930
Ordinarily I would never take advantage of a friendly round of golf by making the play of a person kind enough to go around with me, the subject of an article. I realize that everyone likes to play occasionally a round of golf when reputations can be forgotten, with nothing more at stake than the outcome of the match and a little friendly bantering afterwards.
Just before the British Amateur Championship at St. Andrews, Miss Joyce Wethered allowed herself to be lead awayfrom her favourite trout stream inorder to play eighteen holes of golf over the old course in company with her brother Roger, Dale Bourne, then recently crowned English Champion, and myself. At the time, I fully appreciated that Miss Wethered had not had a golf club in her hand for over a fortnight, and I certaily should have made no mention of the game had she not played so superbly.
We started out by arranging a four-ball match - Roger and Dale against Miss Wethered and myself - on a best and worst ball basis. i don't know why we didn't play an ordinary fourball match, unless we fancied that the lady would be the weakest member of the four, and that in a best-ball match he ballwould not count for very much. If any of us had any such idea at the start of the match it is now quite immaterial, for there is not the slightest chance that we should admit it.
We played the old course from the very back, or the championship tees, and with a slight wind blowing off the sea. Miss Wethered holed only one putt of over 5 feet, took three putts rather half-heartedly fromfour yards at the seventeenth after the match was over, and yet she went round St. Andrews in 75. She did not miss one shot; she did not even half-miss a shot; and when we finishedI could not help saying that I had never played golf with anyone, man or woman, amateur or professional, who made me feel so utterly outclassed.
It was not so much the scor she made as the way she made it. Diegel, Hagen, Smith, Von Elm and several other male experts would likely have made a better score, but one would all the while been expecting them to miss shots. It was impossible to expect that Miss Wethered would ever miss a shot - and she never did.
To describe her manner of playing is almost impossible. She stands quite close to the ball, she places the club once behind, takes one look to wards the objective, and strikes. Her swing is not long - supprisingly short, indeed, when one considers the power she develops - but it is rythmatic in the last degree. She makes ample use of her wrists, and her left arm within the striking area is firm and active. This, I think, distinguishes her swing from that of any other woman golfer, and it is the one thing that makes her the player she is.
Men are always interested in the distance which a first-class woman player can attain. Miss Wethered, of course, is not as long with any clubs as the good male player. Throughout the round, i found that when I hit a good one I was out in front by about twenty yards - by not so much when I failed to connect. It was surprising , though, how often on a fine championship coursefine iron play by the lady would make up the difference. I kept no actual count, but I am certain that her ball was nearest to the hole more often than any of the other three.
I have no hesitancy in saying that, accounting for the unavoidable handicap of a woman's lesser physical strength, she is the finest golfer I have ever seen.