History of Golf
The following are some articles pertaining to the history of golf.
Bernard Darwin's account of the "Greatest Game Ever Played"
From Present-Day Golf by George Duncan and Bernard Darwin 1921
"I was however one of the very few Englishmen who saw the historic American contest, that at Brookline in 1913, in which Mr. Francis Ouimet played off the triple tie for the championship with Vardon and Ray and won it. I was Mr. Ouimet's marker, and my name is enshrined upon his card which ought to be in the archives in Washington. The match was such a remarkable one, and I remember its crucial moments so clearly, that I think it is worth while even now to set down some account of it.
"The course of the Country Club, for that is its official name, is not quite what we are here accustomed to think of as a championship course, but it is a very good sound course, nevertheless. The stranger's first impression is one of blank consternation, since he sees nothing but a large, flat field. This is the polo ground over which the first and last holes are played - good enough hole as far as the bunkers round the greens are concerned, but dull and depressing. There is very quickly a change, however, into much more billowing and interesting country, where there are belts of woodland on either side of the fairway, and at one or two holes little jutting promontories of rock here and there The woodland holes remind one of some of the Surrey courses, except that there is no sand or heather and the turf is rather of the park or meadow type. But it is good turf, and the greens are as good as they can be, with plenty of pace and undulations that are not too much exaggerated. Some of the holes, I confess, but a blurred outline now in my memory, but the two that come next door to one another remain very clear. One is the ninth, a long hole of terrifying and rather melodramatic appearance, where, after a tee shot down a valley there is a second shot rather uphill, only to be attempted by a big driver with a big wind behind him. On the hillside are rocks and big bunkers, and the careful player is short with his second, and so home in three. The tenth is a hole which seemed to me to have a good deal to do with the final result in the great match. It is quite a short hole, no more than a mashie-niblick shot in length, but it is quite uncompromising and the green looks horribly small from the tee. Everywhere there are woods and bunkers, and in front there is a small stream, and then a big bunker with a timbered face. There are plenty of other good holes - the seventeenth, for instance , that Mr. Ouimet twice played magnificently at the most crucial moments - but these are the two that stick in my head.
"Never did a course have worse weather to stand in a Championship. It rained and rained and went on raining, the air was cold and cheerless, and before the day of the tie came the ground was a dripping sop.
"On the last day of the Championship the play was extraordinarily exciting. The three men who ultimately tied all had fine chances, frittered them away in a variety of ways, and then recovered by courageous finishes. Ray started first in the morning to play the crucial third round: he went very crooked, took too many fives and a six or two, and was out in 41: then pulled himself together and came home grandly in 35. Vardon, too, took 41 out and began badly home: then finished very steadily and took 79, which made him equal with Ray for three rounds. Mr. Ouimet, playing much later, began brilliantly, had some disasters in the middle, and finished splendidly. He tied with the two Englishmen at 225, whereas Barnes, Hagen, and McDermott, who had all had good chances, were still a little way behind.
"When Mr. Ouimet finished his third round, Ray and Vardon were already playing their last. Both clearly felt the strain of supporting their country's honour against so big a field, and both made all sorts of mistakes on the way out that were enough to make the poor British spectator weep. But both again got hold of themselves and their emotions, and struggled home by sheer power of sticking to it in 79 apiece. Once more danger threatened from Barnes, Hagen, and McDermott, and once more they could not quite go the pace to the end. Mr. Ouimet with 78 to win had now the chance of gaining immortality, but for a while he seemed, as old Tom Morris once said of his son, "ower young." He was bunkered and bunkered again on the way out, and took 43 to the turn. Then came a five in place of a three at the short tenth and all seemed over. I remember, as I splashed out in the mud and rain to meet him, that I was already composing sentences to telegraph home, to the effect that he had fought a great fight but the burden had been just too heavy for him to bear. I had to alter all those kind and possibly condescending sentences. From the tenth hole onwards he threw off all trace of nervousness and played splendidly. Even so, the effort seemed too late, for he needed a three and a four at the last two holes to tie, and they were good "four" holes.
"At the seventeenth he played a fine iron shot and holed a three-yarder for his three, and pandemonium broke loose. I looked at the faces all round me grotesquely contorted with cheering and yelling, and I shall never forget the sight. Still the last hole was to come- two good shots across the muddy polo ground with a big cross-bunker in front of the green. The second shot, though well struck, had not much to spare, and a four was still difficult. Mr. Ouimet played a perfect little run up to within five feet: then, taking one short, confident look at the line, hit his ball slap into the middle of the hole.
"Heaven knows, this was exciting enough, but it was nothing to the next morning when the triple tie was played off over one round of eighteen holes. The rain still came down, and each player's caddie bore a towel to dry the grips of the clubs. Despite the wet the crowds came pouring out of Boston, so that the course was black with them. These were marshalled by a whole orchestra of megaphones, and by flagmen who looked very picturesque standing on the promontories of rock, red flags in hand. Certainly the spectators cheered frequently and freely, but in the circumstances they behaved, if I may say so, well and generously.
"Mr. Ouimet was then only about twenty years old. Before the Amateur Championship at Garden City some fortnight earlier he had hardly been known out of Boston. It was a tremendous test for him to have to stand up to these two professional giants in single combat and play shot for shot against them. I suppose that nobody would have been much surprised if he had failed to play his game, and the though uppermost in the minds of most competent critics when the game started was not so much "Will he sin?" as "Will he make a real fight of it?" I am not going to describe the game hole by hole, but this particular question was soon answered, so calmly did Mr. Ouimet play, so clearly had he got command of his muscles in the putting, so well did he keep up with his adversaries in the long game. At the third hole he outdrove both Ray and Vardon, had to watch them play fine, straight, long second shots on to the green, and then played a still better one himself. At that point he and Vardon were level and Ray, who took three putts, a stroke behind. The next two holes gave Mr. Ouimet a chance of breaking down, and he showed that he had no intention of doing so. At the fourth he pushed his tee shot into the edge of the rough, played a good shot out of it, and resolutely holed a missable putt for his four. At the fifth he put his second shot with a brassy out of bounds, and there was something of a gasp and a groan from the crowd. He dropped another ball, played a magnificent shot, and got a five. Neither of the other two could quite get a four and a dangerous moment was safely past. At the sixth Vardon holed a putt for three, at the seventh Ray did so: Mr. Ouimet stuck to his fours, and at the eighth he, too, got a three by laying a pitch stone-dead amid delirious cheering. Ray holed a long putt for three here, too, and all threw were now equal. All got their fives at the long and perilous ninth and were all square at the turn.
"Next came the tenth, the little "island" hole I described. All three were on the green, which was very soft and muddy. Vardon and Ray both had to putt over the holes in the green which their balls had made before jumping backwards. Both were some way short, and both needed three putts. Mr. Ouimet's balls was very muddy, but he got down in his two putts and took the lead. It was a critical moment, and after it he never let his lead go. At the twelfth he was two up. At the thirteenth Vardon got one back with a good pitch and putt. It seemed that some one must make a bad mistake soon, so hot was the pace, and it turned out to be Ray. He was bunkered at the fifteenth, took two to get out and was four strokes behind Mr. Ouimet. There was an end of him, but Vardon was still only one behind and he had the honour to the sixteenth, a not very easy short hole. He played a beauty to within six yards-a nasty one to go after, but Mr. Ouimet followed it well. He got his three and Vardon could do no better. Mr. Ouimet one stroke up on Vardon with two holes to play.
"The seventeenth settled it. Vardon, realising that desperate measures were necessary, tried a short cut straight for the hole and was trapped. He could do no better than five. Mr. Ouimet steered his tee shot perfectly to the right of the hazard, and with his second lay six yards from the hole.
"It was a downhill putt on a fast green. He might not, one though, put it dead. He did better, for he hit the ball perfectly truly and perfectly gently; it went trickling on and in and, just as on the day before at this same spot, there burst forth a shout of pure joy. It was all over now unless Mr. Ouimet fell down dead, for he had a lead of three strokes. He had the best of the drives to the last hole, and so had what must have been a trying wait. Ray put his second on the green: Vardon from a heavy lie went into the bunker. There was a pause, a clearing away of the crowd, and a practice swing with his iron by Mr. Ouimet. Bang went the ball-a perfect shot over the bunker from the moment it left the club. That ended it. He got his four easily, beat Vardon by five shots and Ray by six, and was swallowed up in the great, cheering crowd.
"There never was a better illustration of the fact that golfers can, as a rule, only play as well as their adversaries will let them. People at home thought that Ray and Vardon must have played badly to be beaten by so many strokes. They did play below their form on the second day of the Championship when they should not, I suppose, have allowed any one to catch them; but in the tie match they did nothing of the sort. Vardon certainly played very well indeed till the last two holes, when he lost some strokes in the natural and proper endeavour to make a spurt. Ray played well for the first fourteen holes, and if he failed then the pace was really tremendous. Mr. Ouimet's 72 in that weather and on that muddy course was just about as good a single round as ever was played. I thought then and I think now that it would have beaten anybody."
Present-Day Golf.
George Duncan and Bernard Darwin 1921