EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY
From the back garden to the Walker cup In conversatIon WIth hoylake member brIan chapman
EARLY DAYS “I was raised in Radlett, a big village in Hertfordshire about 15 miles north of London. Both my parents were good golfers, and were members of Porters Park. Soon after I learned to walk I was given a cut down hickory shafted club. We had a garden that was very good news for chip shots. I learned to play cut up shots over crab apple trees, and chip ping-pong balls up the stairs off a coconut mat. Just at the bottom of garden was a little copse and on the other side of the copse a rather poor nine hole golf course. But at least it was a golf course. I used to sneak out and hit golf balls and when it became a proper golf course again just after the war I actually used to pay a green fee. During the war my father was involved with the Home Guard and we had a Lewis gun in the spare room which happily never had to be used in anger.”
WHEN ONE DOOR OPENS ANOTHER ONE BURNS
DOWN “The thing that really got me started on golf was when I was 12. That was when I was allowed to become a junior member of Porters Park Golf Club. A couple of months later my prep school was burned down so we were all sent home. School was pretty sparse until September, and meanwhile I enjoyed a wonderful summer playing golf or watching Edrich and Compton making thousands of runs for Middlesex. Lords was only nine pence away on a Green Line bus. By the end of the summer I could just about break a hundred. I had a mashie, a niblick, a steel shafted lady’s spoon and a putter. The next Christmas I received a steel shafted mashie-niblick. My cricket did not benefit however!”
1961: Jack Nicklaus lines up a putt while Deane Berman holds the flag. Photograph: AP/PA
SIGNS OF PROMISE “I went on to school at Bradfield where it was possible to play golf a little by taking the bus to Calcot. I was lucky enough to win the school knockout, and I got great support from my Housemaster. Alan Young had played both golf and cricket for Oxford, and was a great encourager. When I was 16 my father said, ‘There’s a boys’ championship, why don’t we go and play in it?’ I think he wanted an excuse to go motoring really and of course we were just beginning to get some petrol. Setting off for Scotland was a huge adventure then: just one short stretch of dual carriageway on the A1 and two full days driving. At last we arrived at Prestwick and just had time for a few holes. My first shot was a dreadful slice which flew over the railway line, hit the wall on the other side of the station and bounced back on to the first fairway! I lost in the first round
to Bobby Reid who went on to become a very distinguished businessman, but whose chief claim to fame in the world of golf was that he became world one armed champion several times. So I lost in the first round to a guy who only had one arm and that really cut me down to size! Bobby was a wonderful man and a terrific player who once won the one armed long driving competition with 283 yards! We were staying at the Marine Hotel in Troon, and all the selection for the boys’ teams was done by Raymond Oppenheimer, who was also staying there. On a very wet morning just before we were leaving my father plucked up courage and went up to Raymond and said, ‘Mr. Oppenheimer, I wonder if I could bother you for a moment. I know it’s
He saw me hit two shots and said, ‘Arthur Lees.’
ROYAL LIVERPOOL GOLF CLUB 2013 MAGAZINE
23
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