100 years ago:
Johnny Ball’s Amateur at Hoylake
By Bob Chadwick
1910 saw The Amateur played at
Hoylake for the 8th time out of the 26 staged to date. For John Ball Jr – hereafter Johnny, as he seems to have been known to all locals whether golfers or not – it was the 24th time he had competed and for the 7th time he became Champion Amateur Golfer.
Johnny’s phenomenal golfing record has been written about
many times, including in several of these annual magazines, so no need here to recite his career in detail. Suffice to say that, born in Hoylake and raised at the Royal Hotel – which acted as the Clubhouse up to 1895 and which was run by his father (a fine golfer too and confusingly also known as John Ball Jr until his own father’s death, with Johnny being ‘Tertius’ during grandfather’s lifetime) - Johnny first played in The Open in 1878 at age 16, winning it in 1890, and played in The Amateur 30 times, winning 8 times, a record likely to stand forever. Johnny had lost in his first Amateur final, at Hoylake in 1887.
But he won here in 1890 and 1894 so 1910 completed his hat- trick of local wins. He was 48 by now but it is recorded in Golf Illustrated that ‘Mr John Ball won his seventh Championship by the finest golf he has ever played, and perhaps the finest
golf that has ever been played in the Championship’. Hoylake’s other great players of that time, Harold Hilton and
Jack Graham, also reached the quarter-finals so local interest must have been running high. Up to 1907 Johnny had not won the Amateur for 9 years but then, aged 46 and being presumed by some contemporary writers to be ‘yesterday’s man’, he had won again at St Andrews. His chances were not being written off this time. Of the three local players still in the field on the penultimate morning, Johnny was the crowd’s out and out favourite. He had always been ‘one of us’ to the Hoylake residents and his continuing modesty kept it that way. Here was the chance to re-live the glory days of the 1890s and see Johnny competing at the highest level again. He did not disappoint his gallery. In his quarter final against
Scottish international Robert Harris he lost the first 3 holes but ‘after a grim dogfight of par figures’ they went up the 19th. In his autobiography many years later Harris says of his second from near the corner of the elbow: ‘A strong wind was blowing and a thunderstorm was threatening. I hit a shot with a driving iron and the ball flew low, eight feet or so from the ground into the middle of the green and with satisfaction I registered a thought of relief: “Well I’ve got the old lad now”. Without waiting for my ball to finish its roll, John stepped to his, whisked the same club he had driven with round his neck, pitched the ball on the green ten feet off and dead straight for the pin to finish eight feet beyond. I then putted three feet to the left, John failed to hole his eight footer and then, noisily warned by thunder and lightning that I dare not hole my short putt against the Hoylake hero, tremulously I missed it’. In his semi final Ball played a young unknown, Abe Mitchell,
who would go on to be a great professional. Johnny had an easy 5 and 4 victory despite the young Mitchell outdriving him consistently. His opponent in the 36 hole final was to be Colin C Aylmer
John Ball receives congratulations from R.L.G.C Captain W.B Stoddart
who spoiled what no doubt 99% of the crowd was hoping for, namely a match against Harold Hilton, with a 4 and 3 win. Despite being in 17 Amateur finals between them,
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