John Ball playing against Aylmer in the final
over 27 years inclusive from 1887 to 1913, our two greatest players only met in the final once. That was in 1892 at St Georges’, Sandwich, with Ball prevailing 3 and 1. What a shame that they were not able to repeat that encounter on their home links. It was Johnny’s golf in the final of 1910 that earned the
quotation above. He was round in the morning in 73 ‘despite being stymied twice’! To put that score into perspective, the course that year measured 6455 yards: moreover, Ball won over 90 major scratch medals at Hoylake (i.e. those awarded a Gold Medal) and never bettered his 73 and only equalling it once, in the 1906 Autumn Meeting. No wonder then that it was said to be his best golf ever. Of course the equipment during Johnny’s long period of medal wins had improved and improved, not least through the introduction of the rubber- cored Haskell ball in 1902, but Ball won 35 of his medals after that date. If Ball’s first 18 holes in the final was impressive enough, it
does not compare with Jack Graham’s play earlier in the week. In the third round he was out in the morning in 35 and started back 4, 3, 3, 2, 4 when the match was over: in the afternoon he went to the turn in 33 and started back 4, 3, 4, 3 to win 6 and 5. Graham was 3 under par in each round, 6 under for 27 holes in the day. The next day his golf deserted him and he was easily beaten by Hilton. Back to the final: Ball’s 73 meant that poor Aylmer was 8
down at lunch. He managed to prolong the game until the 27th before Johnny completed his 10 and 9 triumph. There have been few bigger wins in Amateur finals but the biggest of all was in 1925 when Robert Harris – the same whom Ball had beaten in 1910 - beat K F Fradgely 13 and 12 at Westward Ho! Turning to the wider golfing world, the other major golfing
championships of 1910 featured some very famous golfing names too. The US Amateur at the Country Club, Brookline, Mass., was won by W C Fownes Jr who beat WK Wood 4 and 3 in the final. In his semi-final Fownes beat Charles ‘Chick’ Evans Jr who was then playing in his 3rd US Amateur and
would go on to play in a remarkable 50 in all – a ‘Ball-beating’ achievement! Evans also won the US Open, as an amateur, in 1916 and was within a handful of shots of winning on a number of other occasions. All 3 of those named represented the USA in the amateur international against Great Britain at Hoylake in 1921 – the unofficial ‘first Walker Cup’. The Open was won in 1910 at St Andrews by James Braid,
his 5th and final win since 1901, taking him one ahead of Harry Vardon. But Vardon would go on to win twice more to set a record of 6 that is currently unmatched – but, oh, what a shame that we did not see that happen in July last year when Tom Watson had The Open for the winning as he played the last at Turnberry... The US Open, at Philadelphia Cricket Club, New Jersey,
was won by Alex Smith. Smith was another of the immigrant British, mainly Scottish, pros to win the US Open over its first 25 years and it was only the next year, 1911, that a home bred American, John McDermott of Atlantic City, won for the first time – though even his ancestry is clear. Alex Smith won after a three way 18 hole play-off, against McDermott and his own brother Macdonald Smith. Macdonald never won a major but won a total of 24 early US PGA Tour events between 1924 and 1936 and is best known at Hoylake for finishing runner up to Bobby Jones Jr in the 1930 Open. Macdonald also finished runner up to Jones in the US Open that year. To complete the Smith family picture, brother Willie won the US Open in 1899 and was leading Braid’s 1910 Open after two rounds whilst Alex had also won the US Open in 1906. There were two other Smith brothers who weren’t quite so good! In Britain, 1910 will be best remembered as the year that
George V succeeded Edward VII. By the time Ball was winning the Amateur at the end of May the new king had been crowned. As far as the local population of Hoylake was concerned the re-crowning of king Johnny would have been a much more celebrated event. Acknowledgements to ‘John Ball of Hoylake’ and ‘The Amateur’, both by John Behrend.
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