Has there been any other occurrence during the last 30 years? The Ladies’ Captain, Mrs. K. R. Edmondson,
was invited to the Curtis Cup at the Apawamis club, just outside of New York. This was the club at which Harold Hilton won the 1912 US Amateur Championship. As one comes to expect on these occasions she was treated marvellously following Carol Comboy and her team. There were all of 40 supporters from the British Isles. Looking through the yearbook of 1987 John Graham, the last golfer of the great Graham dynasty, wrote that the last big changes to golf equipment came in 1931 and 1932 when: “The big-bang came with the advent of steel shafted clubs. Hoylake cottoned on pretty quickly and in the next to no time we were all using them. In the early thirties there were two types of steel shafts, the True Temper, which was whippy and looked like a telescopic fishing rod, and the Apollo, which was a rather stiff shaft.” “Before the war,” continued John Graham, “as a lusty
youth I reached every hole in two with a drive and an 8 iron. So the golf ball does not go all that further today.
right place?”. Further: “Why are so many young golfers like the Mersey railway?” Answer: Because the more modern they are, the longer they take. On reflection these words must have been written by Leslie Edwards; not only are they beautifully put together, but also all his old concerns are well aired. In spite of our less than happy memories of the state of
the course in the 70’s it is remarked “that the fairways have never been better than during mid-summer, well done John Clegg”. John Clegg was the Green Keeper during this time. The bulletin relates that “Bruce Thompson is the only man who has scored a bull’s eye with a drive on the orchard hole.”
A Silver King used to be my favourite ball, although a Dunlop took over towards the second half of the thirties.” So wrote the great sage in 1987 just before the advent of the big-big-bang in golf equipment. Reading these observations of yesteryear shows the great
benefit of putting pen to paper and recording details of the past. I am sure those of us who are now without parents will agree, “Why oh why didn’t we ask those questions about our parents’ youth and childhood?” Mind you they probably would not have told us. That was the nature of the Edwardian man and woman, private and never a thought of boastfulness. Typical of that was Johnny Ball. How we love to know more about the man and thanks to Bob Chadwick for his marvellous account of the events of 1910 to be found in this very publication.
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