Hoylake and

Tantallon

By Chris Moore

Along with many other golf clubs, both Royal Liverpool

at Hoylake and the Tantallon Club at North Berwick share ‘Far and Sure’ as their mottos. What else binds these two Clubs together? On 16 July 1892, an important inter-Club match took

place over the Hoylake links between Royal Liverpool and the Tantallon Club from North Berwick. A previous match with 18 per side had been staged at North Berwick on 5 August 1881 and several of those who had played in that contest were included in the 1892 teams. For the record, the North Berwick golfers won the first encounter with a majority of 20 holes in the singles matches although Hoylake redressed the balance somewhat by winning the foursomes by 10 holes. In the 1892 match, when the format was 36 holes singles, Royal Liverpool gained a victory by just five holes. Robert Chambers, who was the son of the renowned Edinburgh Publisher, and was a Royal Liverpool Member and also Tantallon Captain 1880-88, is credited with starting the matches. Points of interest here which we might do well to appreciate

are, firstly, that the rounds were played over 18 holes so that results were holes won rather than the modern preference for match play thus ensuring that all golfers played the full round. Secondly, in 1892, two full rounds in the main match were played in the morning then Messrs Ball and Hilton played a third round exhibition match in the afternoon against Messrs Mackenzie Ross and Stuart Anderson when ‘some wonderfully good golf was shown’. Proof positive of the fine speed of play these early golfers achieved! Dinner was taken in the Royal Hotel in the evening (the present day Clubhouse was not built until 1895) and no doubt mutual entertainment followed. That great Hoylake golfer, John Ball (Tertius), played in

both matches winning on both occasions. John Behrend in his excellent book ‘John Ball of Hoylake’, states that, in 1881, despite playing in the match, Ball was still too young to become a member of Royal Liverpool (he was just 20) but his reputation was growing fast. Note that the match was reported as being between Hoylake and North Berwick. Ball became an RLGC member in October 1881, won the Amateur Championship in 1888 at Prestwick, then achieved

the double in 1890 by winning the Amateur at Hoylake followed by The Open at Prestwick. By winning the Amateur again in 1892 (at Sandwich) with Hilton winning The Open in the same year at Muirfield (with Ball joint second), it is quite clear that these pre-eminent Hoylake members were at the height of their powers. That they turned out for the 1892 match against Tantallon says a great deal for the importance of the match and the quality of the respective teams. Further matches were played in 1897, 1898 and

1899 (interestingly at Prestwick ahead of the Amateur Championship). The last formally recorded match around that time was in 1901. Our records do not reveal why the match did not continue beyond then. There is a suggestion that the somewhat random nature of the fixture may indicate a variable degree of interest, but I prefer to think that the match inspired the full blown international match between England and Scotland which took place at Hoylake in 1902. This match continued until it metamorphosed into the Home Internationals which commenced in 1932. At Club level though, informal contact between respective members occurred irregularly and in 1953 Tantallon and RLGC played a match at North Berwick as part of the Tantallon Centenary celebrations. Sporadic contact thereafter prompted Tantallon to renew the formal invitation to re-establish the match in 2000 as part of their Millennium calendar of events, RLGC was pleased to accept the renewal of such a historic fixture and the match has continued bi-ennially, home and away, ever since. Nowadays, neither

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