ALISTAIR NOAKES
REFLECTS ON THE LIFE OF A HOYLAKE MAN WHO GAVE HIS NAME TO AN IMPORTANT AMERICAN AWARD AND YET
REMAINS SOMETHING OF AN UNSUNG HERO IN THE COUNTRY OF HIS BIRTH.
Haskins Hoylake
OF
BACK IN 1996 Tiger Woods was presented with the Fred Haskins Award. A decade
later Woods would win
The Open of 2006 in fine style at Royal Liverpool. However, few people watching would
have known that the annual award given to the outstanding collegiate golfer in the United States was named after a man born and raised in Hoylake - where he developed his skills and passion for the game. Fred Haskins came into the world on
May 1 1898, the son of Mary and Arthur Haskins who opened a golf shop at 76 Market Street. Here, Arthur made clubs and balls for many who played the Royal Liverpool links which, of course, had been established less than 30 years earlier in 1869. Arthur and Mary had nine children,
three of whom would later become well respected golf professionals. Remarkably, the eldest, John, achieved great success despite losing his
left Above: Fred Haskins.
Below: Tiger Woods with the Haskins Award in 1996.
arm in a tree
climbing accident at the age of 11. However, it was Fred who would truly
make his mark on the game of golf and would do so on a global scale. As an enthusiastic youngster he grew
up in awe of Hoylake’s greatest amateur, John Ball, but was very different in character to the respected champion. Fred was far more outgoing, a quality that would stand him in good stead. By Fred’s early teens his father had
taught him the essential clubmaking skills and Fred started to perfect his game on the links on his doorstep. The Royal Liverpool Golf Club proved an excellent nursery, and it had the name
28 ROYAL LIVERPOOL GOLF CLUB MAGAZINE 2019–2020
and reputation that would further his career. Within no time he’d taken over from
his brother, Thomas, as professional at the Royal Belfast Club. At the age of just 17 Fred was the youngest professional in the land. Sadly his
stay was cut short when,
in December 1916, he was called up to serve his country in France as a machine gunner. On being demobilised three years later there was only one profession he wished to follow - but back home in his father’s shop, postwar business was poor. Encouraged by some ex-army friends,
Fred set sail for the United States to join his sister in New York. After finding life difficult at first, doing odd jobs that included barbering and roofing, he finally secured a job teaching golf at the St. George’s Club in Long Island. This was the break he needed and it was soon followed by a second - he was recommended for a position at East Lake Country Club, Georgia, home of the up and coming Robert Tyre Jones. Bobby Jones and Fred were much the same age and struck up a firm friendship. They spent long hours together discussing the importance of building a swing of aesthetic beauty, balance and timing. Fred would later come up with the perfect golfing analogy: ‘that whilst swinging you should be able to balance a tray in your right hand and balance another in your left on completion of your downswing.’ When a position became available in
1922 at the Country Club of Columbus, Jones put in a good word for Fred and the job was his. The Georgia Club was still in its infancy, consisting of just 12
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