Hoylake on the
THE FLAT AND OFTEN WINDSWEPT FIELDS OF
HOYLAKE HAVE NOT ONLY FORGED MANY MIGHTY CHAMPIONS BUT ALSO INSPIRED MANY MIGHTY
WRITERS. JOE PINNINGTON HAS BEEN TURNING OVER SOME OLD LEAVES.
styles. There were
books
12 YEARS BEFORE HOYLAKE had a golf course the first book solely about the game was written by a Scottish player and playwright called Henry B. Farnie in 1857. He called it The Golfer’s Manual and published it under the pen name, ‘A keen Hand’. With great foresight and simplicity he classified golfers according to their
just two
groups: ‘the Golfers Agile’ and ‘Golfers Non-agile’. I
fear I know which group I now
belong to. H. B. Farnie’s much admired effort
was quickly followed by many others and golfers began to spend as much time reading about the game as they did playing it. Notable is the 1890 volume on the game forming part of the Badminton Library of Sports and Pastimes. It was written by Horace Hutchinson,
whose home Club was Royal North Devon, known affectionately as Westward Ho! He played for Oxford against Cambridge in the first Varsity Match of 1878. A charismatic fellow, he would become one of the first personalities of the game. Horace’s reputation grew and was
accompanied by many accolades, including the Captaincy in 1894 of Royal Liverpool where he played regularly. Thanks to the new and efficient railway network, and because Hoylake lies midway between Scottish Clubs and those in the south like Royal North Devon and Royal
Blackheath, RLGC became a
regular meeting point for golfers based at opposite ends of the country.
Above: Horace Hutchinson
44 ROYAL LIVERPOOL GOLF CLUB MAGAZINE 2019–2020 In the Badminton edition Horace
wrote: “The Links at Hoylake is associated in the mind of any golfer who has played on it with the most perfect greens in the world.” This was more than 130 years ago. He was a master of the pithy but
illuminating aphorism. For example: “If you lose your temper you will
almost surely lose the match.” “If profanity had an influence on the
flight of the ball, the game of golf would be played so much better than it is.” One of Horace Hutchinson’s
early
pupils was John Henry Taylor a native of Northam, the town where Westward Ho! Golf Club is located. Taylor, of course, would win The Open at Hoylake in 1913. Surprisingly J. H. Taylor became
friendly with Rudyard Kipling when he attended United Services College for gentlefolk
in the professional golfer’s
home town of Northam at Westward Ho! They shared some time on the links and, when Taylor wrote to the journalist and writer informing him of the death of a mutual friend, Kipling replied: “Those were the days when the Burrows were free to all and, as you remember, we golfed where and when we chose, and there were very few books or theories to confuse the mind and or the muscle.” Bernard Darwin, like Horace
Hutchinson, studied The Law at Oxford, but neither became a legal eagle. For my part Darwin was the first great sports writer, and he played the game almost as well as he wrote about it. Darwin took part in the First
Golfers began to spend as much time reading about the game as they did playing it
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