no sensation more akin to homecoming than that of reaching Hoylake on a spring evening just in time to dash out on the links with a club or two before darkness falls.” Bernard Darwin also wrote kindly on


the death of arguably the greatest Hoylake golfer, John Ball. “The beauty of any particular player’s style,” he stated, “like his exact place in the golfing firmament, must be a matter of individual feeling, and I can only say that I have derived greater aesthetic and emotional pleasure from watching John Ball than from any other spectacle in any game.” Darwin became a member of Royal


International at Hoylake in 1902, and the first Walker Cup match in America in 1922 at New York’s National Golf Links of America. He was there to cover the match as The Times’ golf correspondent when the British Captain Robert Harris fell ill. Darwin took his place - including the captaincy - and won his singles match against the American skipper, William C Fownes. In 1924 he was covering, as well as


playing for, the President’s Putter and found himself surprisingly winning the event. Reporting on his victory in The Times in an age when papers did not give their reporters bylines, he observed: “I do not think Mr Darwin will be hurt in his


feelings by any remark I make


about him, so I will say that he is one of the most enigmatical golfers of my acquaintance. You never can tell to what depths of futility he may fall.” Just marvellous, eh? Hoylake came to have a very special


place in Bernard Darwin’s heart and mind. He loved the links and never stopped contemplating its mysteries and intricacies and played in many matches and competitions. In 1932 he was asked by legendary


Secretary, Guy Farrar, to write the forward to his history of the Club, the first book to document Hoylake’s past. Darwin began as follows: “It is now over 30 years since I first came to Hoylake, a tremulous and excited young pilgrim, and I feel I have been battening on the club shrimps ever since. As far as an alien can be a patriot, I am a Hoylake patriot: I love every cop of it and every breeze that blows across it, and I know of


Liverpool in 1935 having been elected Captain of the R&A in 1934. Of the style of another local genius,


Harold Hilton, he wrote: “A little man jumping on his toes and throwing himself and his club after the ball with an almost frantic abandon.” At the time Darwin probably did not suspect the energetic Harold would follow him into the golf writing profession. Four


times Amateur Champion,


once the US Amateur Champion, and twice the Champion golfer of the year, Hilton would go on to write regularly for periodicals like Golf Illustrated and become the first editor of Golf Monthly. In 1907 he published My Golfing Reminiscences, which was a sort of autobiography. Hilton was born in 1869, the year of Liverpool’s founding, in West


Royal


Kirby, just a few miles from Hoylake. He first set foot on the links as a very small boy. A natural sportsman, he was soon beating his father who was one of the first members of the Club. Noticing the talent his son displayed, he tried, as all fathers do, to offer what he thought was helpful advice. In his book Harold recalled his old man imploring him to “follow through” with his swing. Irritated and frustrated, Harold took a run at the ball and smashed it while sprinting. “Is that enough of a follow through,


father?” he asked. “Harold,” came the reply, “if you are


going to act like a baby we shall go home right now”. And they did. Harold later accepted that his behaviour


was hasty and duly apologised to the man he later called his ‘Long Suffering’.


ROYAL LIVERPOOL GOLF CLUB 2019–2020 MAGAZINE 45


Left: Rudyard Kipling


Shortly after Hilton’s death Bernard


Darwin wrote: “There are few people in the world that really know their subject. He knew his golf.” Hilton would have been the ultimate


hero of any Club in the country but this pedestal was reserved for Johnny Ball, the first Englishman and amateur to become the Champion golfer when he won The Open at Prestwick in 1890. Add to that a staggering eight Amateur Championships and you can see why even Harold was eclipsed. John Ball was a quiet and reserved man, so much so that his taciturn nature fascinated the national press. In 1906, The


Below: Harold Hilton at Apawamis in 1911, the year he became Editor of Golf Monthly


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72