American and British Golf

Differences in the Games of the Two Countries as Observed by an Experienced English Player

BERNARD DARWIN

ON the very day after I had landed from America, being very full of energy and virtue, I did a day's work. I watched the final round of the Girls' Championship, a tournament for ladies under nineteen. The two young combatants did not, if the unchivalrous truth be told, play very well, or so it seemed to me who had come straight from watching Mr. Sweetser and Mr. Evans. Of too many of their balls it might be said in the words of a Scottish golfing poet that

"They whirred and fuffed and dooked and shied And sklentit into bunkers."

Yet an American gallery would have found plenty of things to applaud. Here on the other hand, though there were haggard mothers and agitated aunts looking on, the match proceeded in funeral silence. Once there came a faint clap and a spectator next to me said in rather an acid tone, "Which are they clapping—the girl or the bunker? because it seems to me the bunker had the best of it."

I said to myself that the Editor of Vanity Fair had asked me to write something about the differences between golf in the two countries. Well, here certainly was one difference to begin with. An English gallery, though more demonstrative than of old, is placid, almost dour, by comparison with an American one. I remember that, when I was battling with my friend Mr. Fownes in the International Match, at a certain tee we both struck highly respectable old gentlemen's drives well over the bunker, and straight down the course. Our only gallery at that moment consisted of two young ladies and they broke into almost rapturous applause. They may have thought that two such senile players did well to hit the ball into the air at all, but I do not think it was that. It was merely natural exuberance, a power of enjoying very much a rather mild entertainment. I am phlegmatic and British enough to prefer golf played in comparative silence, but that power of enjoying I do envy and admire.

Customs in Scoring

IT seems to me that this is but one symptom showing that America at present comes fresher, keener, newer to golf than we do. I hope this does not sound patronising; heaven knows it is not meant to be, for if you have played the game a shorter time than we have, you have caught us up and passed us at it. That golf is a comparatively new game in America is simply a historic fact, and I seem to discern further evidence of it in something else which differentiates the golfers of the two countries. The American is far more interested in his score than the Englishman, and whatever bunkerous catastrophes he may have met with, holes out religiously in order that he may have a score.

I seem to remember that thirty years ago, when England was still, save in a few places, new to the game, men used to think and talk a great deal about their scores, and write them down punctiliously in little books. There used to be a legend that until a man went round under a hundred he should not buy a red coat. To-day people still reckon their scores, and lie about them, but not quite to the old extent.

I believe that the American Golfer's passion for an exact score has contributed towards making him the good player he is. It keeps him always on the stretch; it stops him from playing careless strokes, and one careless stroke can beget many: it gives him always an ambition and an interest. Moreover, since he is, if I may say so without impertinence, very honest with himself in the matter—which is more than some of us are in England—he gets a real standard by which to judge his progress.

Now what are some other differences? There is a difference in climate, and so to some extent in courses, and these two contribute to make a difference in the style of play. The great majority of British golfers play most of their golf inland, but there is a vast deal of sea-side golf too, and our big events are played on links—properly so called in the narrow meaning of the word—where there are sandhills, and the genuine sea-side turf, and above all a sea-side wind.

Geographical Differences

IN America I have only seen one course that is from our point of view a sea-side course, namely that wonderful monument, alike of imagination and architectural skill, the Lido. The National is on Peconic Bay, and is a truly glorious course, but it is not quite the real sea-side thing. There may be one or two others, and there will be more—Mr. Donald Ross told me that there are the makings of wonderful sea-side courses in California—but practically speaking American golf is an inland game and, very largely, a windless game.

Now with slow greens and little wind approaching golf is not a very difficult art, unless the greens are very closely guarded by bunkers. If a big wind may suddenly arise it is impossible to make bunkers too close to the hole, lest some particular shot should become impossible, but if there is no fear of a gale then the bunkers can be cut with almost relentless ferocity; and in America they are. Undoubtedly your greens are more closely guarded than ours, and a really loose and erratic pitch nearly always meets its appropriate doom.

The result of this is that the American golfer has to cultivate a high pitching shot of great accuracy, and undoubtedly he plays it very well indeed. He does not need a great deal of back spin, partly because he has a ribbed club, and partly because the comparatively soft green helps him, but he must be very straight and gauge the length accurately, and my goodness! how accurate he is. He plays a stroke that seems to us at first a little unorthodox, a slow swinging shot without much "nip" in it, and with a longer back swing and more follow through than our players use. If there was a high wind he would, I think, have to modify this shot, and no doubt would quickly learn to do so. As it is he plays the stroke that pays him best under his own conditions, and plays it amazingly well. I cannot help wishing that he had rather more opportunities of cultivating a running shot as well. In this regard I think a little more variety of approach would improve many American courses.

I think your players practise more than ours, and this shows alike their keenness and their wisdom. At any rate they practise more regularly and systematically. Before the day's play begins in America one sees rows of players with rows of teed balls, and rows of caddies in the distance ready to retrieve them; and the players seem to go systematically through all their clubs. Certainly people in England play a few shots to get rid of the early morning stiffness before they start, but it is a far more spasmodic performance. Personally I regard myself as an inveterate practiser. Heaven knows how many hours I have practised in the course of a mis-spent life, with very little profit very likely, though a good deal of pleasure, but l have always been coy and retreated if possible to some solitary spot where no one can see my experimental contortions. When I insanely believe that I have hit at last on the great secret I like to race after my ball metaphorically singing with joy. The presence of a caddie would entirely mar my ecstasy. Not so the American golfer, who does his practising close to the club house in full view.

Again—a big difference this—you have infinitely more tournaments than we do. It seems to me that an American golfer, if he have the leisure and the inclination, can spend nearly all his summer going from one invitation tournament to another. With us most clubs have a spring and autumn meeting, consisting of a day or two of medal play, and there is a certain number of open competitions, but the total amount of competition play is not comparable to that in America.

The Effect of Tournaments

THE exact proportion that competitive play should bear towards friendly games, from the point of view of enjoyment is a matter of individual taste, but there can be no question that, for the golfer who wants to improve his game, the more tournaments, within reason, he plays in the better. Your young players arc from the point of view of tournament experience, hardened war-worn veterans when ours are raw schoolboys. Mr. Sweetser is only twenty, but I believe I am right in saying that this year was the fourth National Championship in which he had taken part. We have had occasionally such players. Mr. John Ball was in the prize list in the Open Championship at fifteen, but generally speaking our twenty-year-old players have hardly had their baptism of fire.

Finally a difference due solely to climate. Many of us here think of golf almost as a winter game, certainly not a game that is at its best in hot midsummer weather. Of all my golf in the year, I look forward most to a week that I spend annually on the coast of Wales at the beginning of January. To you on the other hand golf is mainly a summer game, and a hot game of no coats and thin flannels, and delightful shower baths afterwards.

Well, here are a good many differences that I have enumerated, but none of them, I hope, make any rea1 difference. We both love the game for the same reasons and play it in the same spirit, and if that be so what else matters?