Coming Up From Behind

The Story of Some Thrilling Uphill Golfing Battles—and Some That Barely Failed

BERNARD DARWIN

BLESSED is the man who "gets his blow in first". That is on the whole, I think, the lesson to be drawn from the history by Open Championships which are decided by score play. The long-drawn-out spurt, the coming up from behind and catching the leader, so to speak, on the very tape this is the most heroic and dramatic tiling that can happen in golf and sometimes it does happen, but more often it fails by one gallant inch. The record of championships is full of the stories of these stern chases that have deserved success, that have looked likely to attain it, but in the end have not commanded it.

When Jim Barnes won his championship at Prestwick two years ago he finished very early and had a long agony before he knew his fate. Almost as soon as he had finished J. H. Taylor told him decisively—he is seldom anything but decisive—that he had won. Barnes demurred, saying that there was Macdonald Smith still to come and that he had to do "only a 78". "Only 78!" exclaimed Taylor, doubtless with a vehement shaking of the head. "Oh yes—only 78! The great tiling to do is to set the other fellow a score and let him shoot at it. You've won." And, as is part of history now. Taylor was perfectly right. Macdonald Smith knew what he had to do: he was beset by an enthusiastic crowd that rushed in swirls and eddies across the links, defying the perspiring stewards, and he failed. He could not even do 79 or 80.

I have been looking at the records of the Open Championship since the war, and they provide some interesting evidence in support of Taylor's theory. It is really more your Open Championship than ours since your men have made a habit of winning it, and therefore I may very well quote it to American readers. There have been seven championships since the war. Four of them, I think l may claim, support my rule, namely that the man wins who sets the other men a task, nameh Hagen's win in 1922, Havers' in 1923, Barnes' in 1920 and Bobby Jones' in 1926. There are two exceptions, namely Jock Hutchison's win in 1921 when he finished in 70 to catch Mr. Wethered, and Hagen's in 1922. Duncan's win in 1919, to be mentioned later, can be quoted to prove either proposition and the reader must decide for himself.

AGEN has played the largest and most dramatic part in these championships. If ever there was a golfer possessed of an indomitable spirit, an ideal golfing temperament, he is the man. He lias won two championships; he has been within an ace of winning two more. In both these last cases lie has had a great chance; he has looked likely to catch the leaders but in the end that inexorable figure to shoot at has been just too much, even for him. It was so last year when Bobby Jones, nearly worn down by his terrific duel with Watrous, gave his pursuer, Hagen, a chance of catching him in the last round, for seven or eight holes it seemed that he would do it and then the strokes began to slip. With three holes to go he was a beaten man. It was the same in Havers' year. Hagen had a 74 to tie; his two previous rounds had been 71 and 74; he played magnificently—but he failed by a single fatal stroke. Probably no other man would have got as near as he did in the circumstances. Probably also he would have done it if he had not known that he had to do it. There is the rub.

On the other hand the spurt which landed him home at Hoylake by a stroke in 1924 was the most glorious that 1 ever saw. He had a 77 to win, though he did not know that when he started out. When, however, he reached the turn we all knew and no doubt that he knew also that lie had to come home in 36. It is a tremendous task at Hoylake, which has the largest and severest finish of any course in the world. 37 to tie seemed almost impossible and Hagen had thrown away strokes with both hands and taken 41 to the turn.

THERE were two crucial moments that nobody who was present can forget. One came at the tenth hole, where Hagen sliced his second so that the ball pitched on the edge of the green and fell away down the slope. I can still hear the excited shouts of "Let it go", and the serried crowd making frantic efforts to get out of the way. His third was a poor one and overran the hole by several yards. He had that putt for a four and a five then would, it seemed, be fatal. He studied it for a long time and then holed it. At each of the next two holes he made a mistake; the two mistakes cost him only one shot between them but he could not afford even one and at the short thirteenth, where he must get a three, he played a thoroughly bad tee shot and plumped into a bunker. "That's finished it; he's done now"— so said the crowd. Hagen pitched out to within five or six feet and holed the putt. And with that there came a complete change of feeling. Everybody bad thought that he could never do it; now everyone thought that he was sure to do it.

Such a series of recoveries was surely irresistible. And Hagen must, 1 think, have felt the change in his own mind. There were no more recoveries because no more were wanted. From that point his golf was flawless; he swept along those last five terrific holes as if they were child's play; he did each one in the perfect figure; he won by one shot; he never looked like doing anything else.

I said that this was the most glorious spurt I ever saw. Perhaps it was, since it achieved its object but Duncan's spurt that just failed— in 1922 at Sandwich—deserves to be bracketed with it. This time Hagen had handed in a 72 which seemed to make his position impregnable. His apparently nearest rivals had finished. I remember that Hagen himself was sitting on the grass allowing himself the luxury of a cigar. There seemed really nothing to wait for. Duncan was away somewhere in the distance but he had to do a 68 to tie and that was incredible and impossible. I cannot conceive win I went out to look for him for 1 was verytired and I had no belief in his doing it. However out I went and presently saw the merest handful of people—a dozen or >0— watching as astonishing a round as ever was played. It was astonishing in a particular way. It had the same quality as Bobby Jones' 66 at Sunningdale last summer; one was astonished not so much at the score the player was doing, as at the fact that he was not doing better still.

Duncan is famed for playing "mad stuff" but he never went so mad or was so clearly inspired as in that round. Whatever the length of the shot that he had to play to the green, once he was within range, one thing seemed certain, namely that he would have a putt for the hole next time. Alas! One thing also seemed, if not certain, at any rate very likely, namely that he would miss that putt. In fact he did hole some but the number that be might have holed—ah! well, I suppose it was too much to expect. He got a grand two at the sixteenth, an equally grand four at the seventeenth and then, when the wholly impossible was really going to happen, held bis second up just too much at the last and was very, very short with his third. If ever there was a splendid failure that was it.

I said that Duncan's win in 1919 at Deal provided evidence either way.—Here is the case, for other people's judgment. On the first day Duncan, a strong favourite, could do nothing right. He did two rounds of 80 apiece. Mitchell led the field with 73 and 74, thirteen whole strokes ahead of him. Next morning Duncan was one of the very early starters with the dew still on the grass. He duly went mad and handed in a 71. Just as the applause rang out Mitchell, cold and tired with waiting, was beginning bis round and knew that Duncan had done something extraordinary. He missed a tiny putt on the first green, wasted a shot at each of the next three holes, then topped with a bunker and took 8. He finished in 84 and all that lead of thirteen shots had gone at one fell swoop. Duncan did a 72 in the next round and won the Championship. So Duncan at once came up from behind and set the other man a score to shoot at and you can pay your money and take your choice.

/ANE of the great spurts of golfing history must have been one that 1 did not see,— that of which Bobby Jones, at Columbus, with nine holes only to go and four strokes behind Turnesa, caught him and beat him. Let me not forget, however, one spurt, perhaps the greatest of all. That one is Mr. Ouimet's at Brookline in 1913. It is too well known almost to write about, but there is one curious little point about it, namely the fact that history almost exactly repeated itself twice in one day.

It happened thus: Vardon and Ray were leading on the first day and both started early on the third round. Both went out very ill and came back well. Hagen, Barnes, Macdermott and one or two more all had a chance of catching them and all more or less fell down. At the very end of the list came Mr. Ouimet and be tied with them. Now for the fourth and last round. Again Vardon and Ray threw chances away with prodigality up to the turn. Again they pulled themselves finely together; came home well and gave the others something to shoot at. Again Barnes, Hagen, Macdermott, fluttered for a while, only to deceive. Last of all again came Mr. Ouimet; heaved the championship in the fire for the first nine—nay, the first ten holes—and then made a tie of it by an almost superhuman finish. 1 know of no other championship in which the same hopes and fears and triumph have thus recurred twice in one day.

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If I am right in thinking that the spurt just fails more often than not, I there is, I fancy, a psychological reason for it. Most of these spurts are begun, if not with the courage of despair, at any rate with a dogged intention of selling life dearly rather than with any very real hope of victory. Imagination is therefore for a while in abeyance. It is when the fight has been pulled round, when there is after all a real hope, that imagination refuses to be subdued any longer. The unspoken thought: "I may be going to win after all," has prevented many victories. Till that moment he never really thought that he had a chance and when it came the thought was too much for him. If only we could refrain from looking either forwards or backwards, what golfers we should be!