Bobby Jones worship in England

BERNARD DARWIN

For the last few months, in England we have been passing through a severe attack of Bobby worship in this country, which has never been equalled perhaps since the days of W. G. Grace.

Years ago, when that greatest of all cricketers was at his zenith, crowds used to assemble at the railway stations merely to see him passing through on his way north from Gloucester to smash the Yorkshire or Lancashire howlers. One admirer at Sheffield, who bowled the champion a hall at the nets and by mischance had two teeth knocked out for his pains, remarked proudly "never mind— the big 'un did it!"

I do not know that we have quite yet reached that pitch in the case of Mr. Bobby Jones but we have approached it. Some weeks before the American team sailed for England I received, from one ingenuous golf secretary, a letter begging me to hint that his was a course that the great man would appreciate "because we are all so anxious .to see him play." I was besieged with enquires as to whether he was going to play at another course and when I declared on my honour that I had not the faintest notion, nobody believed me and thought I was keeping him to myself.

As soon as he got here the great tide of his popularity began to surge ever higher. The American team landed on a Tuesday evening and on the morning of that day a friend told me, under pledges of inviolable secrecy and with the admission that he himself was breaking a similar pledge, that Bobby and his men were to play at Addington next day. It reminded me of the ancient days of the prize ring when the scene of the battle was kept secret for fear of interfering magistrates. Before one great combat Dan Mendoza the famous Jew fighter was stationed by the road, in a green coat and riding a white horse, to "give the office to intending onlookers."

As I live near Addington and belong to the club it seemed to me I might venture to go there and so duly set off there next morning with an agreeable sensation of romance and mystery.

I arrived there to find two gigantic policemen at the gate leading to the course. They did not however bar my progress. They let me through, saying merely "That's Jones—'im in the brown." The secret had been well kept and there, sure enough, was Bobby looking rather cold in a brown leather waistcoat playing before a mere handful of adoring onlookers. Never was there such a good chance of a close-up. The whole American team was there. So was Mr. Douglas Fairbanks with Leo Diegel. Did anybody look at them? Not one single soul. There were no film fans on the course that day. The four-ball in which Bobby was playing drew everybody and even Diegel's putting attitude could not exact the passing -tribute of a smile.

Bobby Jones might be as great a golfer as he is and yet not compel a quarter of this frantic admiration. It is the utter ease with which he produces such inevitable results that is the supreme magnet. It used to be said in the days when he was sometimes beaten, that his wonderful rhythm inspired his adversaries to play better than they knew how. However that may be it certainly makes them look laborious and second rate by comparison. Two comments were made to me that morning at Addington and both were illuminating. An old and experienced golfer not given to enthusiasm said "It is just like -a schoolmaster taking out his pupils." A young lady whom I had brought with me said "I knew I was going to see the best golfer in the world but I never thought it could be like this." That is just it. Until you have seen Bobby Jones play you do not know that golf can be played like that. When you have seen him you wonder why on earth you. are so foolish as ever to try to play again yourself, and you want to watch nobody else. The first official event was the Walker Cup match at Sandwich. The great golf, and overwhelming victory, of the American team is old news by now and need not be recapitulated but what is worth mentioning is the doglike devotion with which the bulk of the crowd followed the great man. He and Dr. Willing won their foursome by "the length of the street." They gained so substantial a lead in the first few holes that it was really all over but the shouting. The same remark applies to his single against Mr. Roger Wethered. After the first nine holes, which were hard fought, Bobby went away like a streak of lightning and had gained such a lead—seven holes—by luncheon time that the match had not a kick of life left in it. Yet in each of these cases the crowd was much more concerned to see Bobby hit the ball than to watch some really close and exciting match between ordinary mortals. That was what they had come for and the rest might go hang.

■ After that to St. Andrews, and the same thing happened there. Whenever Bobby went out for a practice round the onlookers were waiting patiently three deep half an hour before hand, round the first teeing ground. When he played in a four-ball match with Miss Wethered as his partner, I think the shops must have shut their doors and I am sure the scarlet gowned students of the University eonveniently forgot some of their lectures. It is an old story by this time and must have crossed the Atlantic, but still I may perhaps risk retelling of one adoring lady. She came upon a friend of mine who was acting as fore caddie in one of Bobby's matches and said, "Excuse me but is that Mr. Jones's ball?" "Madam", answered my friend with a full sense of his responsibility, "It is." "Then," said the lady in trembling hope, "Do you think I could just pick it up and hold it for a moment?" Hero-worship surely cannot go further than that.

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In 9 holes of golf, putting causes us such emotions as:

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Once or twice in matches which he won, in the end, comfortably enough, he looked as if he were going to give himself a lot of unnecessary trouble by dropping his game for a hole or two after gaining a valuable lead. There were three matches in which he came perilously near to defeat, those against Cyril Tolley, Harrison Johnston and George Voigt. Against Johnston he was four up with five to play and then he was taken to the very last hole and had to hole an uncommonly gallant putt or goodness knows what might have befallen him, for he looked at that moment a shaken man and Johnston, having come up from behind, was full of fire. Against Tolley in a match in which the "breaks" had been, I think, a little in his favour he had to hole a putt of eight feet or so to halve the 17th and prevent his enemy from being dormy. Against Voigt, he had again to hole a man's putt—twelve feet,—to save himself.

I don't think I ever saw three such crucial putts so bravely tackled in all my life and they went straight home to the hearts of the worshipping crowd.

If Bobby had sometimes seemed anxious and ill at ease; had seemed in fact quite human on his way to the final in the Amateur, what a contrast when he had got there and had thirtysix holes before him in which to break the other fellow's heart. After a single exhibition of nervousness at the first where he missed his pitch, he settled down to such a precision of striking as I have never seen. He seemed to be playing like a man in a lovely, unending dream. Only the fact that he missed some holable putts made one realise that he was really awake. He missed them, as one imagined, just because he was clinging so closely to the par score of the course that he would run no kind of risk to beat it. At times I thought that he positively did not want to break that interminable sequence of par fours by doing a brilliant but unsymmetrical three. He was playing "according to plan" and the putts all seemed to fit in with his plan.

It was an astonishing exhibition and if we have sometimes wondered how Bobby mowed down one fine player after another in the American Championship by such margins as 8 and 7 or 10 and 8, we shall not wonder any more. We have now seen the Juggernaut in action.

Lastly I come to the open Championship at Hoylake and this was one of the bravest wins in Bobby's career because he started without aqy real confidence in himself and I think he never acquired it. The old Scottish saying about golf "It's aye fechtin' against ye" was true of Bobby; he was always fighting against himself as well as against his enemies and he triumphed over both. He never could play the first three holes properly, never at least until the last round and then after beginning well he suddenly and mysteriously took a seven at the eighth hole from a position where any one of our Victorian grandmothers, armed with a croquet mallet, could probably have got a five. Thus there was always some sort of mill stone round his neck and yet look at his score—three over an average of four for four rounds of a course which was called 6,800 yards and was in reality very, very nearly 7,000 yards long. It was a great effort and it took it out of him prodigally. He was thoroughly exhausted when his round was over and he had moreover an agonising wait of it before he knew he had won.

Bobby was a very tired and overwrought man that night and yet he played a match for charity next day near Birmingham and won it. Moreover three days later he played for the Professional Golfer's Benevolent Fund, a match at Oxhey with Braid, Ray and Vardon. This is Ray's course and it is a long and testing one. Ray has been there a great number of years and has once done a 65. Bobby had never seen it before and he holed it in 66.

What a man!