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Jim_Kennedy

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"The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« on: March 10, 2013, 09:55:09 AM »
Joe Dey wrote that about Francis Ouimet in a 1967 article* he authored for Golf Journal, and how right he was, both figuratively and literally.

Exactly ninety five years ago, on Sunday, March 10th, 1918, The Brooklyn Daily Eagle began a ten part series of articles on the 18 hole playoff between Ouimet, Vardon, and Ray that decided the winner of the 1913 US Open at TCC, Brookline Ma. Accompanying the text are diagrams of every hole, complete with the 1918 equivalent of  'shot tracker'.  There are ten installments, the first nine covered two holes each and the tenth closed it out with  "a complete analysis of the work of each contestant in every department of the game"

An Editor's note described the articles as "the most exhaustive record ever made of a great golf match", but the many diagrams and photos offer a visual break in the 'action'. ;D Here are a couple:





The complete series, which had Francis' seal of approval:

1st-   http://tinyurl.com/apv525p    pg. 1
          http://tinyurl.com/b8xv4yg    pg. 2

2nd-  http://tinyurl.com/a2sju4a

3rd-   http://tinyurl.com/a28os7o

4th-   http://tinyurl.com/ahrbl7a

5th -  http://tinyurl.com/au6bd8p    pg. 1
          http://tinyurl.com/bdfhuwh    pg. 2

6th -  http://tinyurl.com/ajyo8oh     pg. 1
          http://tinyurl.com/aodjj8a      pg. 2

7th -  http://tinyurl.com/bz7fpo3    pg. 1
          http://tinyurl.com/berwjkc     pg. 2

8th  - http://tinyurl.com/as2essp    pg. 1
          http://tinyurl.com/atcbxho    pg. 2

9th  - http://tinyurl.com/adelmf8    pg. 1
          http://tinyurl.com/bhhn7yr    pg. 2

10th- http://tinyurl.com/amwldbq  pg. 1
          http://tinyurl.com/b9hrbl7    pg. 2



* reprinted 1967 Golf Journal article:  http://www.usgamuseum.com/about_museum/news_events/news_article.aspx?newsid=318
 
« Last Edit: March 10, 2013, 10:06:17 AM by Jim_Kennedy »
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"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon

David Harshbarger

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2013, 10:07:31 AM »
Great articles, Jim.  Thanks for posting. 
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The trouble with modern equipment and distance—and I don't see anyone pointing this out—is that it robs from the player's experience. - Mickey Wright

Jeff_Mingay

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2013, 10:44:32 AM »
Wow, this is really cool Jim. Thanks for posting these links.

First thing I noticed during a quick glace is how 'long' Big Ted Ray is - consistently driving the ball between 220 and 250 yards ;)
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jeffmingay.com

BCrosby

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2013, 10:46:36 AM »
Thanks Jim. Great stuff. Much appreciated. I can't resist noting how much of the history of golf is still buried in the archives of daily newspapers. There is a ton of stuff out there.

The books we all read on gca are important and should be owned. But they are the icing on a cake that is mostly made up of contemporaneous newspaper and magazine accounts like the ones you found. The extra bonus in digging them out is how thorough and well written so many of them are. They are a reminder of the low quality of modern press accounts (I'm including magazines) of golf and its architecture.

Bob
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Jim_Kennedy

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2013, 11:16:21 AM »
Glad you guys like'em.

Jeff,
Ray would probably be a 350 hitter today. We get sold on yardage 'creep' because 1 yard per year doesn't sound like much, at least not until a century passes by.  ;D
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"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon

Thomas Dai

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #5 on: March 11, 2013, 06:01:56 AM »
Jim,

Thanks for posting. Makes very interesting reading. Harry Vardon was very much 'the man' at the time having already won numerous British Opens plus the US Open in 1900, and Ted Ray returned to win the US Open in 1920.

Both Harry Vardon and Ted Ray were originally from Jersey in the Channel Isles. For those who who arn't sure exactly where that is, it's group of small islands - Jersey itself is maybe only about 4 miles by 8 miles - just off the coast of western France, but long deemed part of Britain, although on some kind of self-governing basis. FYI, Jersey, along with the other Channel Isles, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Hern, were the only parts of Britain to be invaded by Hitlers forces during WWII.

Both HV and TR played on Grouville links at the eastern end of the island. This is where Royal Jersey Golf Club is located, a course I can recommend. It's very enjoyable to play and set in a really beautiful location. The course is quite old fashioned in places, and runs alongside the beach with a huge fortified castle, Mont Orgueil Castle, sited on a high hill in the near distance to the north. The opening tee shot on the par-5 1st with a decent wind from the left is, well, let's just say it makes you think. The course has several interesting hazards, namely fortified gun emplacements curtesy of Herr Hitler and earlier Anglo-French disagreements. The course has I believe been upgraded in places within the last year or so.

Here's the clubs weblink - http://www.royaljersey.com/

I shall try to post some other photos later, not my speciality, but I'll give it a go.

All the best.

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Rich Goodale

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #6 on: March 11, 2013, 07:17:36 AM »
Great stuff, Jim

Frankly, reading about baseball and the other sports in the good old days is as much or better fun than reading about the match.

Thanks

Rich
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Life is good.

Any afterlife is unlikely and/or dodgy.

Jean-Paul Parodi

Kris Shreiner

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #7 on: March 11, 2013, 08:26:27 AM »
Thanks Jim. Note- Mr. Ouimet found the game how....as a caddie. The man who brought the game, to the front page and beyond in the US, came from the caddie ranks. His wee sidekick on the bag, Eddie Lowery, rounded out quite the pair that epic week at Brookline. Eddie also became a great friend of the game and helped Harvey Ward and Ken Venturi, among others, to develop into top players.

Cheers,
Kris 8)
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"I said in a talk at the Dunhill Tournament in St. Andrews a few years back that I thought any of the caddies I'd had that week would probably make a good golf course architect. We all want to ask golfers of all abilities to get more out of their games -caddies do that for a living." T.Doak

Jim_Kennedy

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #8 on: March 11, 2013, 11:50:00 AM »
Bob Crosby said that the quality of the writing was an 'extra bonus' to the digging out of these articles.

Added to that (and why it took me a while to compile them) are all the sidetracks I went down. The 'extra' articles you run across about men like Vardon and Ray, all the other sports, and the occasional caddie story, like the revolt of the boys at The Lenox GC in Massahusetts who wanted a raise from 25 to 50 cents, are too good to pass up. By the way, I think the boys ended up getting an extra nickel from the folks at the club that was described as "Newport-in-the-Berkshires".  ;D  

 
« Last Edit: March 11, 2013, 11:51:33 AM by Jim_Kennedy »
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"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon

Joe Bausch

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #9 on: October 05, 2015, 03:01:35 PM »
Perhaps it makes reading those articles easier as I've bundled, cleaned, and put them all in one place:


http://xchem.villanova.edu/~bausch/images/1913_Brookline/
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@jwbausch (for new photo albums)
The site for the Cobb's Creek project:  https://cobbscreek.org/
Nearly all Delaware Valley golf courses in photo albums: Bausch Collection

Jim_Kennedy

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Re: "The Man Who Put The Game On Page 1 In America"
« Reply #10 on: October 05, 2015, 04:55:13 PM »

The winning putt

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"I never beat a well man in my life" - Harry Vardon
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