Well done Mike. An enjoyable read. It does seem to me that Travis was a bit of a loose cannon and that his magazine gave him the ability to give free rein to his opinions and express them widely. Is that fair comment ?
That must have been hugely frustrating to his friends. Strong words said in private don't have nearly the same resonance as those same words published. I have to say though that I'm not convinced that the banning of the putter was an attempt by the great and the good in Britain to get back at Travis for winning the championship in 1904. After all, it was 6 or 7 years later. It seems to me more likely that Travis used it as a pretext to stoke the flames of his grudge (not sure that's the right phrase but hopefully you know what I mean) of not getting the credit he thought he deserved for winning in 1904.
Niall - Yes and no. The R&A first formally regulated clubs in 1908 with a rule that said clubs must be "traditional and accepted". By way of an example, it was noted that shafts should join the head at the heel. There was an anti-shank 'Fairlie' club with a funky shaft that was cited as violating the new rule. There was no mention of the Schenectady.
It was not until about a year later, under pressure from the USGA, that Captain Burn (then the R&A rules chairman) interpreted the new rule to ban expressly the Schenectady. So while the 1908 rule was 'officially' issued to block a range of new clubs that had come on the market, most of them British, the Americans believed, probably correctly, that the R&A was delighted that the Schenectady had been caught by the rule.
The transatlantic discord triggered by the banning of the Schenectady was paramount in Low's mind when he took over as chairman of the R&A rules committee in 1913. The R&A's promulgation of the first rules limiting balls in 1921 was done in close collaboration with the USGA. (BTW, Low wanted a 'floater' standard but the USGA adamantly opposed the idea.)
Note that the Travis win in 1904 was dredged up in a series of nasty letters back and forth in 1910 or so. Travis felt he had been treated shabbily at Sandwich. Many Brits thought he had earned his treatment. And so forth. But the Travis victory was clearly on the minds of the British golfing establishment several years after the fact. There is little question that, first, Travis was not viewed as a proper gentleman by many in the upper reaches of the British golf establishment, and, second, they believed he had won with a trick putter.
As I recall the Schenectady ban was not rolled back until sometime in the 1920's.
Bob