Fifty Years of GolfHutchinson, Horace G. (Horace Gordon)
History
Fifty Years of Golf
Hutchinson, Horace G. (Horace Gordon)
Golf
One of the most amusing matches I ever did play was with Gordon Simpson,
a few years later, in the International when again it was at Muirfield.
On the first round I was four up at the fourteenth hole; and then I let
him win all the last four holes, so that we came in to luncheon all
even. Then, in the next round, he was four up at the fourteenth, and,
exactly as I had done in the morning, so he, in the afternoon, let me
win all the last four holes. He got a good three at the
thirty-seventh--the hole was in a very "kittle" place and the green was
mighty keen, so that the three was hard to get--and so won the match.
But in the course of that match I did a thing that I never have done
before or since. He laid me a stimy, with his ball so near the hole that
the only chance was to pitch my own ball right into the hole. By a bit
of good luck I did it, but by a bit of unconscionable bad luck, the
ball, after rattling about against the tin inside, came out again and
stood on the lip of the hole. As the match was played, it just made the
difference; but even had I won, it would not have made the difference in
the whole team match. Scotland, as usual, were too good for us and had a
match to spare.
I had played Gordon Simpson once, many years before, in the amateur
championship, when he was a student at St. Andrews' University, and the
circumstances had been amusing. He was the champion of the University,
and when we set forth from the first tee we were accompanied by a
gallery which appeared to me as if it must include all the youth of that
venerable seat of learning. They behaved wonderfully well, with a great
deal of sportsmanlike consideration for my feelings, but at the same
time were naturally so dead keen on their own man that they would have
been something more than human, or older than undergraduates, had they
been able to refrain from a little baring back of the teeth, and just
the murmur of a growl, when I happened to hole a good putt.
Unfortunately things went rather badly for their hero at the start. I
contrived to get a lead of some four holes on him, and hung on to them
till the match was finished. Of course I did my best to win, but I never
in my life won a match which gave me less satisfaction. It was so hard
on the University champion, surrounded by all his best friends. However,
he had his revenge, as said, at Muirfield. But as for this stimy loft,
into the hole and out again, it is quite sure that there was something
not just right about the tins in use in the Muirfield holes at that
time, for it happened to Bernard Darwin to play precisely the same
stroke with precisely the same result in the championship. The fact is
that if the flooring of the tin is set at a certain angle this chucking
out again of a ball lofted in becomes a dynamical certainty. The makers
of the tins ought to see to it that the floor is not set at this angle.
If it is set nearly horizontal the thing does not happen, and it is when
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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