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Walter Hagen, the first & six-time US Ryder Cup Captain

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In honour of the 2012 Ryder Cup we salute Walter Hagen (1892-1969), first & six-time US Ryder Cup Captain, whose spectacular career revolutionised the role of the contemporary professional golfer.

Walter Hagen, Spring Lake Golf & Country Club, 10th September 1914. SKU 5846

Walter Hagen, Spring Lake Golf & Country Club, 10th September 1914. SKU 5846

Walter Hagen came from a working class background, the only son of five children. He started playing golf as a caddy  and made his professional debut at 19 years old, when he came a respectable 11th at the 1912 Canadian Open. Hagen was also a very skilled basketball player & in 1914 he cancelled a tryout with the Philadelphia Phillies in order to take part in a golf tournament. Later that week he won the US Open (20-21st August at the Midlothian Country Club, Blue Island, Illinois) for the first time, aged 21, his first major golfing title. The photograph above is taken three weeks after that life-changing golf event.

Thereafter Walter Hagen won so many golf tournaments in such flamboyant and cheerful manner that he raised the then lowly status of the golf professional singlehandedly. At that time golf pros often weren’t allowed entry in golf clubhouses. When Hagen won the 1922 British Open at Royal St George’s, he hired a limousine in protest at his barred entry there. He had the car parked directly in front of the clubhouse, changed his clothes in the vehicle and ate his celebratory meal there.

He went on to win 11 professional major championships,  won 22 straight 36-hole games in the PGA  & defeated his then great rival, Bobby Jones, in a 72-hole golf tournament in 1926 to (temporarily at least) decide who was the greatest golfer of the the day.

 

 

Wimbledon 2012

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Bad luck to Laura Robson, who crashed out of Wimbledon in the first round today. If it’s any comfort to her, at least she is in good company: King George VI did the same in 1926, when he was knocked out in the first round in the doubles.

King George VI at Wimbledon in 1926

The story of how the then knock-kneed and left-handed (seen in 1926 as a huge impediment to playing tennis) Duke of York competed at Wimbledon is a fascinating one. We all know about his speech therapist’s mentoring role, but it turns out that King George VI had another mentor too: Sir Louis Greig, who had a big role in shaping the future king’s life, including escorting him to the top of the competitive tennis world.

Glasgow born Sir Louis Greig, a naval surgeon, met the future king at the Royal Naval College on the Isle of Wight. George V had sent ‘Bertie’ there in a bid to toughen him up. Greig was fifteen years older, a talented & confident sportsman, and immediately clicked with the Duke of York. They became inseparable. They served together during the first World War & Louis even operated on Bertie to save him from his crippling and life-threatening ulcers.

Louis moved to live in Cambridge while Bertie studied there, joined the RAF with him and, as Bertie’s private secretary, persuaded the future king to ask for a THIRD time for Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon’s hand in marriage – the young woman had already refused him twice. No wonder the poor man suffered from ulcers!

In 1926 Louis Greig won entry to Wimbledon through his position as the RAF’s tennis champion. He chose Bertie as his partner – possibly a poisoned chalice. As good a tennis player as Louis Greig was, presumably Bertie was out of his depth.The British pair were thrashed in straight sets by Herbert Roger Barrett & Arthur Gore.  The Mail on Sunday’s editor & Sir Louis Greig’s grandson, Geordie Greig describes the defeat as a triumph, however (in true British fashion), “Just getting Bertie on the grass before a crowd was a triumph…There were fantastic pictures of him in his Wimbledon whites in the papers, and it helped to build his image as a normal, healthy young man rather than the shy, stammering also-ran to his glamorous elder brother, the Prince of Wales’. The rationale makes sense. It’s fascinating to contemplate how much work went into shaping King George VI into being the saviour of the nation that he later came to be.

If you’re interested to read more in depth, Geordie Greig has written a book about the relationship between the two men. The book’s due to come out in August.

Olympic Monday: the 1908 Canadian Lacrosse Gold Medallists

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Hope we’re not going to peak too early re. London 2012, but we thought we’d start an Olympic Monday series: each Monday we’ll look into a little bit of Olympic history. Some of it will be classic, legendary moments; others more esoteric. But at the least, we hope to provide useful information for pub quizzes, if nothing else!

First Off, possibly slightly arcane but we like lacrosse:

The last time Lacrosse was an Olympic sport: It was at the 1908 London Olympics and herewith the gold medallists: Canada

The 1908 Canadian Lacrosse Olympic Team

Britain won the silver medal, having lost 14-10 to Canada. A great achievement, qualified a little, perhaps, by the fact that they were the only two teams in the Olympic competition! They played to a huge crowd at White City Stadium…immediately before the football finals, which might account for the size of the crowd. It was an exciting game even for those who had never witnessed the fast-paced sport of lacrosse being played before: the match was divided into four quarters. At the end of the 1st quarter, Canada were ahead 5-1; at half time it was 6-2; by the end of the third quarter, the score was 9 all. Such is the speed with which a lacrosse match result can change.

In the end Canada won 14-10 but not before the true Olympic spirit of sportsmanship had been demonstrated: when Canada’s Angus Dillon broke his stick & had trouble finding a replacement, England’s RG Martin agreed to stay out until Dillon returned (fool!…only joking of course, Canada!). At the end of the match, the players exchanged sticks and congratulated each other on a cracking game. Maybe lacrosse needs to be reintroduced as an Olympic sport to reignite the true sporting spirit of the Games.

Our revamped homepage

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I hope you all enjoy navigating our redesigned homepage. It should be easier and clearer for you to access the website as a whole from the homepage. Let us know if you like it/can’t find what you’re looking for. We have reinstated the blog, which may/may not be a plus! We have also put a link to our Wisden Dust Jacket page on the homepage so that you should be able to buy official Wisden Dust Jackets to your hearts’ content: replacement ones to protect your books or traditional style ones to replace the photographic covers provided with the 2003 Wisden Cricketers’ Almanacks onwards.

Another development on the homepage is our gifts category, which will be a constantly evolving selection of potential (and hopefully inspiring) gift ideas. Again, if you can’t find what you’re looking for, let us know if you’re searching for something in particular or on behalf of a particular person.

We’re very pleased, too, with the introduction of our ‘featured item’ on the front page, which we will change regularly. We’re particularly proud of our first featured item, which is also Sportspages’ first publication: The Ewbank Enquiry by David Rayvern Allen. A beautifully produced book, though we say so ourselves – all thanks to  the printers, Smith Settle – the Ewbank Enquiry has been a labour of love for David for the last few years. It is part detective story, part social and sporting history as it details the thread of cricket that runs through the story of  a 19th Century cricket-mad family of adventurers and empire builders. It’s well worth a look.