Great Golfing Families: Particularly the Hezlets

An Unscientific Inquiry into the Matter of Golfing Heredity

BERNARD DARWIN

THE title of this article need cause no alarm. It is not a disquisition on eugenics. My own family history has not, I am ashamed to say, made me a man of science. Far from it! I cannot talk learnedly of heredity and environment. It occurred to me however to set down something of some of certain notable golfing families and to wonder, purely as a layman, why those particular families have turned to golf.

Golf in America, though it has flourished so amazingly, is, I suppose, hardly yet of long enough growth to have produced golfing pedigrees. Among all the fine players there whose names come into my head, I can only think of one conspicuous example of family talent, Miss Edith Cummings and her brother, who were holders of Championship titles at one and the same time. Here, in England, the golfing family tree has had longer to develop. Of Scottish professional families the Morrises of St. Andrews, the Parks and the Dunns of Musselburgh, the Simpsons of Elic, are obvious examples. They have produced their generations of famous players, but now, as far as Scotland is concerned, the flame of talent seems to be flickering out, though we may hope that that of the Dunns may continue to turn brightly in America. Then there are the Kirkaldies, a trinity of mighty players, and the Auchterlonies—both from St. Andrews—and the Smiths,—Willie, Alick, and Macdonald—from Carnoustie, who have now become in effect an American family.

THE Channel Islands come nearest to Scotland, for the little Jersey course has produced not only one transcendent genius in Harry Vardon, but at least two more Vardons who were fine players, and a whole crop of Gandins, four brothers, no less. Forest Rowin Sussex boasts the great clan of Mitchells, brothers and cousins, of whom Abe is of course the chieftain. There are at least two other Mitchells who are professionals, together with Abe's half-brother, Mark Seymour; and besides these some very strong amateur players, gardeners and green-keepers, who have never wandered from the little family fastness into the wide world beyond, and still play only on the heather of their native forest.

When I come to amateurs there is a long list to choose from. In most of the families the talent is purely masculine. In some, it is to be found in both sexes, and in two it is purely feminine. Of this last phenomenon, the obvious example is that of the Misses Leitch of Silloth, five of them in all, all good players though four of them are a little dwarfed and obscured, as is only natural, by the mighty Miss Cecil. It should be added, however, that there was a brother who would, I believe, have been a fine player had he not died very young. The less well-knowm example is that of the three Misses Orr, who flashed like meteors across the golfing sky as long ago as 1897. Their fame was great, if rather vague, for they had never played in any kind of championship, and indeed played chiefly by themselves. The terror of their name was, perhaps, the greater, since it had this element of the unknown. One or two rash people actually said that rumour was a magnifier, and that perhaps the Misses Orr were not really so good after all. Then, in 1897, the championship came to Gullane, next door to their home course of North Berwick, and these three ladies entered. The final was contested between two of them, and probably the third would have been there too, if it were not a law of the game that there cannot be more than two people in a final. And then, having given their proofs so signally, the ladies disappeared from competition golf as swiftly as they had come, and have now become a legend and a myth. How good they were, it is impossible to say; but they were beyond doubt the best of their day.

Of the golfing families in which both men on women have shone, there are the Whighams of Prestwick, the Hezlets of Portrush, the Grahams of Hoylake, and the Scotts, who played as children on the private course of their father, Lord Eldon, at Stowcll Park in Gloucestershire. Nor should I leave out the most modern example of all, Miss Joyce Wethcred and her brother Roger, who p,ay "Box and Cox" in the matter of winning championships, but decline completely to overwhelm the world by both reigning as champions at the same moment.

I CANNOT give an example of male and female golfers of outstanding fame marrying one another and producing offspring of either quite dazzling golfing brilliance, or else, by perverse chance, with a positive loathing for clubs and ball. But this is sure to happen sooner or later and then the science of Golfing Eugenics will be the richer by some valuable data.

One thing seems to be clear about these golfing pedigrees; namely, that it is a great thing to live actually on the edge of a golf course. In all the examples I have given, the family home has been where the golf green was. It has not been a case of golf in the holidays, but of golf at any time and all the time. Miss Wethered and her brother do not actually live on a course, but they live very, very near one; near enough not to make an exception to the rule. Again it is a great advantage for a child golfer to have always available an antagonist; and since brothers and sisters are generally candid critics, they furnish antagonists who will strike hard and spare not.

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In Miss Cecil Leitch's book there is a very pleasant little picture from the pen of a member of the Silloth Golf Club, of Miss Cecil and her elder sister, Miss May. "I was playing golf at Silloth," he says "one day many years ago; and, arriving at the fourteenth or "heather" hole, my partner and I came across two little curlyhaired girls dressed alike in white sailor coats, blue serge kilted skirts, white socks and little black patent-leather ankle-strap slippers. One was hacking away in the heather, while the other stood with her legs crossed and looked on. After many fruitless efforts by the smaller to dislodge the ball, she turned round and, in a pathetic voice exclaimed "I can't get it out!" To which the other answered "No, it needs strength, and you lack it!" Brutal no doubt, but salutary!

Another example of the bracing discipline of family frankness I cull from Miss Wethered in Golf from Two Sides. "I can remember some years ago," she says, "how annoyed I used to feel on those occasions when I asked my brother a question about golf which I was either too lazy or too ignorant to find out for myself. His invariable answer was that it was no use telling me anything, since I should never be any good until I found out things for myself." That the elder brother or sister is likely to influence the others is certain. Sometimes one finds evidence of it very unexpectedly. That most famous of Scottish amateurs, Freddie Tait, had a clearly marked and characteristic style, which I fancy everyone believed to belong to him alone and to be part of his natural genius. Yet he had unquestionably imitated his brother. I remember very well that, after Freddie had been killed in the South African War, his elder brother, Mr. Jack Tait, came home from India where he had been a long time, and I played in a foursome with him at North Berwick. And there was Freddie's swing once more before me; not quite the same ease and poise perhaps, nor quite the same effortless power, for the younger brother had improved on the elder; but it was, essentially, the same style; and there was something a little ghostly about the performance.

In the examples I have given, it is easy to see that brothers and sisters have helped one another; but save in one of the families, there is no distinguished golfing parentage. The fathers have been in several cases keen golfers, but they have not been distinguished ones. As to the mothers I can only say that Mrs. Wethered is a ping-pong player of great ferocity, as I can testify from several desperate struggles. The one exception is Mrs. Hezlet, whose photograph is given here. Mrs. Hezlet is now over seventy, but she played in this year's Ladies' Championship and gave her adversary a good hard fight of it. That is an inspiring example for any family; and Mrs. Hezlet's family have followed it well. Her son, Major Charles Hezlet, is a member of this year's British Walker Cup team and may be in America when these lines appear. And it is interesting to note that another of the team, Mr. Michael Scott, is a member of one of the most illustrious of these golfing families.

Major Hezlet is the only golfing brother of his family; but he has no fewer than three elder sisters to keep him in his proper place. He has been runner-up in the Amateur Championship; he has won the Championship of his native Ireland; and he has lost that of Wales by a single hole to Mr. Tolley. It is no bad record; but it "pales its ineffectual fires" before that of his sister, Mrs. Ross. There were three sisters—Miss May, Miss Violet, and Miss Florence, now Mrs. Ross, Mrs. Hulton, and Mrs. Cramsie, respectively. Of these Miss May was unquestionably the best; indeed she was unquestionably the best lady of her time; and, as in the case of the Misses Orr, what more can anyone be? She began in 1899 by winning the Irish Championship on her seventeenth birthday at Newcastle in County Down, and on the same course won he Open Ladies' Championship a week later. Twice more she won the Open Event, and once she was beaten in the final. The Irish Championship she won five times all told, and lost once in the final. In those days Irish Ladies' golf was better than English or Scotch.

The record of Miss Florence is one of continually running into her elder sister and getting the worst of the encounter. Three times in four years she reached the final of the Irish Championship but, alas! the other finalist was always Miss May, who was standing no nonsense from younger sisters. In the fourth year she got into the final of the Open Ladies' Championship, but still the same thing happened. She could not get away from Miss May. Miss Violet appears to have been cleverer at avoiding that terrible Miss May, for she twice got into the final without her, but there was another very formidable impediment in each case, Miss Rhona Adair, a beautiful golfer. So there was another runner-up in the Hezlet family.

The Scott family is the converse of the Hezlets, in that it possesses three golfing brothers and one sister; but the sister was the most highly distinguished of the four. It was said of the great Allan Robertson that he never was beaten—a proud epitaph. It might be said, and probably with greater truth, of Lady Margaret Scott. The Ladies' Championship was first instituted in 1893. In that and the two following years Lady Margaret entered and won each time with the utmost ease. Then—a female Alexander with no more worlds to conquer —she retired. Undoubtedly she was a beautiful golfer, with a smooth free swing—something too long according to modern canons, but wonderfully graceful. She played in the days of long skirts, tight waists, and stiff collars; and she overcame those handicaps and all her enemies into the bargain. Whatever the Miss Leitches and Miss Wethereds of future ages may accomplish, her pinnacle is solitary and secure.

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Mr. Michael Scott, the youngest of the three brothers, has won championships too. When he was quite young, he went to Australia, and won the Open Championship there twice and the amateur event four times. Since he came home, he has won the French Amateur Championship, and has been for years one of the best and most reliable amateurs we possess. His brother Osmund once reached the final of the Amateur Championship, and used to be reckoned the possessor of the most perfect swing in all the world of golf. It had the same freedom and grace as his sister's; and even to-day, when he plays but rarely, I would as soon watch him hit a ball as any man I know. Mr. Denys Scott, who comes between these two, is also a good player—in his day a very good one, and is one of the very few golfers of my acquaintance who putts "with his hands upside down", that is to say, with the left hand below the right. I can not say whether this peculiarity springs from heredity or environment.