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considered unfair and insisted on him returning to Britain with the team after
the match, denying him the opportunity to stay on and play some
events on the American circuit. Percy Alliss and Aubrey Boomer were
ruled out because of a disputed stipulation requiring all members of
both teams to be natives of, and residents in, the country they
represented. Alliss was resident in Germany and Boomer, who had
played in 1927 and 1929, was employed in France and Belgium. All
three went over on a private American tour and, like my brother
George, Percy and Henry were engaged to report on the match for the
press. They played a few tournaments and Percy tied Walter Hagen for
the Canadian Open Championship and nearly became the only man to
beat him in a play-off, eventually losing at the 37th hole. Cotton
suffered from an outbreak of boils and his golf suffered with him,
but the trip was to change his life when he met the woman who was
eventually to become his wife – ‘Toots’.
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By the time of the next match in England I would be in the
reckoning. A Ryder Cup selector appears in a picture with members of
that 1931 team (below), Albert Haskins, professional at Liverpool’s
West Derby club for forty years. He was to play a part in the final
chapter of my attempt to follow brother George into the Ryder Cup
record books, but a lot of water was to go under the bridge before
then. 