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The other advantage Sarazen had in that Open was to have the services of Hagen’s old caddie, ‘Skip’ Daniels, who had worked for Gene when he came second to the Haig in the 1928 Open at Royal St George’s, after which he had told him: “I’m going to win the Championship for you if it’s the last thing I do before I die”. By 1932 ‘Dan’, as Gene called him, was almost seventy with failing health and poor eyesight. On the advice of Prince’s members Gene reluctantly told him that he was not fit enough and employed a younger man, but he did not get on with his new caddie and played poorly in practise. He turned to Daniels again and with him on his bag Gene’s game improved dramatically and he led from start to finish to take the Claret Jug and the £100 first prize. His score of 283 was a record for the championship and left him five shots clear of Macdonald Smith, in second place for the second time in three years and six ahead of England’s Arthur Havers. You could say that I had been an unwitting witness to the first steps in the modern era of golf as 290 was broken for the first time using “the greatest stroke saver in the game”, as Gene was to call it. His new ‘blaster’ was eventually recognised as one of the greatest advances in club design, but it was a while before it came on the market and three or four years passed before I had one in my bag. He got little out of his invention, other than the prize money and titles it won him. His equipment company, Wilson, claimed all the income from sales.

Sarazen requested that Daniels be allowed to join him for the presentation ceremony, but this was sadly refused. Within months Skip was dead. “When old Dan died the world was poorer by one champion”, lamented Gene when he heard the news.

Playing with Gene was a tremendous experience for me in my first championship and I am glad that I had the opportunity of playing with this grand golfer. He went on to win the US Open that year and became the highest paid sportsman in the world, when he signed a contract worth an annual $25,000. Seventy years later the highest paid golfer, Tiger Woods, earns a reputed $2.50 per second and, bearing in mind that his rounds of golf take two hours longer than Gene’s, Tiger surpasses Sarazen’s annual total early in the back nine of a single day on the golf course.



This was the last championship for the great Harry Vardon, who had won the title six times between 1896 and 1914 - a record that still stands. He failed to qualify and I did not have the opportunity to make his acquaintance, but I did meet one of the Great Triumvirate there - the five times Open champion, J. H. Taylor, who was a founder member, and first chairman, of the PGA. He was then in his early sixties and headed a golf club manufacturing company called Cann & Taylor. I remember the scrupulous attention to detail in the making of his clubs. When I was at Roehampton the Cann & Taylor clubhead maker, Bert Nash, worked for my brother George in the evenings and it was he who taught me clubmaking. He was a very hard taskmaster and insisted on us meeting his own exacting standards. Everything had to be ‘just so’, even down to the screws in the sole plates of the woods being aligned with slots facing parallel from front to back.

In the thirties Bert’s younger brother Harry worked for the Aga Khan and often accompanied him during rounds at Roehampton. Harry described the

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