 he took five. Bernard Darwin
wrote: “I feel that the brush should be dipped in earth-quake and
eclipse to do him justice”. He needed a caddie as big and powerful
as himself to carry his huge bag, which contained twenty-six clubs!
He carried five woods and twenty irons, including eight niblicks and
mashie niblicks. Little had won the British and US Amateur
championships in 1934 and was to retain both titles that year. He
turned professional in 1936, the year that the USGA limited the
number of clubs an American player could carry to fourteen – no
doubt to the great relief of his caddie.
Alf Perry took the championship with a nerveless display of
attacking golf, without the services of a mind coach, or indeed a
coach of any kind. “A natural golfer with a vengeance”, is how
Bernard Darwin described him. “I have no doubt that Perry has
thought and thinks about the game”, he wrote, “but he seems to play
in the manner of the Jolly Young Waterman in Dibdin’s song, who
‘rowed along thinking of nothing at all’. It is the jolliest kind of
game to watch, for he wallops the ball (it is the only word) with a
gorgeous and whole-hearted confidence, and is as care free on the
green as on the tee”. When the first prize was only £100 it was
still possible to treat it as a game. If David Leadbetter had been
around at the time he would have had his work cut out to remodel
Alf’s swing, as he did for the two-time Muirfield champion Nick
Faldo.
Alf had played the last two rounds with the same golf ball – “I
found a good one and stuck with it”, he said. There were no
defensive irons off the tee at par-fives, or par-fours for that
matter - golf was less complicated in those days. “Perry’s finish
was one of the finest I ever saw in a championship”, wrote Henry
Longhurst, “He kept rolling along with his nautical gait, playing as
though he were in a summer evening fourball”. At the 14th he found a
bunker off the tee but smashed the ball 200 yards onto the green –
with his spoon! He scored 72 to equal the record low total of 283
and record his only major win by a margin of four. In 2002 Ernie Els
totalled 278. When you think of all the advances in golf in the
intervening sixty odd years, even after allowing for course
tightening and lengthening, a difference of 5 shots doesn’t seem
much does it?
My rounds of 72, 75, 71, 71 for 289 left me six behind Alf, so my
ill luck at the 17th did not cost me the Open, but a second or third
would have earned me a place in the Open history books, where only
the top three get much of a mention – my total of 142 on the final
day was only beaten by the winner. (Tony Jacklin’s experience at the
17th was more costly. He also took six, having suffered from
Trevino’s outrageous chip-in at the hole in the 1972 Open). I was
handed a slip of paper telling me that my fourth place prize of £30
was to be sent on to me - I eventually received the money, but only
after a written reminder. Alf stepped up to receive the Claret Jug
and made perhaps the shortest acceptance speech of any Open
Champion. Henry Longhurst reported it as follows: “His oration at
the prize giving was a model of its kind: ‘I’d rather play a round
of golf than make a speech’ was all he said”.
He was spotted later standing alone on the station platform at the
little wayside junction of Drem near North Berwick, waiting for his
train home. How times have changed! It was said of Alf, “He came
from nowhere and went back there”, but he had his moment of fame.
Before he departed he was joined by Henry Cotton, who had motored
the ten miles from his hotel to bid him farewell. “Well done Alf. I
wish you the best of luck”, he said and added that he thought that
the new champion should captain the Ryder cup team. Given Alf’s
dislike of public speaking that was an unlikely choice. Henry was
not in the team and had not played since 1929. He was still based at
Royal Waterloo in Belgium and therefore ineligible due to the
residency rule. He had missed out in 1933 for this reason and in
1931 due to his dispute with the PGA. With six years lost to war
Henry was to play in only four Ryder Cup matches in his long career
at the top. (He was non-playing captain in 1953)
[In 1994 (up-dated 2005) a Golf Chronicle pictured Dick Jones and
Bert congratulating Alf Perry (overleaf), which was puzzling because
Jones was not in the field for the 1935 Open. The picture was
actually taken over a decade later after the war at the 1946 Daily
Mail tournament, where Perry (now at Reddish Vale, Stockport), was
leading qualifier, Jones was second and Bert was third.
Ignore the photo’s caption - that’s Bert on the right and his name
isn’t Herbert.]
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