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(Beswick and Shankland had provided the last – most startling – moment with a nett 65 ½). Three of the short holes cost Ball and Gadd fours, but they reached the last green with the knowledge that a putt, variously estimated at from six to twelve yards, had to go down. And down it went, RAMMED IN WITH SPIRIT – BY GADD”!   It went on: “The best gross was the 143 of H. E. Walker and Dick Burton (Sale) (71-72). An unusual misfortune probably robbed them of first place. Walker pulled his approach at the 8th into a bunker and the ball came to rest in front of a brick the size of your fist. Burton had to play both brick and ball and the latter, being more resilient, bounded over the green into another bunker. When the ball was finally holed out in seven the pair could claim to have been unlucky, though vital putts continued to evade the hole.” Bricks are not often found in bunkers these days but, under the current rule, Dick could have removed the offending object without penalty of course.

The nett scores of the first two pairings were:
Ball and Gadd (3) : 72 – 69
Beswick and Shankland (2 ½) : 75 ½ - 65 ½

Bill Shankland was another great character from those days. He was an Australian who had represented his country at Rugby Union, Rugby League, Swimming and Boxing and, when he came to England in the early thirties with an international rugby team, he was snapped up by Warrington to play in the English Rugby League. He was paid a £1000 signing-on fee and £8 a week plus £6 a match. Contrast that with the £2 10s wages paid to Miners at that time. Bill had a successful eight seasons with Warrington and he loved the game but it was said that his wife was so upset by the battering he took that she chivvied him into turning to a less physical activity. He had a clause inserted in his contract allowing him to take up a job as a golf professional and he went to the West Lancashire club as assistant to Bob Kenyon, before joining Haydock Park. He was a fine player, but often struggled on the greens and this was to be his downfall when in a position to challenge for the Open the following year. I remember him experimenting with a putter that had a 45-degree angle in the top of the shaft to which he fitted a tube. He then swung the putter while attempting to hold the tube firmly. It had no chance of getting past the R&A of course. Later, when he was pro at Potters Bar in Hertfordshire, he was a hard taskmaster to his young assistant, making him open the shop at 8am and not close until 8pm. The young man’s name was Tony Jacklin.

In September of that year, the day after the late Queen Mother launched the liner named after her: Queen Elizabeth, an international match commenced at the Llandudno Golf Club (Maesdu). It was the first time that all four home countries had competed together following the format of the amateur international played a week earlier at Royal Porthcawl. In that series L.G.Crawley of Brancepeth Castle was in the England team that won the trophy, beating all three of the other nations.

Llandudno Urban District Council donated the Llandudno Trophy for the professional four-nation tournament, which was to replace the matches that had been played before the Open each year. The England team, captained by Percy Alliss and containing five Ryder Cup players, emulated the amateurs and defeated Wales, Ireland and Scotland to take the new trophy.

Jimmy Adams captained the Scottish team that England had beaten twice that year, but I was not involved in the earlier encounter, which took place prior to the Open at Sandwich. An absentee from both of the matches was Henry Cotton, who was the second winner of the Vardon Trophy in 1938; home internationals never seemed to fit into his schedule.

At Llandudno I won two of my singles and halved the other, after having been dormie two down to Bill Holley of Ireland. I partnered the long hitting Dunlop Southport champion, Don Curtis to win our match against Wales, during which Don drove the green at the 310 yard 4th. We also beat the Scotland pairing of Tom Haliburton, the famous Wentworth professional (then at Prestwick, St Nicholas) and Hamish Balingall of Balmore. In the Irish twosome that beat us 2 & 1 was Harry Bradshaw who was to lose a play off with Bobby Locke in the 1949 Open, after the famous ‘broken bottle’ incident in the second round may well have cost him the title. Another memorable thing about Harry was his unusual ‘anti-hooking’ grip – a three-finger overlap with only the thumb and forefinger of the right hand in contact with the club shaft. He was the professional at Portmarnock GC, Dublin for forty years.



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