The Complete Golfer
By Harry Vardon
On the other hand, it is next to impossible for a tutor to tell a pupil on the links everything about any particular stroke while he is playing it, and if he could, it would not be remembered. Therefore, I hope and think that, in conjunction with careful coaching by those who are qualified for the task and by immediate and constant practice of the methods I set forth, this book may serve all who aspire to play a perfect game. If any player of the first degree of skill should take exception to any of these methods, I have only one answer to make: that, just as they are explained in the following pages, they are precisely those which helped me to win my five championships. These and no others I practice every day upon the links. I attach great importance to the photographs and the accompanying diagrams, the objects of simplicity and clarity. When a golfer is in difficulty with any particular stroke—and the best of us are constantly in trouble with some stroke or other—I think carefully examining the pictures of that stroke will frequently put him right. At the same time, a glance at the companion in the “How not to do it” series may reveal to him at once the error into which he has fallen and which has hitherto defied detection.
All the illustrations in this volume have been prepared from photographs of myself playing the different strokes on the Totteridge links last autumn. Each stroke was carefully studied at the time for absolute exactness, and the pictures now reproduced were finally selected by me from about two hundred that were taken. To obtain complete satisfaction, I found it necessary to have a few of the negatives repeated after the winter had set in, and there was a slight fall of snow the night before the morning appointed for the purpose. I owe so much—everything—to the great game of golf, which I love very dearly and which I believe is without a superior for deep human and sporting interest, that I shall feel very delighted if my “Complete Golfer” is found of any benefit to others who play or are about to play. I give my good wishes to every golfer and express the hope to each that he may one day regard himself as complete. I fear that, in the playing sense, this is an impossible ideal. However, in time, he may be nearly “dead” in his “approach” to it.
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Harry Vardon
Henry William Vardon (9 May 1870 – 20 March 1937) was a professional golfer from Jersey.
Biography
He was a member of the Great Triumvirate with John Henry Taylor and James Braid. Vardon won The Open Championship a record six times and also won the 1900 U.S. Open. Henry William Vardon (9 May 1870 – 20 March 1937) was a professional golfer from Jersey. He was a member of the Great Triumvirate with John Henry Taylor and James Braid. Vardon won The Open Championship a record six times and also won the 1900 U.S. Open. In 1898, Harry Vardon won his second Open Championship at Prestwick Golf Club, beating Willie Park, Jnr, by a single stroke. Park missed a makeable putt on the 18th green to take the match to a playoff. So aggrieved was Park that he immediately offered a challenge to Vardon to play him over 72 holes, 36 holes at his home course of Musselburgh and 36 holes at a golf course of Vardon’s choosing, for a wager of £100 per side. Park had offered similar challenges before; some years earlier, he had met and defeated Ben Sayers at Musselburgh and North Berwick, and in 1897, Park defeated J.H. Taylor over two venues, also for £100 per side.
Vardon refused Park’s challenge; besides the £100 per side, Vardon had nothing to gain from such a match, and he most certainly was not going to play Park at Musselburgh, where fan partisanship was less than courteous to rival players. Eventually, Park conceded to play his home leg at North Berwick Golf Club instead of Musselburgh, and Vardon chose his home course of Ganton, Yorkshire. Golf Week magazine acted as both promoter and stakeholder, and the match took place in July 1899, by which time Vardon had won his third Open Championship. The British press billed the encounter as the most significant golf competition ever. Such was the interest that 10,000 Scottish fans attended the match at North Berwick and that on a day when the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII) was making a State visit to nearby Edinburgh. Special trains were laid on to ferry fans from Edinburgh and nearby towns. The format of the competition was match play. The first 36 holes at North Berwick ended with Vardon holding a two-hole lead. The second leg took place two weeks later at Ganton, and Vardon completed the rout, winning 11 up with ten holes to play, collecting the £200 prize and the glory.
Harry Vardon
