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toughest finishes in
championship golf, the wind got the better of him at last. A bunker
at 16 cost him a shot and he visited two on 17 to run up a six. The
spell was broken and he went from three under to two over to post a
74, still the best last round by three shots - The Daily Telegraph
summed it up as “a remarkable feat”. In Peter Alliss’s 100 Greatest
Golfers, the author said that it was “Perhaps his greatest
round----” and Henry himself later wrote that it was “--- nearly the
best of my life”. The 14-year-old John Jacobs was watching that day and was to say: “Henry didn’t win, but for umpteen years after that every time I played golf I was Henry Cotton”. John Jacobs was to play against his boyhood hero sixteen years later in the final of the Penfold Matchplay tournament at Maesdu, Llandudno. Henry was then 47-years-old, but he beat the wind, the rain – and Jacobs by 5&4. It was his last tournament win.  At Sandwich Henry’s scores of 77 and 74 gave him the lowest last day
total of 151, but the 29 he took for the last six holes had cost him
the title. He finished third, three shots behind the winner, Reg
Whitcombe, then pro at the Parkstone club in Poole, where Peter
Alliss was to spend much of his early career. Reg, always one of the
steadiest and most consistent scorers, had opened with two 71’s. He
had learned his golf on the windswept links of Burnham and Berrow
and the compact swing he had developed helped him to punch the ball
safely along the fairways to return a highly respectable 75,78 in
the final day gale, despite having taken four putts on two greens.
Little wonder that it was the highest final day total by a champion
since 1925. His partner, Jimmy Adams, finished with 78,78; two of
only sixteen scores under 80 from the seventy-two rounds played on
the last day. It was a superb effort considering that his Daly-like
backswing was hardly ideal for such conditions. At the 11th Jimmy
had pitched his drive onto the green and finished in the rough
beyond, a shot of at least 400 yards. He was runner up for the
second time in three years, but he never gave up trying and was
still challenging for the title as late as 1954, when he came fifth
at the age of forty-four. Alf Padgham, who had pipped Jimmy to win in 1936, was having another tilt at the title. Alf, one of the longest hitters of those days, also drove the 11th and holed from a yard for an eagle, but he was ‘blown away’ and finished with an 82 dropping him into a four-way tie for 4th, which included two of the half way leaders Jack Bussson and Dick Burton. Dick had taken 44 putts in a last round 85, but his turn was soon to come. “It was like being on a high sea”, Alf said afterwards, “I feel as if I am still swaying”. I felt the same – it was a wind you could lean on, certainly the most violent gale I ever played competitive golf in! I scored 84,80 to finish in a share of 10th position with Charles Whitcombe and the up and coming Bobby Locke. It was some week and I had the privilege of playing with Henry Cotton in one of his most famous rounds of golf. I was to see a lot more of him before the year was out. Henry’s lifestyle at this time was a little different to mine. He had now become the first British golfing super star and was fond of the ‘good life’. In the thirties he and the wealthy Argentinean heiress he called ‘Toots’, who he was to marry in 1939, would go to Monte Carlo in the winter, where he had a golf school, charging clients large fees to hit balls into the sea and playing frequently with the Prince of Wales. [Max Faulkner would also be there during his time as Cotton’s assistant.] At one time Henry had a butler, chauffer, gardener, maid and other assorted retainers. How many of today’s fabulously wealthy professionals live like that? Like Hagen, Cotton arrived at tournaments in a limousine, parking as close as possible to the first tee and, while he was changing his shoes, champagne was served to his friends and followers. He had gone to the Waterloo club in Brussels in 1932 to improve his health–and his earnings. Whilst there, the young pretender advanced his reputation by defeating the first superstar - Walter Hagen, 6&5 in a 36-hole exhibition match. Typical of Walter, on the morning of the match he ‘slept in’ at the Savoy and missed his plane. He hired a private aircraft, which was diverted due to fog and the Haig eventually arrived to confront the ‘fuming’ crowd with a cheery “Howdy folks”. He acknowledged their round of applause, had a quick drink and arrived on the tee some hours after the scheduled start time. Henry wrote in This Game of Golf: “Anyone who can do that sort of thing and get away with it ‘has something’”. Walter was the archetypal ‘lovable rogue’, regularly letting people down and always being forgiven. As Henry put it he “just had no sense of responsibility”. Leonard Crawley and Henry Lonhghurst played with Cotton at Waterloo, and sent him a succession of wealthy pupils. They needed to be – When L. G. spent a weekend with Henry he paid £120.To avoid double taxation Cotton had to be out of the U.K. for more than nine months each year and he made NEXT |
