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The Leeds GC pro was Bert Myers, who was at the club for fifty
years. He was a very good player who won the Northern Professional
Championship and had finished with a fine 72 in the deluge at the
Dunlop Northern at Newcastle the previous year, to be just three
shots behind me in 5th place. He had an incredible eclectic score at
Cobble Hall of 32 strokes, including holes-in-one at eight separate
holes on a course that has only five par-3s. It would qualify for
the Guinness Book of Records, but some witnesses had passed on
before proof could be provided.
In contrast to the previous year, the News Chronicle Tournament at
East Brighton was played in conditions that were possibly worse than
we had experienced at the Open a few weeks before. The wind was not
quite as strong, but the 18th, almost drivable in 1937, could not be
reached with two full drivers by most of the field and, to add to
the misery, there was driving rain which made it very hard to see
the ball. The Open Champion, Reg Whitcombe, gave another display of
remarkable wind-play to take the title and £200. His winning total
of 300 was 32 shots more than his brother Ernest’s record score
twelve months before. Scores soared into the eighties and Alf
Padgham was ‘blown away’ again and took 88 - his highest ever score
in a major event. I handled the conditions a bit better than I had
at Sandwich and shot two 77’s for a 303 total and 6th place, behind
four players who shared second on 302: Cecil Denny, Herbert Rhodes,
Don Curtis and Arthur Lacey, who had played brilliant golf in the
morning for a 71 and looked certain to win, but lost his balance in
the last round and took 82.
It was at East Brighton that I became indirectly involved in an
incident that may well have brought about a change to the rules of
golf. At that time the method of marking the ball on the green was
not clearly defined by the rules. Usually the ball was marked at the
request of a partner and how it was marked was up to the player.
Some used a coin, but most made a mark on the green with a teepeg. A
friend of mine, I will call him Bob, had just finished his round and
he came off the last green extremely agitated and muttering: “I
can’t believe it”, over and over again. When he had calmed down he
told me what had happened. On every green his playing partner had
been picking the ball up without request and had ostensibly drawn a
line from his ball at right angles to the line of the putt. Actually
no mark was made and he was picking up the ball with his right hand
and
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