Home Page
Registration
Edit profile

catalogue
auction
shopping cart
shipping

history
makers

search
faq
news
links
about
contact
Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland
Scottish Golf History

Places

La Boulie: Inter-Allied Games
(Source: © 2013, Douglas MacKenzie)

This article started while expanding the clubmaker entry for Marius Cavalo and rather grew legs. My interest was piqued by a mention of him participating in the Inter-Allied games of 1919, an event of which I had never heard.

The Inter Allied Games were held by the victorious allies in 1919 in France with an invitation to 28 countries from General Pershing. Only 18 nations had enough men left in France to enter and it was something of a cross between the Olympics (track and field, swimming and water polo, [outside in the Mare St James in the Bois de Boulogne], wrestling, equestrianism) and (very) martial arts (hand-grenade throwing) plus tennis, football and golf.

In golf, played at La Boulie, there were only three teams America, France and England (I use the country designations of the official account which goes one worse than Americans talking about the ‘British Open’ by referring to the Open Championship as the ‘English Open’!). There were professionals listed in the English team, Harry Fulford, the Boomer brothers, Aubrey and Percy, and Albert Tingey (jnr or snr, I am not sure) though when the two qualifying rounds for the singles came around, only five players from the team appeared, three qualifying, La Foll(e)y, Warren (who I think was a New Zealander) and W W Marks, thunderstorms apparently prevented the Boomer brothers taking further part after returning qualifying scores as they did not arrive at the first tee within the appointed time. I have heard of none of the Americans but they beat the English professionals by 7 points to 5 in the team event before losing to the French. France, however, had Cavallo, Gassiat and Massy plus Golias, Gommier, Bomboudiac, Lafitte and Dauge. Surprise, surprise, in addition to winning the team event they provided all four semi-finalists in the singles with Arnaud Massy defeating Dauge 5 and 4 over two rounds in the final. It’s reminiscent of US basketball teams in recent Olympics! A short golf course was also to be laid out during the games, at Le Mans, ‘for athletic entertainment’ where the shooting events took place.

 The French team
Winning French team Inter-Allied games, 1919

The report published by the Games Committee suggested that the golf tournament would be the wedge which would see golf adopted as an Olympic sport at Antwerp in 1920. Although it had twice featured in previous Olympics they were only 96 years out with it due to appear in Rio in 2016. In many senses, the games were far more Olympian than the Olympics with much cooperation and equipment sharing, American cooks being sent to the different camps to show them what to do with the strange American rations, Romanians being introduced to track and field for the first time with the help of coaches assigned by the YMCA and using American rifles, with help from American coaches, in the shooting events. The idea of nations did not seem to be taken too seriously either – the winning Czechoslovak football team had a Scottish coach and where else do you see Newfoundland listed as a competing nation? The book published by the Games committee is interesting (if you knew Guatemala was one of the WWI allies your career clearly lies in Trivial Pursuit), inspiring and entertaining.

Keywords:

Find Text: Search Type: