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Charlie Trapp
Bushey Hall/London
Charlie Trapp (so registered and christened, not Charles) was born in Abbot’s Langley, Watford, in 1887, the son of Thomas and Mary Trapp née Stanley. He was the younger brother of Tom and elder brother to Stanley, all three of whom became professional golfers. By 1901 the family was living at Otterspool (also written as Atterspool) House to the east of Watford, a ‘watering hole for the gentry’ and probably also offering livery, where Thomas snr was ‘horse keeper’.

Jackson’s Register has him starting his golfing career at Clacton between 1905 and 1909, and Georgiady places him at Clacton in 1909. I think both are incorrect and that he was never professional there: younger brother Tom was but not before 1907. Charlie started locally, playing from Bushey Hall in the PGA Midland Qualifier I906 and in the Southern Qualifier the following two years. By May 1909 he was at the charmingly named Woodham Walter club in Essex and played with brother Tom against Harry Vardon and William Jackson, the Clacton professional, on the occasion of the reopening of Tom’s course at Colchester. He was still at Woodham Walter in 1910 playing in the PGA Southern Foursomes with his assistant, Durham.

Either at the end of that year, or early the next, he took over as professional at Shooter’s Hill in South-East London and played an exhibition match there with Harry Vardon against James Braid and Henley the Eltham professional in a comfortable victory. The 1911 records lists him as a professional golfer lodging with the Helen family at Waldstoch Road in Plumstead.

He played in professional foursome competitions, relatively frequent events in the early years of the twentieth century, with brother Tom such as the PGA Southern section foursome in 1911. Both he and Tom qualified for the Open championship at Sandwich that year though both missed the cut after the second round. The following year he married Lillie B Odell in Wandsworth and their daughter, another Lillie, was born in 1913.

In September 1915 he was lauded in the press as ‘another professional to join the colours’. Initially he had applied unsuccessfully to join the Royal Flying Corps then ultimately enlisted in the Army Veterinary Corps: presumably he had learned something of the care of horses from his father. He was promoted to acting sergeant in July 1916.

Charles Trapp took over from J B Batley at the London Country Club, the London Flying Club as was, at Hendon, in 1924, perhaps something to do with his wartime affinity to the RFC. The club hosted an annual competition, very unusual at the time, for the Bystander Cup, a beautiful trophy with its centrepiece dating from 1855 depicting the Earl of Douglas in battle against the Earl of Northumberland at the Battle of Otterburn in 1388, for professionals playing with a lady member of their own club. It attracted Charlie and Tom Trapp and other top professionals of the day.The issue of the flying club, however, put an end to the golf the following year. The founder of the club, pioneer aviator Claude Grahame-White, had lent his private airfield to the Admiralty during the First World War and it passed it to the newly-formed RAF. They were not particularly keen on giving it back and bought it from Grahame-White in 1925 with the result that the entire Country Club closed. Nevertheless, play continued over the course without a break and a new club constituted with Trapp as its professional and he competed from here in Open Qualifying in 1926. The club, though, was not a success and went into voluntary liquidation in 1927. Charlie’s wife Lillie died that year also.

It seems he had no further involvement with professional golf. On the 1939 register he is living with Herbert and Margaret Poulter at Ravenshurst Avenue, Hendon, and is with the local council’s building inspection department. He died on 19 June 1951 at Edgware General Hospital in Hendon.

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