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Alex Ayton
Chicago/Montreal/St Louis

Alexander Skinner Ayton was the youngest of four St Andrews brothers who made their living as golf professionals in the United States. He was born in the auld grey toon on 28 September 1891.

He was still in St Andrews at the time of the 1911 census but by 1913 he was a professional golfer, assistant to his brother, David, at Clacton and was playing in the Southern PGA assistants’ tournament in September to qualify for the 100 guineas tournament the following month.

Ayton enlisted early in the First World War, joining the 2/1st Essex Yeomanry in Colchester on 13 January 1915. He was appointed acting L/Cpl a few weeks later, acting Corporal the next year and acting Sergeant in February 1918. The unit stayed in England until early 1918 when it was moved to Ireland and Ayton was stationed in Castlebar. He was posted to the 2/1st Shropshire Regiment at The Curragh in Ireland at the end of November 1918 and demobbed in Canterbury in April 1919.

In March 1920 he sailed with another brother, Laurie, to New York on the Mauretania from Southampton en route to the Evanston club to the north of Chicago where he became Laurie’s assistant.

In March 1922 he had a course of his own, being appointed to the Senneville Country Club in Québec. He played in the Quebec Golf Association Open in 1923 finishing tied for second behind Charles Murray, then defeating Karl Keffer in the play-off. He joined brother George, in teaching at Goodwin’s Indoor Golf school in Montréal in the winter of 1922-23.

The following season he was back as Laurie’s assistant at Evanston, both of them entering for the Western Open. He qualified for the US Open in 1925 and, over his career, he qualified and played in the competition 12 times. That winter he started a long association with Florida becoming the winter professional at the Tarpon Springs “city” course (Laurie went to another club in Tarpon Springs for the winter shortly afterwards).

In 1927 he became professional at the Tam o’Shanter course in Niles, IL, and led ‘kilts and pipes’ (about as far from Burns as it gets but we’re no better in Scotland) to open its new clubhouse in May. He played in the 1928 US Open with this affiliation but must have moved at the end of that season to become professional at Springfield, IL, because that was how he was described when he won the Biltmore foursomes tournament in Miami in January 1929 with Johnny Farrell.

He seemed to have the attitude that any golf tournament is a competition no matter what it is, give it your best effort. So in July 1930 he played in the US Open at Interlachen, the third leg of Bobby Jones’s impregnable quadrilateral, in front of 8000 ‘pushing, shoving, perspiring, panting persons’. The following February he was home in Fife for a visit and playing in the St Andrews club’s monthly medal. He didn’t win, incidentally. He had the lowest score but, being scratch, he was pipped by a 3-handicapper.

Alex left for Springfield in March, his visit home marred by the death of his father. Laurie headed home from the US after this, David had already moved back to St Andrews to look after his sick father. George was supposedly coming too and his family went on ahead but there is probably more to it than that as he died in a psychiatric hospital and Alex was the informant on the date of death which suggests he had travelled to North Carolina to be with his brother.

Ayton remained at Springfield until 1934 when he was chosen to succeeded Ralph Guldahl as professional at the St Louis Country Club where he ahd another St Andrean, Bob Jessiman, as his assistant. As late as 1940 he was still a good enough player to qualify and play in the US Open at the Canterbury Club in Cleveland. When not travelling back to St Andrews he still spent his winters in Florida, playing at Tarpon Springs in 1946 he won a pro-am there and in 1949, at 60, he shot a 31 on the back nine at St Louis in addition to winning a senior’s professional tournament in Florida. Back in St Andrews in 1953 he described himself as semi-retired but still teaching.

He retired in 1958 to live in South Pasadena, Florida. He could still play to a high standard, going round the Pasadena course in 72 before speaking to the journalist from the Tampa Bay Times. He could still tell a tale too. He explained how he had started as a left-hander but, in the cavalry during the war, his horse was blown from under him and, as he fell, an enemy sabre slashed his fingers and splintered his wrist, requiring much surgery to avoid amputation of three fingers. After the war he had to go back to St Andrews and learn the game as a right-hander. A great story which has not a shred of truth. As stated above, he never left the country during the war so no cavalry charges (not that they were a feature of WWI anyway). He was hospitalised twice in the army, once with bronchial catarrh and in Hounslow, with transfer to Newcastle, for gonorrhoea. Perhaps he had a quirky sense of humour. In which case I would attribute his mention of a fifth brother, Willlie, who dies while a golf professional in Kashmir to this also. There were two William Aytons born in St Andrews between 1880 and 1890, neither to Alex’s parents.

He died in Florida on 8 February 1973.

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