1896: Muirfield

This was Harry Vardon’s first of a record-breaking six wins in the championship and clearly a surprise to the crowd and to the Scottish press. The Edinburgh Evening News printed a report on the 11th June detailing play up until the end of the third round with hardly a mention of Harry Vardon. The focus of the spectators on the first round was Sandy Herd, not least because he was playing with the popular amateur Johnny Laidlay, and who set a record score of 72 for the new extended course. Herd’s afternoon play did not match that of the morning and so J H Taylor led after the first day.

He attracted the crowd on the morning of the second day with a gallery of 250 following him but was four over fours by the fifth green largely down to poor putting. He finished with an 81. Vardon had a 77 with nothing higher than a five on his card. An even larger crowd went around with Sandy Herd who went out in 39. However, he ‘frittered away a couple of strokes’ on the last green and finished with a six for 79.

When the Evening News went to press around 4pm Taylor had completed his final round in 80 strokes for a 316 total making him, in the paper’s words, ‘a likely winner of the championship’. The Courier had not expected much from Vardon either stating ‘that the Scarborough professional, though having given proof at various times of being an excellent player, should have come in equal with Taylor, is one of the surprises which are continually cropping up in the pursuit of the royal and ancient game.’ His 77 tied the lead and forced a play-off on the following day. Poor Sandy Herd earned most of The Courier’s ire by following his 72 on the first day with an 84 and had an 85 in his final round where ‘he putted no better than a novice’ and the journalist, who must have had a bob or two on him, concluded that he ‘cannot be relied upon in a struggle involving several rounds of a course’. The unkindest cut of all was the aspersion ‘that although he is a Scotsman by birth he is now by domicile an Englishman’ so things were not so bad after all!

The play-off was over a further 36 holes and Vardon triumphed by four strokes with 157 to Taylor’s 161.