I’ve been doing a bit of digging into the history of women’s golf over the past couple of days – for reasons which will become apparent.  I must say it’s very easy to lose yourself in the tales of the wonderful pioneering women who decided they weren’t going to allow men to sideline them from one of life’s great pastimes.

According to Malcolm Crane in his lovely book, “The Story of Ladies’ Golf”, the earliest recorded incidence of a golf competition was one for the local fishwives at Musselburgh in 1810.  This was a surprise to me.  It was startlingly early – a good half century plus before the formation of women’s clubs and unions in Great Britain and Ireland began to be common. Golf continued to flourish north of Hadrian’s Wall but it took the formidable Issette Pearson to really drive the game forward by founding and running the Ladies’ Golf Union in 1893, the same year that the Women’s Amateur was first played.

National championships were organised and the tentacles of the game spread globally with other countries following Issette’s LGU blueprint and adopting the same handicap system.  By the early part of the 20th century there was a place in the game for everyone – from hacker to champion, many of the latter beginning to cross the Atlantic to take on the best from afar.

The Great War changed many things.  Legions of young men never came home and women filled their places by taking on jobs that hitherto had been closed to them.  Life was changing and golf was, understandably, in a decline.

Life goes on, however, and by the early 1920s golf, and particularly women’s golf, was on the up again.  International travel and matches were resumed and flourished and it was into this landscape that a new fixture was introduced – the Roehampton Gold Cup.

Amazingly, next weekend sees the centenary of this great competition and  I know that the club is pulling out all the stops to make it a blockbuster of an event.  My history-delving exercise was my attempt to bring to you a flavour of the times in which this competition started.  But I have a better idea…….

Caroline Scallon, a great friend of the blog and a long-time member and former lady captain of Roehampton, has had a life in golf that has taken her all round the world.  Homes in England, Malta, Virginia, Rhodesia, Zaire, Israel, South Africa and Germany, to name but a few (not all at the same time!) introduced her to all sorts of golf courses and all sorts of golfers.  Her own prowess in the game (a 3 handicap Surrey County player) and numerous England Golf administrative posts make her the ideal person to provide us with some history of this very special event so I had one of my better ideas and asked her to pen a few words.

Here’s what she had to say.

The Roehampton Gold Cup at one hundred is an eye-catching milestone.   It is unique!

Founded by the Miller brothers in 1901, Roehampton Club in south-west London began as a tennis, croquet and polo club.  It did not take too many years before they realised that they had the space and the demand for a golf course.  The inaugural Ladies’ Gold Scratch Challenge Cup was held on March 17^th, 1926, entry fee 2/6d.   So began The Gold Cup, becoming so prestigious that all aspiring lady golfers were drawn to this fixture early in the season.  Handicap limit 9.

And so has it continued, drawing players from all over the British Isles to this southern venue, the course having a reputation for being in first-class condition for the time of year.

To survive The Gold Cup has had to adapt, and adapt it has!    It swiftly became a 36-hole scratch competition.  In the early 1980s the women’s professional tour was launched.  Could The Gold Cup allow professionals to play alongside their friends who remained amateurs?   By 1987 the event was declared Open, professionals included, making up about one third of the field.   With life becoming a seven-day week, and to accommodate those who worked, The Gold Cup swiftly moved to a Saturday (unheard of for women’s golf!).   Choosing one’s playing partners has also remained popular, with many similar events becoming drawn for partners, thanks to one or two found wanting in the ‘score-recording department’.

Since 1926 the list of winners – not to mention the competitors – reads like a Who’s Who of ladies’ golf in the British Isles.   To name a few: Molly Gourlay, Enid Wilson, Pam Barton, Jeanne Bisgood (three times), Marley Spearman, Angela Bonallack, Angela Uzielli, Ann Irvin (six times), Cathy Panton, Catriona Matthew and Georgia Hall, as an amateur in 2012.  The next amateur to win was Ella Butteriss, from Beaconsfield, last year and she will defend her title next week, on the 11th of April.  The only Roehampton member to have won is Carol Archer (1964), now a member at Liphook and the oldest surviving winner is Belle Robertson.  The Scot, whose list of honours would take up an entire blog or more, won in 1978, 1979, 1981 and 1982 and will be at Roehampton to celebrate her 90^th birthday with us  – she was born on the 11th of April 1936.

For the last twenty years the event has been extremely fortunate to have had sponsorship from Russell-Cooke Solicitors thus enabling the club to give generous prizes to the top three professionals and six amateurs.

As Caroline points out the current, very proud holder of the Gold Cup is Ella Butteriss who is featured in the picture at the top of the piece.  What an illustrious list of champions she has joined and what an honour to defend the trophy in its centenary.

This is a truly remarkable achievement by a golf club and I wish them a joyful celebration next weekend.  Congratulations all round, thanks to Caroline for her terrific input and may the sun shine on all the competitors.  I do recall it snowed when I played………….but I just loved it.

It’s very special.

 

Contrary to what some people think – and what it may look like – a certain amount of thought often goes in to this blog.  I have to confess, however, that the only sure thing about this week’s was the featured pic – and since that often depends on everything running smoothly from a technical standpoint, it’s no given.

The photo is of a lovely magnolia in the park just across the road from me and it takes centre stage because it means that spring has sprung and its time has come.  It could be a very short time because, beautiful as they are, magnolias don’t last long and it’s still chilly enough for them to be living on borrowed time.  We’ve got to enjoy them and marvel while we can.

The clocks have changed but it’s too early to ditch the winter woollies so that can mean only one thing:  the cricket season is about to start here in England, with the county championships beginning today (Friday).  Warwickshire are playing Surrey at Edgbaston and a friend and I are hoping to go on Sunday, weather – and play (sometimes four-day matches don’t go beyond two days let alone last the distance) – permitting.

I’m intending to drive us to the ground and hope it’ll be more successful than my last effort when I picked up a fine for driving in a bus lane that was a no-go area for us ordinary motorists.  Oops.  Fingers crossed we get things right this time.

The IPL – Indian Premier League – has just started and it’s the high-class smash-bang-wallop 20-over stuff (if that’s not a complete contradiction!).  Whatever you think of the brutal short form of the game, the level of skill – batting, bowling, fielding – is mind-boggling and once you start watching, it’s impossible to take your eyes off it.

I decided to follow Dad’s lead – he had a football team in every division in England, Scotland and Ireland, to ensure that he had an interest at every level (Sunderland remained his first love wherever they found themselves) – and pick a side.  “What’s the most northerly team?” I asked a mate who knows about these things – and many others, though, like most of us, he’s not infallible.  For instance, he didn’t know that Jack Nicklaus won the Masters in 1986 but I digress – and, of course, he does now.  “Punjab Kings,” came the instant reply.  Right.

“We” (that indicates a tentative we) were at home to the Gujarat Titans, whose uniform was infinitely classier than “our” red and blue mess with gaudy gold numbers and I was tempted to switch allegiance should the Titans win.  However, they didn’t.  So I’m now cheering for the Kings come what may!  We’re away to the Chennai Super Kings today, so at least my knowledge of Indian geography should improve as I scrabble for my one remaining atlas – a Peters one dating from 1989, so it could be time for an update.  Chennai was probably still called Madras then.  Wonder if I have room in the house for a globe…

On the golf front, we played the Coronation Foursomes on Tuesday and my weather app (the Met Office) indicated that it was going to chuck it down with rain early on and be quite cold.  I rugged up accordingly:  thick winter leggings (which were in the pile to go in to summer storage), waterproof troos, lots of layers on top, woolly hat.  It didn’t rain, the sun came out and I was so warm that I had to take off a mid layer to avoid melting away altogether.  My partner and I came third despite making a bit of a mess of the last two holes and, wonder of wonders, we didn’t blob a single hole.

Going back to India – and up a few levels in golf – Alex Fitzpatrick, younger brother of Matt, US Open champion in 2022, won the Hero Indian Open at DLF Golf & Country Club, just outside New Delhi, his first victory on the DP World Tour.  What made it even more special was that Matt had won the Valspar Championship in Florida the week before.  Apparently it was the first time that brothers had won back to back on the two tours.

“It can be hard sometimes when you’re constantly chasing someone’s accolades,” Alex said, “but luckily it’s my brother so it’s not horrific.  I idolise him and I’m just trying to be like him in every way.  It’s been a good week for the Fitzpatricks.”

With a bit of luck Maureen was about ten when she saw sense and gave up idolising her big sister, having already recognised the feet of clay.  Perhaps Matthew F can cope with all that goes with being an idol…I certainly can’t/couldn’t.  Yikes.