For the first time for ages I played 18 holes three days in a row and by some miracle improved on each occasion, even hitting the odd shot that could pass muster as something approaching a proper golf shot, one of those things that makes you think all is not yet lost.
It was a real treat to play Hollinwell, the Notts Golf Club, again – it’s a pleasure just to turn down the drive on a lovely morning and see a proper golf course spread out before you. Sheer bliss. But you need to be on your mettle to have any chance of scoring well – the rough is not to be trifled with and if you can’t navigate your way round the bunkers, you’d better be a wizard with the sand wedge.
Bright and beautiful: Hollinwell, a Nottinghamshire gem.
I believe the club, which has hosted many top-class events in the past, including Open qualifying, is – or was – having difficulty staying on that rota because the R&A insists that they must now have women members. The trouble is, apparently, that the women are perfectly happy being members of Notts Ladies, a separate entity that’s been around since 1891. A case of egalite, liberte, impasse, perhaps…(apologies yet again for failing to find the acute…)
Enid Wilson, who was born in 1910 in Stonebroom, just over the border in Derbyshire, played a lot of her early golf at Hollinwell and the ladies’ course is named after her. A formidable competitor, Enid won the British Ladies Open Amateur Championship (as it then was) three times in a row from 1931. She was a fascinating character who wrote about golf for the Daily Telegraph and numerous magazines and had several books to her name. She was great company if you dived in and braved her rather prickly, no-nonsense manner. At least you were never in any doubt as to what she thought!
Enid Wilson in her heyday.
She once told me that she trained like a boxer for the big competitions and would lose at least a stone during a championship. When I played with her at Crowborough, her home course for many years, she described my backswing, succinctly, accurately and damningly as “a non-event”. Then in her 80s, she still enjoyed the game but laughed that she and her fellow octogenarians all had trouble staying on their feet after hitting a shot – their balance was shot to pieces.
Just to prove that I did once have a bit of a backswing. Snapped in 1968 at Boat of Garten, that delight of a course in the Scottish Highlands.
Enid, who played in the first Curtis Cup match in 1932, was not afraid to express her views in the most trenchant manner and when the veterans Belle Robertson and Mary McKenna were named to the team for the match at Prairie Dunes in 1986, she wrote, rather unkindly, “Bring out your dead” and said she’d eat her hat if they did any good.
Admittedly, the Americans had won every contest from 1960 on but GB and I upset the odds with an emphatic victory in the heat in Kansas and Robertson and McKenna, paired together in the foursomes, were unbeaten. It was the triumph that all their years of team toil, littered with BBUs (brave but unavailings), deserved. The team tried hard to persuade Enid to eat her hat but I’m not sure they succeeded.
Enid in later life, still wielding a mean putter and wearing her trademark hat.
Just another reminder that this year’s Curtis Cup is at Conwy in north Wales at the end of the month, August 26th-28th, more than a year late because of the pandemic. If you want to buy a ticket, you have to do so before next Friday, the 20th. See randa.org for details (not panda.org as my computer is trying to insist, in black and white, of course). Elaine Ratcliffe is the GB and I captain and is plotting to regain the trophy the USA won back at Quaker Ridge in 2018. The encouraging news is that the home side won in 2016 at Dun Laoghaire and at Nairn in 2012 and here are the women attempting to continue that trend:-
The 2021 GB and I team [from randa.org and their Twitter and Instagram. I don’t yet know who the artist is – apologies.]
Seventies style in all its glory.
The top four qualifiers: from left to right, McKenna (Donabate), Phillips (Bradford), Robertson (Dunaverty) and Oxley (West Byfleet).
There was no stinting on detail – or opinion – in those far-off days. Here’s a sample: “Of course, Mrs Robertson was quite superb getting 23 out of a possible 26 points. She left Sunningdale unbeaten and that surely was a tremendous achievement. Mary McKenna, the Irish Champion, charmed all who met her and delighted the spectators with her great power, her determination and her temperament. She has the three vital essentials of a top international.
“We have always mentioned that eighteen year old Kathryn Phillips was a great fighter but none of us ever saw her play better golf than on that final morning….”
And so it goes on, fascinating stuff for us golf tragics.
Finally, also from F and H, a couple of tips for the Friday morning bridgers. May you have good hands….
Some sound advice. Aunt Agatha isn’t always right apparently!
Enid Wilson (15 March 1910 – 14 January 1996) was an English amateur golfer.
She was born at Stonebroom in Derbyshire, the daughter of the local GP.
She left school early leaving her more time to devote to her golfing prowess that was nurtured and developed by Tom Williamson who had an incredible effect on golf in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire through his lifetime through his course designs and his professional duties at Hollinwell.
I have a newspaper story where she was invited to play through a group of men including the journalist. They were astonished at her power and grace and the fact that she was outdriving them at every tee as a teenager due to her technique and grace.
She was a golfing prodigy playing County golf regularly at Derbyshire Golf Club at Allestree. This is the golf course I am trying to save from closure as it is a Harry S Colt classic design, neglected and unaltered as a municipal facility almost exactly as it left Colt’s drawing board in 1929. Would love to brief you on this story its amazing as you may be able to help with your industry contacts.
She was a semi-finalist at her first British Ladies Amateur Golf Championship in 1927 and won the Championship three years in a row between 1931 and 1933.
Her father paid for her trip to the USA for this event as her 21st birthday present. She travelled alone but the fact that she was playing attracted headlines in the county newspapers.
Competing in the 1931 U.S. Women’s Amateur, Wilson was eliminated in the semi-finals by ultimate champion Helen Hicks.
She got some measure of satisfaction the next year when she beat Hicks 2 & 1 in their match during the first ever Curtis Cup held at the Wentworth Golf Club, in Surrey, England.
She returned to the U.S. for the 1932 Amateur but went out in the quarter-final. In the 1933 U.S. Amateur she lost in the semi-finals to the ultimate tournament champion Virginia Van Wie but won the medal for lowest round with a record-setting score.
In 1933, Wilson partnered with Walter Hagen to play a match at the Bruntsfield Links in Edinburgh, Scotland.
She co-wrote So That’s What I Do! with Robert Allen Lewis that was published in 1935. One of the first editions of golf tuition that provided a multitude of action photographs to aid the message given by the teacher. It has pride of place in my golfing library.Some incredible insights that are still relevant today.
She had her amateur status taken from her when she published a short series of instructional cartoons in a Sheffield newspaper. This led to her then becoming the Daily Telegraph golf correspondent for a number of years.
She also wrote the section on women’s golf in the 1952 book A History of Golf in Britain (1990 Reprint Ailsa Inc.) edited by golf writer Bernard Darwin and contributed to by several notables from the world of British men’s golf. She was the author of ”A Gallery of Women Golfers” with the foreword by Bernard Darwin that was published in 1961 in London by Country Life Ltd.
She was one of the most successful amateur golfers of any gender in UK golf history.Her obituary in Association of golf worriers is illuminating with pictures of her and her beloved dog Stanley.
https://youtu.be/qD7eF2eXJIY her US Open appearance.
Thanks for all that Andrew and hope your Allestree crusade goes well. Presume you have the Colt Society on board?
I am struggling to access as the Colt Association it was based at Stoke Park and unable to access anyone who is currently responsible for its archive. Do you know of anyone still active in the group?
I am being supported by a number of special people including the man currently writing his biography and the developer of the harry colt project.com that is an amazing resource.Donald Steel and Keith Cutten have also been very helpful in my research efforts.
We now have interest from Ian Woosnam wanting to run the venue and offering free golf membership to all under 18’s in the city around 50K kids but 9 politicians are preventing it despite having a motion passed by the full council asking them to reopen negotiations.
Very Frustrating especially as the venue was not fully linked to Colt and we have now proved to academic standards the Colt provenance and history. In fact we have recreated the 1929 layout and 14 of the original 18 holes are still in play with the other 4 known and able to be restored thus giving an original untouched Harry S Colt design straight from his drawing board and 1929 thinking.Incredible story. its first junior golfer went onto become a Ryder Cup player and Captain.
With your profile and contacts any help or ideas would be gratefully received.
Know of no reason why the Colt Society would go to ground…Someone out there must be able to help.