Golf Champions and Championships

IN Christchurch the first golfing enthusiasts played at Hagley Park, where F. Wilson, Cracroft-Wilson, L. R. Wood, and B. H. Burns were among the leading spirits. As at Dunedin the game petered out a year or two after its original intro­duction, but at the second attempt, still at Hagley Park, was successfully established, W. T. Charlewood winning the first club championship in 1893. By now both Wellington and Auckland also had bands of rabid enthusiasts. The game was at this time enjoying rapidly widening popularity in England and many young men returning to New Zealand from the English universities helped to promote its development in New Zealand. One of them was Charles Gillies, of Auckland, a son of Judge Gillies, whose family includes the distin­guished surgeon, Sir Harold Gillies. Charles Gillies was one of the pioneers of Auckland golf, which was first played on the Domain, approximately on the site now occupied by the imposing War Memorial Museum. From the Domain the Auck­land Golf Club moved to Ellerslie, where the site of its famous hole, ‘The Lilies,’ surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped bank of lilies, is now. lost among suburban bungalows. The club’s next move was to One Tree Hill, and then to Middlemore.

The first New Zealand golf championship was arranged in 1893 between the Otago, Christ-church, and Wellington clubs which formed the New Zealand Golf Association and provided a championship cup. The Wellington Club, in which the Pryde brothers and D. B. Howden were prominent, had in 1892 formed a course on the Hutt racecourse. Otago, as the senior club, had the right to the first championship tournament, which was played over the Roslyn course and won by the Rev. James Somerville. Next year, 1894, the championship was held at Christchurch and was won by H. McNeill. The photograph of the group of thirty competitors has historic interest. About half of the players wore heavy beards. Several wore public school or university cricket caps. In front reclined the caddies, many of whom carried the clubs under their arms, though by this time the advantages of the golf bag had been realised.

In 1895 at the Hutt Dr. Gosset won the championship. Coming to New Zealand in 1883, he had settled at Leeston, Canterbury, and founded a two-man golf club there, the other member being a bank manager, R. Loudon. The Show Ground at Leeston was a curious contrast to Westward Ho!, with pig pens and sheep pens for bunkers. The handicap­ping at the Hutt would interest present day golfers. The Pryde brothers, McNeill, and Gosset were plus 6. Gillies, Lambie, and others were on scratch, and A. D. S. Duncan, who in this year made his modest entry into New Zealand golf (he was beaten by Gosset in the second round), received 6 strokes.

Most of the competitors at these early tournaments came from Dunedin, which was still the strongest golfing centre. Sixteen of the thirty players at Christchurch in 1894 were from Dun­edin, four were from Wellington, nine were from Christchurch, and one, W. R. Darling, from Oamaru. George and Stanley Todd, C. R. Howden, J. R. Scott, James Somerville, and C. W. Rattray, were some of the Dunedin stalwarts in those early days, nor must one forget the Smith family, of which four generations have been active in New Zealand golf. In 1925 George Todd, recalling the early days of Dunedin golf, mentioned that ‘one Smith, great grandfather of Basil, Hamilton, and Bob, was the club-maker in the seventies.’ Pax Smith, representing the fourth generation, won the New Zealand championship at Balmacewen in 1938.

Women have been very prominent in golf in this country since its origin, every club including women in its membership and competitions. Some outstanding players, like Miss Oliver Kay, have shown the quality of our women players on over­seas links.