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Tantallon Golf Club, North Berwick
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Tantallon Golf Club
Westgate, North Berwick
Tel.01620 892114
secretary@tantallongolfclub.co.uk

[Archerfield]
Tantallon Golf Club
© Digitalsport UK

[Archerfield]
John E. Laidlay © Digitalsport UK

  History of the
Amateur Championship

By Douglas Seaton
Tantallon GC Factfile

In December 1884, Tom Potter the secretary of Royal Liverpool Golf Club suggested the idea of holding a championship open to amateur players. All the leading clubs were invited to send entrants, and a total of 44 players from 12 clubs took part in the tournament held at Hoylake in 1885. The format was matchplay and the rules stated that if a match was drawn then both players advance to the next round. This unbalanced the draw with three going through to the semi-finals and the winner Allan F. Macfie had a bye to the final.

Despite the rules, the tournament was so successful B. Hall-Blyth, Captain of Royal Liverpool wrote to the Royal and Ancient Golf Club urging them to inaugurate an official tournament. The proposal was met favourably and clubs in England and Scotland were invited to send delegates with a view to drafting the necessary regulations, a cup was purchased and duly presented the following year at the Amateur Championship at St Andrews. Benjamin Hall Blyth resided in Kaimend overlooking the West Links at North Berwick and was a former Captain of Tantallon Golf Club in 1896-98.

' Effigy of Tom Morris on top of the trophy '

Initially, the Royal & Ancient Golf Club did not recognise the 1885 match as the official Amateur Championship but in 1922 Allan Macfie was eventually given his rightful place as the first winner. In 1886, Tantallon was one of the 25 clubs that contributed three guineas towards the establishment of a trophy for competition at the Annual Championship Tournament of the Associated Clubs as it was originally named. In the Tantallon balance sheet the entry was under 'Subscription to St Andrews Tournament.'

There was an earlier tournament in 1858 at St Andrews which attracted an entry of twenty-eight followed much the same lines as the present Amateur Championship. The winner was Robert Chambers, the famous Edinburgh publisher. He was twenty and the youngest player in the tournament, for which he had entered from Bruntsfield Club. Chambers was also Captain of Royal Liverpool and Tantallon (1880-88). In 1885 he moved from Edinburgh to North Berwick and built the imposing St Baldred's Tower as his residence.

The Championship was played on six courses, Prestwick, Westward Ho!, St Andrews, Sandwich, Muirfield and Hoylake. (All seaside greens). Gullane and North Berwick missed out. In 1919 the Royal & Ancient Golf Club was approached to officially organise the Amateur and Open Championships. The Club agreed and in February 1920 a Championship Committee was formed which included John E Laidlay Robert Maxwell and B. Hall-Blyth representing Tantallon Golf Club.

' The Annual Championship Tournament of the Associated Clubs '

The Clubs which made a contribution to the purchase of the trophy were as follows.

Royal and Ancient
Royal Burgess
Royal Liverpool
Royal St George
Royal Albert, Montrose
Royal North Devon
Royal Aberdeen
Royal Blackheath
Royal Wimbledon
Royal Dublin
Alnmouth
North Berwick New Club
Panmure Dundee
Prestwick
Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society
Dalhousie
Gullane
Formby
Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers
Innerleven
King James VI, Perth
Kilspindie
Luffness
Tantallon
Troon
West Lancashire
[maxwell]
Robert Maxwell © Digitalsport UK

ALLAN F. MACFIE

Allan Fullerton Macfie, born January 1854 in Liverpool son of John Macfie a sugar refiner and his wife Liias Macfie. Allan who was stone-deaf since birth, moved with his parents to 14 Hope Terrace, Whitehouse Gardens, Edinburgh where he learned to play golf. In 1877, Allan sailed to Australia on the City of Adelade and arrived in Melbourne on 29 March. On his return to Scotland he settled in St Andrews. Macfie was a familiar figure in North Berwick having played the West Links on several occasions. He was in the team representing Royal Liverpool against North Berwick in 1881. Allan Macfie died in St Andrews on 15 January 1943.

FREDDIE G. TAIT

Freddie Tait was a member of many golf clubs and represented his regiment the Black Watch when he won the Amateur Championship in 1896 and 1898. He joined Tantallon Golf Club in 1899 and that year he was defeated at the thirty-seventh hole in the Amateur Championship at Prestwick by John Ball Jnr. This was the fifth time Ball had won the championship. Only four players Hutchinson, Laidlay, Maxwell and Tait have scored double wins up to 1909.

JOHN R. GAIRDNER

John R. Gaidner played in the Amateur Championship in 1896 (Sandwich), 1899 (Prestwick) and represented Mid-Surrey Golf Club in the championship in 1900 (Sandwich), 1901 (St Andrews) and 1902 (Hoylake). He entered from Tantallon Golf Club in 1903, and 1909 at Muirfield and 1905 at Prestwick. Gairdner played for the Scottish team against England at Holylake in 1902 watched by over a thousand spectators. At Prestwick in 1905, Gairdner and Robert Maxwell met in the 5th round. Maxwell won the dual of the Tantallon members but was defeated in the next round by A. Gordon Barry who went on to win the Championship. Gairdner was elected Captain of Tantallon Golf Club in 1908-10 and on his death in 1919 his family presented all his medals to the Tantallon Club.

ALEX. M. ROSS

Alex Mackenzie Ross learned to play golf on Bruntsfield and Musselburgh links. He won the Hope Challenge Medal at Kilspindie in 1893 and 1900 and was the first winner of the Braid Hills Tournament in 1889. Alex played in the Amateur and Open Championship and was elected Captain of Tantallon Golf Club (1900-02).

JOHN E. LAIDLAY

Johnny Laidlay winner of the Amateur Championship in 1889 and 1891, was a pioneer of the overlapping grip, twice Amateur Champion, runner-up three times and leading amateur in the Open four times. He played for Scotland against England every year from 1902 until 1911 when he was fifty-one. Laidlay was elected Captain of Tantallon Golf Club (1906-08). It was in 1902 when the Royal Liverpool arrange the first amateur international match between England and Scotland. John Ball and Robert Maxwell led out their respective teams.

ROBERT MAXWELL

Robert Maxwell won the Amateur Championship at Muirfield in 1903 and 1909. He presented the Amateur Trophy to Tantallon Golf Club for safe keeping throughout the year. In 1909, Ben Sayers designed a driver called 'Dreadnought' and gave one to Maxwell who used it to great effect in the final against Captain Cecil Hutchison. Following Maxwell's triumph in 1909 every golfer wanted a ‘Dreadnought’ and the Ben Sayers factory could not keep up with demand. Maxwell played every year for Scotland against England from (1902-07 )and then (1909-10). Bob Maxwell was Captain of Tantallon from (1902-04).

The interclub match between Royal Liverpool and Tantallon Golf Club which continues to this day is recognised as the fore-runner of the Amateur International Match between Scotland and England. During the first ten years of the International match, the game between Johnny Ball and Bobby Maxwell caught the public's attention when they almost invariably figured at the head of the English and Scottish teams. They met seven times in all, but of the seven Maxwell won five to Ball's two. This was truly 'The Golden Age of the Amateur Golfer.'

[Royal Liverpool]
First Home International between Scotland and England at Hoylake in 1902 © Digitalsport UK

Copyright © Douglas Seaton 2017, All Rights Reserved.