The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-01-16
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Golf's Hall of Fame-Vardon

In every field of human effort some individual climbs to the pinnacle. Tn the field of golf. the worlds greatest sport this pinnacle Is occupied in solitary grandeur by Harry Vardon. the great British stylist. champion and star! I would yield to but one other man a place in golfs hall of fame more secure than Vardons. This single figure who might be greater than Vardon if he could be originated the game.
 Vardon, born in 1870 In Grouville, Jersey, one of tho Channel Islands of England, has so many outstanding distinctions in golf that 1t is diff cult to name them all. Here are a few:
 He marked out in the sands of the island the first course he ever played on. 1t being four holes of about 50 yards each.
 He fashioned his first clubs from branches cut from the trees of the island.
 Won British Open
 He won the British open champion ship six times and Is the only player who ever captured that honor six times. He was American open cham pion In 1900.
 He originated the best golfing style the game has ever known and tens of thousands of golfers, per haps without knowing it, have been taught methods of play created by Vardon. His stances and his swings are the game's standards for balance and grace.
 His book on the methods of golf play is the most exhaustive and the subject ever contributed to the sport world.
 Vardop's last appearance in Amer ica was in 1920 when he participated in the American national open tour nament at the Inverness club, Cleve- land, Ohio. The great master. then in his fiftieth year. should have won the United States championship that year and only one of the freaks of golf tournaments denied him the hon. or for a second time. He was ahead by comfortable margin and had but six more holes between him and a vic- tory that would have thrilled the whole golfing world, when a young hurricane burst. This threw vardon off his game and he went down to de- feat before his great teammate, Ted Ray.
 Chick Beat Vardon
 played Vardon for the first time at the Ravisloc club, Chicago, In 1913, and beat him. I was 22 at the time. Gaudin and I played vardon and Ray at the Skokio club In 1919 and again I was successful in the match It was at this time that vardon so greatly complimented me by making public his opinion that 1 was the greatest amateur golfer in the world. I have always deemed this compli- ment from vardon to be one of the greatest honors I ever won from the game. l say this because the cham pionships l won afterwards were largely the result of Vardons having changed my grips. Without the very sound and important instruction he gave me regarding grips I should never have won championship in American tournaments.
 Vardon discovered that the proper way to hold a golf club is with the fingers. He discovered that the game is ono Of feel and delicate touch. Il had always held my clubs in my palms--like baseball bats-and 1t Is obvious to me that a finished game could never be played with such grips
 "I still feel as if can play as well as I ever did" Vardon wrote me some time ago, but i. cannot endure the hardships of tournament pia. as used to. l might add something that you perhaps already know, which Is that I still require my usual three butts on every third or fourth hole"
 Goifs Finest Shot
 Vardon holds that golfs finest shot is the intentional pull or the inten- tional slice when either of these takes the player out of difficulty from which he could extricate him self in no other way without. the loss of stroke. If is needless to say. of course, that he was a master of the intentionally curved ball, being able to make the ball break quickly O. break later, when 1t was well on it's way.
 In his visit to America in 1913. when he competed for the national open championship, vardon took part In what perhaps was the most thrill ing and exciting day of tournament championship play the game has ever known in this country. That was when he was nosed out of the Amer ican championship by Francis Ouimet after Ouimet. finishing ons of the most sensational tournament games ever played, tied with Vardon and Ray by playing the last four holes of the Brookline Country club in one stroke under par. then besting the two British stars In the play-off.
 Vardon Is the king of golfs hall of | fame-long may his drives be far