The Greatest Game Ever Played

The Greatest Game Ever Played
Harry Vardon, Francis Ouimet, and the Birth of Modern Golf
By Mark Frost
Hyperion , 2002
ISBN: 0-7868-6920-8 $30

The Ben Curtis story is different, obviously, but it is entertaining to consider the two improbable victors of a major championship their first time out. Francis Ouimet, of course, was an amateur and had no interest in pursuing a professional career in golf. He was also intimately acquainted with the course where he beat the immortals of his day head to head. Curtis, a pro, if unheralded, had never laid eyes on Royal St. George’s before arriving to play weekend practice rounds. He was able to post a score and thus avoid a playoff against his famous rivals, leading to a less dramatic but equally satisfying result. As astute an observer as Bernard Darwin thought highly of Ouimet and his game, but you won’t find an honest scribe who believed Curtis had a shot; even his caddie had never heard of him, and, as late as Saturday night figured his man was likely good for an 80 on Sunday and a tie for 20th.

There does seem to be some common ground as regards the type of man in question, and we can assume that each firmly believed deep down that he could do it. John Hopkins, writing in The Times of London, began his account by noting Curtis’s Hollywood good looks. Ouimet, we learn here, through the eyes of one experienced writing for television, had “a clarity of spirit and …straightforward manner: happy, courteous, good-humored, well-adjusted, and uncomplicated,” even if he appears to the author physically as a cross between Woodrow Wilson and Stan Laurel, hardly leading man stuff, but a good egg nonetheless.

Perhaps it’s apt that a novelist and television writer weaves together the storybook qualities of Ouimet’s triumph for a modern audience.

The movie-goer may not care (it’s already in development) but the historian, or even the careful reader, should know that a popular device is in play. Invented feelings and words are assigned to all concerned, including the stoic triumvirate. There is “A note on the Writing” following the acknowledgements; it should by all rights be up front. The “dramatist’s license” helps in advancing the story and also in tying loose ends together. Reality’s never so tidy. History sometimes takes a seat to scriptwriting, what they call nowadays literary nonfiction. Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil was wonderful, but less so after the author’s confession that well, the lines between credulity and creativity, were crossed.

It is hard for the skeptic to believe that Harry Vardon, a man by his own account “who kept quiet and never gave vent to his true feelings” held out paternal feelings for Ouimet, just the sort of embellishment Hollywood can’t seem to avoid, but who knows? Maybe he did see something of himself in the young Francis.

Quibbles aside, the research, as history always does, turns up entertainment value beyond the imagination, what ifs like: how things would be different if Vardon’s illness hadn’t prevented him from boarding the Titanic; or how golf history would’ve changed had the volatile Johnny McDermott kept his sanity. And isn’t it interesting that at the presentation ceremony Ouimet apologized on behalf of the fans for disrupting his British competitors? The more things change… Johnny McDermott, a tragic figure, fiercely committed to defeating the Brits, was just ahead of his time. In an age of petulant tennis prodigies, the War at the Shore and sack dances, he’d have been a national hero, and golf would’ve perhaps lost its virginity and perhaps even its soul just as it entered the Golden Age of Sport. Also, a fun discovery it was to come upon this wonderfully lyrical phrase from Ted Ray: that his ball wasn’t stuck behind a tree, but was, rather, “stymied by a monarch of the forest.”

This is the USGA’s International Book Award Winner and it deserves a wide audience. “Never despair,” was Vardon’s motto – incidentally his books are worth seeking out – and it is wonderful to see, even in this day and age, how the spirit of those competitors, including Vardon’s axiom for his game and life, and Ouimet’s modesty, remain ever in vogue. Let’s hope they find someone who has a decent swing – and grip! – to play Harry on the silver screen.