It is worth sparing a thought for Royal Troon as the 151st Open Championship approaches. When the R&A announced tournament venues for years including 2023, the plan was for a centenary celebration marking 100 years since the Open was first held at the glorious Ayrshire links. Instead, Royal Liverpool sits in the spotlight.
The shuffling of the Open calendar – a consequence of coronavirus – means the major will return to Troon on the 101st rather than 100th anniversary of its tournament debut. This feels unfortunate, as does the naming of Royal Birkdale as the Open site for 2026; the connoisseur’s choice would have been Royal Lytham & St Annes, where Bobby Jones won the first of his three Claret Jugs in 1926. Lytham has sat obsolete on the Open rota for far too long.
Arthur Havers prevailed at Troon (royal status was not granted until 1978) a century ago. Before 1923, Prestwick was regarded as the jewel in the Ayrshire golfing crown. Under the guidance of James Braid, a five-time Open champion, Troon was redesigned and rejuvenated. Wonderful club archives reveal that JLC Jenkins, a prolific amateur winner and Troon member, lobbied the R&A for the 1923 Open after the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers declared Muirfield unavailable.
Prestwick’s fall from grace came in 1925, when unruly crowds swarmed Macdonald Smith. It never staged another Open; at Troon, the Postage Stamp became one of golf’s most iconic holes. Tom Watson and Arnold Palmer have won the Open there. Jenkins started a trend.
Braid added 67 bunkers to the course at Troon, 13 of them by the 18th green. “The additional bunkers act as a stimulus to the man playing a sound game,” wrote Willie Fernie, the club professional. “There is now no possibility of a badly played shot trickling on to the green; the course throughout its length never fails to demand a high standard of play. This is written two months before the great meeting and the writer feels convinced that four rounds of 75 will win the championship.”
Havers holed out from one of those final hole sand traps to win the Open, by one, from Walter Hagen with a four round aggregate of 295. Fernie was only five strokes out with his prediction. Havers collected £75 from the total purse of £225. Hagen was rarely denied; he won 11 majors, four of them Opens.
A glance at Havers’ general record hardly portrays this as an extraordinary victory. Having first qualified as a 16-year-old, he had top-10 Open finishes in 1920 and 1921. Havers tied 15th in the US Open of 1927, the same year he shared seventh in the Open. He was a three-time Ryder Cup player. On paper, far lesser golfers have majors to their name.
However, further investigation highlights anomaly. One of those Ryder Cup appearances saw Havers and George Duncan succumb by a record 10&9 margin during a 36-hole match. Hagen, gaining an element of revenge for Troon, was in the winning pair.
Havers was said to hold a golf club as if his life depended on it. In the Who’s Who of Golf, Peter Alliss wrote of Havers: “He could at times look a very inferior player. He had a four-knuckle, left-hand grip and made little use of his right hand. The swing a lunging one with the hands too far in front of the clubhead. At times, the result was one shank after another. Havers always appeared unmoved, as if these monstrosities were no concern of his.” Ouch.
There was more. A previous incarnation of the Open’s own website – nowadays, there is only praise – was similarly sniffy about Havers’ ability. “Had neither the appearance nor the swing of an Open champion,” it read. “An early loss of hair gave him the look of a monk when he removed his voluminous cap to receive the trophy and his swing had neither the grace nor rhythm of many of his contemporaries.”
In the days when club professionals did little more than fix snapped irons, attach new grips and greet members with a smile, Havers was behind the counter at Moor Park, West Lancashire, Coombe Hill and Sandy Lodge before Frinton. His spirit lives on at the charming Essex course, which has a Havers course and, more endearingly, launched the Arthur Havers Bursary in 1997. The initial premise of the bursary was that no member of the club but primarily juniors would be priced out of achieving their potential in golf. Those falling on hard times have been assisted in the name of the 1923 Open winner.
“We have easily introduced over 1,000 children to golf since 1997,” says Michael Coffey, a trustee of the bursary. “It has been as low as 15-20 and as high as 50 in any given year. We have always taken the view that you teach kids to play golf and the swing is with them for ever. Whilst not all of them become members of Frinton Golf Club, we have obviously retained quite a lot and several of them have turned professional. We have taught young people the game, the swing and perhaps most importantly the etiquette of how you conduct yourself as a golfer.
“Arthur Havers was the outstanding name attached to Frinton Golf Club. He was a genial old man by the time he got to Frinton but it must never be taken away from him, he was the Open champion.”
Havers died in 1980, aged 82. A nephew, having moved to Frinton-on-Sea, donated items of memorabilia to the golf club in recent years to ensure a more visible Havers presence. Troon may have been denied a moment of sporting symmetry but Havers’ contribution to the game, if belatedly, lives on.
