| The Walter J. Travis Society |
INNOVATOR
From the very beginning of his career in amateur golf, Walter Travis was on a constant search for ways and approaches to improve the game of golf, whether in his play of the game, the equipment he used, or the grounds upon which the game was played. Systematic experimentation was a key part of Travis’s approach to discovery.
LEARNING THE GAME
The earliest expression of his innovative spirit may have been the installation of smaller diameter cups on the putting green at his home course, Garden City Golf Club. Travis had recognized that his success as a competitive golfer was being impeded by poor putting; thus, his decision to dedicate more of his attention and practice on putting. With persistent and concentrated practice using the smaller cups, while experimenting with various putting grips and stances, Travis became renown for his magical putting. It was the key to his unprecedented success as an amateur golfer, and became an integral part of the Travis folklore.
GOLF EQUIPMENT
Perhaps the most revolutionary example of Travis’s willingness to try new golf equipment occurred in 1901, when he decided to use the recently invented Haskell wound-rubber golf ball at the U.S. Amateur Championship held at the Atlantic City Country Club. The ball was manufactured by the B.F. Goodrich Company in Akron, Ohio, and had been introduced to eastern seaboard players by Charles B. Macdonald during the summer of 1901. According to Travis, only three eastern players had adopted the ball that the manufacturer claimed would add 20-25 yards to a drive. After one trial with the Haskell ball in a preliminary practice round, Travis decided to use it (Travis, 1905). Travis’s subsequent victory in the championship resulted in wide acceptance and use of wound-rubber golf balls, and signalled the end of the gutta-percha. An April 2005 Country Life in America article, attributed to the B. F. Goodrich Company, claimed that the “American invention has supplied new impetus to golf on both sides of the ocean, for the almost universal use of the Haskell ball has set an entirely new standard in all countries where the game is played, and has even made necessary a change in links that have been fought over for many decades by famous golfers”. Regarding the invention, the article further declared that “it is a curious fact, however, that the greatest improvement in the game since its establishment centuries ago in Scotland occurred not long after it became a national sport in America”. The Travis decision to use the Haskell Ball to win his second U. S. Amateur Championship provided major impetus for its worldwide acceptance.
The Haskell Ball story had barely begun when, in 1902, Travis was introduced to a new center-shafted, aluminum putter developed by A.F. Knight, of Schenectady, NY. He declared the putter to be “the best putter I have ever used”, and decided to use it in the U.S. Open, where he finished second. This putter became known as The Schenectady Putter, and its full story bears repeating (from Wikipedia article written by this author):
“The Schenectady Putter and Walter Travis will be linked together forever in the history of golf. The Schenectady Putter was invented by Arthur F. Knight, a General Electric engineer, who created a model reflecting his ideas in the summer of 1902 at his home course, Mohawk Golf Club in Schenectady, NY. It is noteworthy that Devereux Emmet, the designer of Mohawk Golf Club, was the first golfer of note to be shown Mr. Knight’s new aluminum putter while he was visiting Mohawk. Emmet asked to take the putter with him back to his home course, Garden City Golf Club, where he proposed to “play with it, show it at Garden City and at Myopia and will then send it back to you”. It is reported that “A day or two later Mr. Knight received a telegram from Mr. W. J. Travis ordering a putter like Mr. Emmet’s, and one was hurriedly made and forwarded”. Later, a second putter was sent to Travis which was declared “the best putter I have ever used.” Travis used this putter to finish second in the U.S. Open Championship held at Garden City Golf Club. “Within a week thereafter, Mr. Knight received over one hundred letters from prominent golfers asking for a putter like Mr. Travis’s”. Knight was not prepared for such a response and was particularly concerned about what to call it. It is reported that he was “anxious to call it the ‘Travis’ putter’.” He arranged a meeting with Mr. Emmet and Mr. Travis. Emmet had consistently referred to it as the “Schenectady Putter” and Travis agreed that Schenectady would be “a more suitable and lasting name for the putter than his own, in which view Mr. Knight rather reluctantly concurred.” After his initial success with the Schenectady Putter in 1902, Travis used the putter to win the 1903 U.S. Amateur and then, of course, the 1904 British Amateur. The putter became an instant commercial success.
Schenectady putters, marked “Patent Applied For”, were produced prior to its patent on March 24, 1903. The Schenectady Putter was among the “centered-shafted, mallet-headed implements” that were banned by the Royal & Ancient Golf Club Committee on the Rules of golf in 1910, in response to a request from a golf club in New Zealand. The R&A’s ban included the Schenectady Putter. There is no evidence that Travis’s use of the Schenectady to win the 1904 British Amateur contributed to this controversial ruling, though the myth persists. The ruling became controversial because, for the first time, an R&A ruling was not wholly adopted by the United States Golf Association. The USGA agreed with the banning of mallet-headed clubs but ruled that the Schenectady Putter, and other center-shafted putters did not fall within this category. The R&A ban on center-shafted putters was finally removed in 1951.
Long after he had retired from active competition, Travis agreed to a match with an old opponent, Findlay S. Douglas, to support the war effort of the Red Cross. The match was held at Garden City Golf Club. Following the match, Travis donated his Schenectady Putter to the Red Cross fund-raising auction. A member of Garden City Golf Club, Lewis Lapham, had the winning bid of $1,700 and immediately donated the Schenectady to Garden City Golf Club where it would remain for the next 34 years. In 1952, it was taken from the club, and never returned.”
In 1905, Country Life in America published a Travis article detailing his experiments with driver shafts that varied from 42 to 52 inches in length. Travis found that “the longer the shaft the lighter must be the head”. He concluded that “a somewhat longer ball can be secured with the longer club, but it is at the expense of a certain measure of accuracy”. Still, he acknowledged that there “are occasions when it is a mighty good club to have in one’s bag, as in the case of a hole demanding one or two unusually good shots to get to the green, or a long carry from the tee over a hazard”.
COURSE RATINGS AND HANDICAPS
A 1993 USGA Golf Journal article, discussing the development of course ratings, credits Walter Travis as having written “the authoritative treatise on handicapping” in 1901. Travis lent his strong voice of support for the Metropolitan Golf Association’s decision to use par as the basis of handicapping rather than bogey. Later, in his first edition of The American Golfer, November 1908, Travis wrote a brief article titled “Simplified Score Card” in which he proposed the addition of a column to the scorecard that “will clearly show the proper sequence for taking or giving strokes”. He explained that a player would “take a stroke at every hole that has a figure equal to or less than his handicap opposite it”.
The simplified scorecard proposed by Walter Travis in 1908. He invited clubs to adopt the new system.
TURFGRASS ISSUES
Travis’s inclination to experiment, or try new ways of doing things, extended to turfgrass issues. In his neighborhood, a short walk from his home club, Garden City Golf Club, Travis was known for the small, experimental turfgrass farm in his front yard where he tried various varieties of grass and soil. His careful observations and study of turfgrass, including the effects of soil conditions, contributed to his accumulation of an impressive body of knowledge that he frequently drew upon in his writings and golf course consultations.
In 1916, in a collaboration with Dr. Walter Harban, of Chevy Chase, MD, Travis designed an 18-hole municipal course on East Potomac Park in Washington, D. C. According to Travis, they installed “creeping bent grass” greens using the vegetative method of planting stolons rather than seeding. In a 1922, two-part series in Golf Illustrated titled “Putting Greens”, with subtitles of “The Art of Growing Grass” and “A Treatise on the Work of Top Dressing and Crab Grass Eradication”, Travis claims that the East Potomac Park experiment with the vegetative process was unprecedented and an “unqualified success”. Subsequently, Travis often referred to the “vegetative method” in the “Plans and Specifications” he prepared for his golf course projects. For example, in his 1924 “Plans and Specifications” for the Louisville Country Club project, Travis included this paragraph on “Putting-Greens”: “All your new greens will be planted by the vegetative method with stolons or runners from your own nursery–concerning which I have already written you fully. This makes the finest possible putting surface, giving you a single strain of Creeping Bent of uniform texture and color, and, with your own nursery, at materially less expense than by seeding.”
SAND GREENS
The October 1923 issue of Golf Illustrated carried an article by Walter Travis titled “Undulating The Sand Green”. In this article, Travis presented both the virtues and the limitations of the ubiquitous sand greens used throughout much of the south. He reported on the “number of experiments” he had conducted in order to develop a surface that provided better “bite” to the ball and greater diversity of green contours. Travis believed that he was “eminently successful” in meeting his objectives, leading to his application for a patent as the “first and sole inventor of the improvement in the construction of sand putting greens” (Labbance, 2000). The patent application was not approved, but evidence exists that undulating sand greens were constructed on a few courses with very favorable reviews.
–Ed Homsey, Historian
TEACHER
A STUDENT AND TEACHER OF THE GAME
From the beginning, Travis took a systematic and, in his words, “scientific approach” to golf. He studied the most highly respected golfing literature and, through careful experimentation, established techniques that worked for him. In his article on putting, published in the July 1900 issue of Outing, Travis stated, “It is a matter of common knowledge that I have perhaps experimented with more kinds of putters than any other player in this country, and should therefore be expected to have at least learned what not to do.” Travis had a special talent for writing, with a unique style and the ability to provide precise descriptions of golfing techniques with great clarity, authority, and wit.
Starting with the June 1900 issue of Golf, Travis produced a series of articles that, for the most part, were instructional in nature. The first article, with a subtitle of Stance and Grip, begins with a brief reference to how he learned the game. As Travis tells it, “It was my misfortune–or was it my good luck?–to take up golf without the assistance of professional coaching or the aid of any good player, and that too at a somewhat advanced age. Appreciating after a few attempts my comparative helplessness, I provided myself with all the available literature on the subject, and after digesting, as well as the circumstances would permit, the manifold instructions laid down by several eminent writers, I then endeavored to discover by as constant practice as permitted which particular method best suited me and promised the best results.” He noted that “this involved a world of experimenting before any fairly well-defined style was finally evolved.” A major benefit of “all this experimental practice” was that it provided him “a fairly clear insight into the true relation of cause and effect–valuable information in times of stress. If things began to go badly, “it did not take me long to locate the actual trouble and to apply a remedy”.
The series in Golf provided the core of Travis’s first book, “Practical Golf”, first published in 1901 by Harper Brothers. His Introduction to the first edition included a reference to its purpose, namely, “to diffuse some practical knowledge of the ‘why and wherefore’ of Golf, in order to the better assist in working a general improvement in play. With this hope this volume is dedicated to all lovers of the game.”
The June 14, 1901, New York Times gave Travis’s new book a glowing review. About Travis, the review stated, “…by virtue of his powers of analysis and of his serious and patient study, he writes of the game better than any other man than Hutchinson, who is the acknowledged dean of the golfing faculty”. However, as the review continues, whereas “Hutchinson is diffused and vague and often obscure…….Travis is compact, direct, and clear as a bell, and it is quite possible that his analyses of form are more reliable than those of Hutchinson, in spite of his far more limited opportunities to observe.”
With the ink barely dry from the first printing, a second edition of Practical Golf was published in 1902. It contained new chapters dealing with hazards, the Haskell ball, and the new aluminum clubs. Travis expanded on the topic of golf balls and added the new USGA Rules of Golf in the 1909 third edition of his book.
Throughout his career, Travis continued to write golf instructional articles that were published in “Country Life in America”, “Golf Illustrated”, and his own magazine, “The American Golfer”. He addressed all aspects of the golf swing, including the effects of various factors such as stance, lie, and wind, in his efforts to improve the play of golf.
Given his reputation as a putter, it was natural for him to write extensively, and often, about putting. Following his 1904 British Amateur championship, where his magical putting was credited with the victory, he joined British Open Champion, Jack White, in producing the book The Art of Putting. His seminal essay on putting was the article, “The Refinements of Putting”, published in the February 1916 issue of The American Golfer. This article covered the full range of issues and factors related to putting, including types of strokes, “adaptability”, “wind influences”, “concentration” and “disturbing influences”.
Travis’s influence as a teacher of the game was not limited to his writings. Doubtlessly, he was consulted, informally, for playing tips; much as he was frequently consulted about golf courses wherever he played. There are two striking examples where the influence of his teaching was reported by players performing at the highest level of golf.
In his 1914 article, published in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine For Young Folks, Francis Ouimet, the reigning U.S. Open Champion, reported “A Lesson from Mr. Travis” that left an indelible impression on him and his approach to golf. Referring to Travis, Ouimet told of being “astonished to hear him tell so clearly and minutely exactly how he played each shot, so that any person who had watched him play as closely as I had could have a clear mental vision of each movement of his club and body.” Ouimet was “struck” by “how little I actually knew about how I played shots myself.” From that point on, he resolved “not only to try to play the shots correctly, but to know how and why I play them a certain way.”
In 1924, Walter Travis gave Bobby Jones a brief putting lesson in the locker room of the Augusta Country Club. As reported in “The Life and Times of Bobby Jones”, by Syd Matthews, it was the putting lesson that “changed the course of Jones’s golfing history”. Travis instructed Jones to “get his feet so close together that the heels almost touch” and changed his grip to a reverse overlap. Jones acknowledged the resulting improvement in his putting in his autobiography, “Golf is My Game”.
Much earlier, as reported by the noted British Correspondent, Henry Leach, “Jack White once very solemnly and sincerely assured me, he won his championship (referring to the 1904 British Open) because Mr. Travis did, copying some of the Travis methods very deliberately and successfully. Both championships, by the working of the rota, had come to be played at Sandwich that year. The first one to be decided was the Amateur, and White was at Sandwich and watched Mr. Travis win. He told me that after the first round, he was so impressed with his play that he asked Ben Sayers (who according to his custom in those times was doing something in the way of a little booking) what he would lay about him, and he duly received odds of ten to one. “Mr. Travis”, said White, “fascinated me so much that I followed him round in every match, including the final, and long before it came to the latter stage, I felt certain that he would win. I think the majority of professionals who watched his play realised its paying qualities and made him their favourite. What impressed me most was not the remarkable putting that he displayed all through the tournament, though it was really very fine, but the simple accuracy and certainty of his long game. He never tried to get any length. He simply tried to place his tee shots at every hole, to make certain of avoiding trouble, and then he depended on his deadly putting to win the hole for him……..I said to myself as I watched him, ‘If this is the class of golf that wins the amateur championship, I must try it in the Open’ and so I did. —-Henry Leach, The American Golfer, Oct. 10, 1915
–Ed Homsey, Historian