Walter Travis - Contributions To Golf

Contributions To Golf

Travis was a prolific writer who wrote extensively on a variety of golf topics, and was published in the leading sports magazines of the time. His first book, Practical Golf, published in 1901, received rave reviews from The New York Times (6/14/1901) for its depth, thoroughness, and clarity as a reference book. Practical Golf dealt with a variety of topics, including golfing techniques, golf equipment, construction of golf courses, the design and placement of hazards, rules of golf, and conduct of golf competitions. His chapter on "Handicapping" was first published in the July 1901 issue of Golf, and described as "the authoritative treatise on handicapping" of its era.(Knuth, 1993) A second book, "The Art of Putting" was released in 1904.

In 1908, Travis founded and published The American Golfer magazine. The American Golfer was widely regarded as the most influential golf magazine of its time. Travis, and other authors, used it as an effective voice for their views. Travis stayed at the helm of "The American Golfer" as Editor until he turned it over to Grantland Rice in the Spring of 1920, and severed his connection with the magazine by the end of 1920.

Travis was not hesitant about trying new equipment in his efforts to improve his game. He was the first to win a major event using the Haskell rubber-cored golf ball—the 1901 U.S. Amateur. As reported in the Travis biography, "The Old Man", (Labbance, 2000) Travis had "dabbled with predecessors of the Haskell ball, but kept his involvement under wraps until shortly before the tournament" and he "had developed a feel for this type of ball with practice and was not afraid to debut it at the championship". As Labbance reports, "Travis's bold move had not only prompted a change in golf balls but a change in golf as well". It sounded the death knell for the gutty ball, created the need for inserts in the face of wooden clubs to prevent splitting, and soon led to calls for the lengthening of golf courses due to the longer shots made possible by the Haskell.(Labbance, 2000)

Travis was innovative in his approach to golf course design. In a Practical Golf chapter on hazards, Travis was critical of the ubiquitous and, to him, unappealing cross-bunkers that stretched all the way across the fairway at predictable intervals. Rather, he argued for more strategically and visually appealing bunkers placed along the edges of fairways, stating, "Hazards arranged somewhat upon the lines indicated, rather than slavishly following the system adopted on the great majority of our courses, would, I think, make the game vastly more interesting, and more provocative of better golf all around." (Travis, 1900)

Many other innovative steps were taken by Travis throughout his career. His use of the Schenectady center-shafted putter in his British Amateur victory attracted considerable comment and controversy. Some 6 years later, the Royal and Ancient would issue a ban on all mallet-headed putters, including the Schenectady. Travis conducted careful experiments with varying lengths of driver shafts, often using a driver with a shaft as long as 50 inches in his search for greater distance off the tee. At his home course, Garden City Golf Club, Travis installed smaller sized cups on the practice green to help hone the accuracy of his putting.(Labbance, 2000)

Though he was innovative with his equipment, and practiced incessantly, Travis disdained the notion of physical training after his first trial of abstaining from smoking and drinking during an 1897 tournament. He reported that he "putted like a baby", and would never again depart from his usual habits.(Labbance, 2000)

Throughout his career as a journalist, Travis produced numerous comprehensive and detailed golf instructional essays. Given the reputation he earned as an outstanding putter, it was natural that many of his articles dealt with his well-proven principles of putting. In one of his earliest articles, Travis wrote "The sum of it all is, that my experience shows conclusively that the really good putter is largely born, not made, and is inherently endowed with a good eye and a tactile delicacy of grip which are denied the ordinary run of mortals. At the same time, less favored players may, by the adoption of methods which stood the test of actual experience, materially improve their game." (Travis, 1905) His effectiveness as an instructor was demonstrated in the following example: In 1916, while observing a 14 year old Bobby Jones, Travis is reported to have commented that Jones' putting methods were "faulty". There are accounts that suggest that young Jones held Travis in high esteem and eagerly agreed to meet Travis the following morning at 8 am. Unfortunately, Jones and his party awoke late and were over an hour behind schedule. When they arrived, Travis had left. Years later, Jones and Travis met, and Travis offered to provide some putting tips. He change Jones's grip, altered his stance, and suggested a longer and more sweeping stroke. A key point was to try to "drive an imaginary tack into the back of the ball". Some say that this putting lesson turned Jones into one of the great putters of all time. (Thomas, 2004)