Walter Travis - Golfing Career

Golfing Career

Travis was born in Maldon, Australia. He arrived in New York City in 1886 as a 23 year old representative of the Australian-based McLean Brothers and Rigg exporters of hardward and construction products. Travis married Anne Bent of Middleton, CT, on January 9, 1890, and later that year, he became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Shortly after their wedding, Travis and his wife and moved into their new home in Flushing, NY, where they would live until their move to Garden City, on Long Island, in 1900. (Labbance, 2000)

In 1895 or 1896, while traveling in England, Travis learned that his Niantic Club friends of Flushing, NY were intent on creating a new golf club. He was scornful of the idea but, wishing to keep up with his friends, he purchased a set of golf clubs to take with him on his return to the United States. As he said, "I first knelt at the shrine of the Goddess of Golf" in October 1896 on the Oakland links, just three months before his 35th birthday. Within a month of hitting his first golf shot, Travis earned his first trophy by winning the Oakland Golf Club handicap competition. Travis became, in his words, "an infatuated devotee"of the game. He dedicated himself to the study of instructional books written by Horace Hutchinson, Willie Park, and others. He practiced relentlessly. Within a year, Travis won the Oakland Golf Club championship with a score of 82. (Travis, Golf Illustrated, 1906)

In 1898, Travis entered his first United States Amateur Championship and lost to Findlay S. Douglas in the semi-final match. By this time, he had caught the attention and respect of fellow competitors and, because of his late start in the game, Travis was respectfully referred to as "The Old Man" or "The Grand Old Man". Driven by his intense and compulsive dedication to the game, Travis was soon the country's top amateur golfer, winning the U.S. Amateur Championship in 1900, 1901, and 1903. In 1904, he became the first player from America to win the British Amateur Championship, a feat that would not be duplicated for another 22 years even with "wholesale assaults and single attempts to duplicate" his feat by great amateur golfers such as Jerome Travers, Francis Ouimet, and Bobby Jones.(The Southern Golfer, 1925) The news of Travis's British victory sparked a surge of interest in the game of golf throughout the United States. (Leahy, 1970)

Among his other major victories as an amateur golfer were the following: Three North and South Amateur Championships at Pinehurst, and four Metropolitan Golf Association Championships. When Travis won his fourth MGA Championship, in 1915, at the age of 53, he beat 28 year old Jerome Travers in the final match. Just the year before, Travers had eliminated Travis in the semi-finals of U.S. Amateur Championship. With declining health diminishing his skills, Travis announced his retirement from competitive golf in 1916. (Labbance, 2000)

Overall, "Travis competed in 17 consecutive U.S. Amateur Championships from 1898 to 1914, compiling a 45-14 record, earning medalist honors three consecutive years (1900-02), and losing to the eventual champion on five occasions. He competed in six U.S. Opens between 1902 and 1912 and was low amateur five times and tied for third low amateur the other." Travis was the runnerup in the 1902 U.S. Open Championship.(Leahy, 1970)

In the January 28, 1922 issue of The American Golfer, the following response was given to a query about "How many tournaments Mr. Travis has won, counting in every variety?":

"Our opinion is that Mr. Travis has won more low gross, low net and open tourneys than any other living golfer. He was practically unbeatable for a stretch of six years from 1898 to 1904 during which time he played in double or triple the number of events entered by either John Ball or Chick Evans. A guess at the number of his trophies would place it over five hundred and perhaps nearer to a thousand. In 1901, Travis was national champion and in 1915 he was again the Metropolitan champion. His southern victories were numerous."(The American Golfer, Jan. 1922)

In a 1927 Golf Illustrated article, titled "The Figures Prove It", author John Kofoed offered the following match-play records of noted amateur players in major events (Kofoed, !927):

Won Lost %won* Bobby Jones 42 9 82 Francis Ouimet 43 12 78 Walter Travis 45 11 80 Chick Evans 37 13 74 Jerome Travers 33 6 85 William Fownes 33 22 60 Jess Sweetser 28 11 72 Robert Gardner 35 15 70 * "%won" figures added to the Kofoed data by this author.