(Excerpt from Practical Golf
Practical Golf was written b...)
Excerpt from Practical Golf
Practical Golf was written by Walter J. Travis in 1909. This is a 280 page book, containing 49185 words and 35 pictures. Search Inside is enabled for this title.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Walter J. Travis was an American amateur golfer in the during the early 1900s.
Background
Walter Travis was born on January 10, 1862 in Maldon, Victoria, Australia. He was the son of John Walter and Susan (Eyelet) Travis, and the eldest child in a family of five children. He came of a distinguished family in England and was a direct descendant of Lord Bishop Travis whose tomb is in the Anglican Cathedral at Chester, England.
Education
He was educated at a public school and at Trinity College in Melbourne, Australia.
Career
At the age of twenty-three was sent to New York as manager of the New York office of McLean Bros. & Rigg, an Australian importing firm. He was moderately successful in business and, taking a strong liking to the United States, he not long afterwards became a naturalized citizen.
It was in the autumn of 1896 that he first began to play golf, a rather new game in the United States at that time but one that was quickly growing in favor. In 1897 he played in and won his first tournament at Meadowbrook, L. I.
He improved rapidly in his skill at the game and within three or four years was the outstanding amateur golf player of the country. He won the national amateur championship of the United States in 1900, 1901, and 1903, and was particularly noted for his skill in putting.
His success was considered remarkable in view of the fact that he did not take up the game until he was in his thirty-fifth year, and it is generally recognized that those who are trained to the game from early youth have a great advantage in acquiring correct form and natural swings. To make up for his handicap in such matters, he studied out a plan of play based on the mechanics of the golf swing as they fitted his own physical powers. He wanted to win.
By unflagging determination and arduous practice he developed a game that, while it was not beautiful to watch, was devastating to his rivals. They hit longer shots from the tee and through the fairway, but the "Old Man, " as he came to be called, always hit the ball on a direct line from the tee to the pin, and his putting was deadly. He had no rival in that respect.
He became the outstanding amateur player of the United States and capped his career by going to England in 1904 and winning the British amateur championship at the famous Sandwich course, the first time any representative of American golf had performed such a feat. British golfers were startled by the accuracy of his putting and many of them claimed that his success on the greens was due to the "Schenectady" or "mallet-headed" type of putter he used. This led to a formal ruling in Great Britain, that made this type of putter illegal, but the ruling was not accepted in the United States.
Stocky in stature, stern of countenance, and serious in demeanor when on the links, Travis continued in competition for many years, winning many sectional titles though he never again won a national amateur title. He gave up other pursuits and devoted himself entirely to golf, played in tournaments, wrote a book entitled Practical Golf (1901), edited and published a golf magazine, The American Golfer from 1908, and had a distinguished career as a golf-course architect.
He was afflicted with bronchial asthma in later years and died in Denver, Colo. , where he had gone for relief. He was buried at Manchester, Vt.
Quotations:
"Always be on the aggressive, " Travis wrote in The American Golfer. "Act as if you are quite sure of yourself and never give an opponent the psychological advantage of imagining you are the least afraid of him. Many a man is beaten before he starts by admitting to himself the other's fancied superiority and unconsciously conveying it in his general bearing. It only gives the opponent that slight encouragement which enables him to pull out a winner in a tight match. "
“I am not aware of every having possessed any physical advantages that enabled me to climb the ladder as I did in such a comparatively short space of time, ” Travis wrote. “What success I managed to achieve was primarily due to an intense love of the game, a devotion which made practice not a drudgery but a pleasure. ‘Genius, ’ I think it was Carlyle, who said, ‘is the capacity of taking infinite pains. ’ I practiced at every opportunity. ”
Personality
He had a keen competitive spirit and a dogged persistence in contests on fairway and green.
He was afflicted with bronchial asthma in later years .
Connections
He was married to Anne A. Bent at Middletown, Connecticut, on January 8, 1890. She, with a daughter and a son, survived him.