Counting down Guernsey golf's top 100

Jersey unearthed major winners in Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, but it is often overlooked how strong an influence links golf on our prized common has been on the national and world game.

Indeed, and it may surprise many to learn over the coming weeks, that Guernsey golf has played a role in the development of a three-times Open winner, has produced two Guernsey-born Ryder Cup players, and even a world champion.

The island proudly raised three county champions and despite the difficulties posed by running the game on just one 18-hole course for best part of a full century, it has steadily churned out a string of very fine players who may have been even finer had they not been handicapped by the positioning of the English Channel and the travel costs to cross it.

But how does one judge the merits of players who, in their plus fours and tweed jackets, trudged the rugged fairways in the reign of Queen Victoria, with the men who have enjoyed verdant, watered approaches and perfect greens in the post-Occupation years?

The answer, as was the case with football and cricket, is with some difficulty.

As always, available statistics help as greatly as a wind-less day at L’Ancresse.

In judging the finest eight dozen and four, we have utilised the performances in Guernsey’s own long recognised ‘majors’ – the Island Matchplay Championship, the 36-hole Le Riche Cup which doubles as the unofficial stroke play championship of Guernsey, the UV 72-hole stroke play, the Piccadilly Cup one-day 36-hole stroke play, plus the Royal Guernsey and L’Ancresse Club Championships.

The sixth ‘major’ utilised as a basis for judging historic performance is the scratch end of the L’Ancresse Open and, on top, consideration has been given for the successes in the modern-day Ravenscroft Open and the La Grande Mare Club Championship and club open.

Even with the statistical evidence and competition reports hidden away in the vast Guernsey Press sporting archives, it remains almost impossible to separate many on our final list.

And for that reason, those bracketed in fives from numbers 51 to 100 over the next fortnight, should not take it too much to heart or get carried away by their judged position.

They could easily be slotted in at No 52 or 98, and vice versa.

In truth, there is so little to choose between any of these players but once we hit the top 50, it is with greater confidence that we are able to position the players, virtually all of whom have won a ‘major’ or represented the Island against Jersey at full level, not simply inter-club.

Who qualifies?

Well, consideration was briefly given to some of the fine professionals which have operated out of the Royal Guernsey, men such as Ryder Cup player Norman Wood and the relatively recent Irishman, Michael Durcan.

Ultimately, they were omitted and only those who were true amateurs were accepted, or the few who were born locally and learned their game on our links as schoolboys.

Even then, a judgment call had to be made.

Three-times Open Championship winner, Henry Cotton, part of British golfing royalty, was introduced to golf at L’Ancresse, born of a Guernsey mother (Alice Le Poidevin) and his grandparents were Mr and Mrs F Le Poidevin of L’Islet Terrace.

Henry was seven when, alongside his talented brother Leslie, he was given his first golf lessons by the local professional, Herbert Jolly.

The Cottons lived in the original Royal Guernsey clubhouse, now known as the Old Golf Place at the Garenne, and Henry’s half-brother Sid was the goalscoring star of Guernsey’s very first winning Muratti side.

No doubt the Cotton boys were inspired by the exploits of what Jerseyman Harry Vardon was doing and when Henry, in particular, gained national and worldwide attention for his golfing successes, it was invariably noted in the columns of the Press with the tone and appreciation of ‘we helped to make you’.

For all that, Henry Cotton, who generously paid tribute to his Sarnian golfing education in his biography, does not make our list, but if he had done so, this legend of the British game would have certainly sailed right to the top because there is nobody to surpass his Open Championship wins of 1934, 1937 and 1948.

Other early ‘stars’ of the Guernsey game included the less-talented General Stevenson, whose name is still connected at the Royal Guernsey by virtue of the Stevenson Cup.

Long-gone golfing characters such as Louis Goubert and George Bisson, who date back to the very early years of domestic golf in the 1890s, recall how effective the General was, unless he found himself in a particular bunker.

On one notable day, he took 27 shots to get out of the trap which he christened ‘Cowboy’.

Stevenson’s time coincided with circa 100 sheep roving around, not to mention the many cattle and odd horse.

And when it was not the animals interfering with playing conditions, it was the rifle shooters, the Guernsey Rifle Club regularly using the common and firing across the main through road to the bay.

That presence meant on such days as many as six holes being taken out of the mix.

In reality, the first layouts were a good test, but not in the greatest of condition, as noted when the talented fully local Jolly brothers – Herbert and Tom – played an exhibition at L’Ancresse in the late 1920s.

Herbert, commonly called Bert, had not long beaten the legendary American Walter Hagen and won a spot in the Great Britain Ryder Cup team, but after entertaining 200 or so local golfing enthusiasts with his skills, fairly laid into the state of the course where he had learned the game.

‘The greens… well you have no greens, or perhaps I should say about three,’ he told a crowd in the 19th hole to much amusement.

The Guernsey course could, he viewed, be as good as Sandwich, Troon and St Andrew’s, all of which he had played, but all he could say at that time was that L’Ancresse was ‘practically a disgrace’.

‘In fact’, he continued, ‘it’s not a golf course at all’ before adding that while Jersey were the first of the Channel Islands to bring out good golfers, but he did not see why his Guernsey should not be the first to turn out a good golf course.

‘There are no fairways which, before the war were excellent, and if they they left it too long they would have no course left. Guernsey could not run a course without water and if the fairways and greens were looked after, this natural course could be turned into a championship course.’

The course, thankfully, did improve, only to be taken out of action for the best part of a decade due to the Occupation and the damage the Germans caused to the common.

It again recovered and ultimately received recognition as being of Championship standard, which it remains to this day.

We are now on layout No 5 and with the outstanding work of our Jersey head greenkeeper Ollie Pennington, the course of today has seldom – if ever – looked better.

Golf is in a good position and when Steve Lansdown’s new ‘top top’ course at La Grande Mare is complete, even healthier and a great lure to all those youngsters who are once again being drawn to this great individual largely summer pursuit.

In years to come, some of those fast-emerging youngsters will win their spot in any future top 100 listing, but for now the coming list is for the already established and, in many cases, dearly departed.

We hope you enjoy it.