Horace Hutchinson

1859 - 1932

Horatio Gordon "Horace" Hutchinson was an English amateur golfer and prolific author on the subject, along with other sports. Hutchinson played in the late 19th century and early 20th century and won the 1886 and 1887 Amateur Championships. He had three top-10 finishes in the Open Championship, his best result being sixth in the 1890 Open Championship. Hutchinson's major accomplishments in golf were his two victories in the 1886 and 1887 Amateur Championships. He became the first player to successfully defend the title by defeating the great John Ball on Ball's home course at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake. He began his golfing career at an early age playing at the Royal North Devon Golf Club-also known as Westward Ho!- a course founded in 1864 and designed by Old Tom Morris. By the age of 16, he won the club medal championship. He attended the University of Oxford's Corpus Christi College from 1878-81, where he was a cricket player, and where he made an immediate impression by playing number one on the Oxford University golf team, and led them to victory over arch-rival Cambridge in the University Golf Match.
During his Oxford years he would spend vacations at home playing the Royal North Devon course accompanied by a young orphaned caddie who was employed by the Hutchinson family as a houseboy. The young lad went by the name of John Henry Taylor. Taylor's future exploits in golf-which included winning five Open Championships-would become legendary. Hutchinson was a keen billiards player

Horatio Gordon "Horace" Hutchinson was an English amateur golfer and prolific author on the subject, along with other sports. Hutchinson played in the late 19th century and early 20th century and won the 1886 and 1887 Amateur Championships. He had three top-10 finishes in the Open Championship, his best result being sixth in the 1890 Open Championship. Hutchinson's major accomplishments in golf were his two victories in the 1886 and 1887 Amateur Championships. He became the first player to successfully defend the title by defeating the great John Ball on Ball's home course at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake. He began his golfing career at an early age playing at the Royal North Devon Golf Club-also known as Westward Ho!- a course founded in 1864 and designed by Old Tom Morris. By the age of 16, he won the club medal championship. He attended the University of Oxford's Corpus Christi College from 1878-81, where he was a cricket player, and where he made an immediate impression by playing number one on the Oxford University golf team, and led them to victory over arch-rival Cambridge in the University Golf Match.
During his Oxford years he would spend vacations at home playing the Royal North Devon course accompanied by a young orphaned caddie who was employed by the Hutchinson family as a houseboy. The young lad went by the name of John Henry Taylor. Taylor's future exploits in golf-which included winning five Open Championships-would become legendary. Hutchinson was a keen billiards player

and enjoyed rowing, shooting and angling. He graduated Oxford BA with third-class honors in literae humaniores (1881) and became captain of the R & A.

This is Bernard Darwin's testimonial of him: "Horace was so noteworthy a figure as a pioneer of golf that people are apt to forget his achievements as a player. Gifted with a style dashing and flamboyant rather than orthodox, which he innocently preached in his books, he was the master of every kind of difficult shot. He could sometimes miss the easy ones, but there was scarcely any place so bad but that his ingenuity could find a way out, and he could consummate a heart-breaking recovery by a deadly putt. From early life, he was handicapped by bad health, but well and in the mood, he was one of the great golfers"

Adapted from Wikipedia.

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