\n
“He was a very pleasant man and not a loud man at all with a sparkle in his eyes,” Marjorie remembers.<\/p>\n
“He loved his golf and he was able to play it every day, so that was all he wanted and he did it all his life”.<\/p>\n
With a playing style described as “divine fury”, Braid was a gentleman on and off the course. <\/p>\n
After winning his first Open at Muirfield in 1901, he moved to England to be Walton-Heath’s first professional golfer in her maiden year as a club.<\/p>\n
He would stay there for the rest of his life and often stay with his family whenever designing or reshaping a Scottish course.<\/p>\n
“He’d be talking more about the family he’d come to see rather than golf when he came to our house,” Marjorie says. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
James Braid (centre) at the Parliamentary Handicap Tournament chatting to the Prince of Wales, Edward VIII on the first tee at Walton-Heath<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\n
Braid was the first player to win five Open titles.<\/p>\n
He was the only European player, until Dubliner Padraig Harrington matched the achievement in 2008 at Royal Birkdale, to successfully defend the championship when he did so in 1906.<\/p>\n
A fine accomplishment considering two other greats shared the golf course with him in the late 19th and early 20th Century – Harry Vardon and John Henry Taylor.<\/p>\n
Between 1894 and 1914, the trio dominated the Open Championship, winning 16 of the 20 competitions before the outbreak of World War One,<\/p>\n
This earned them the grand title of “The Great Triumvirate”. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
“The Great Triumvirate” James Braid (centre), John Henry Taylor (left), Harry Vardon (right)<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\n
The three men fought hard and fairly on the golf course, but in the clubhouse, it was a different matter. <\/p>\n
“They were great friends,” Marjorie says. <\/p>\n
“I think that all added to the enjoyableness of his life when he was playing these Open championships… That gave him a lot extra.<\/p>\n
“If he hadn’t had that relationship with the two other golfers [Taylor and Vardon], he would still have been very valiant golfer himself, but he got more enjoyment I think [with them]”.<\/p>\n
Marjorie has a smile on her face when she’s thinking of them together. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
The original Vanity Fair portrait of James Braid, June 1907<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\n
When asked if they had any inclination that Braid would be thought of as one of the most important influences on golf, Marjorie answers, laughing: “None whatsoever.”<\/p>\n
In fact, it wasn’t until she was in her late eighties that Marjorie realised that he wasn’t just her grandfather – he is a golfing legend.<\/p>\n
“I had that photograph hanging there,” Marjorie says as she points to a Vanity Fair portrait. <\/p>\n
“An elderly gentleman came to see us – he’d been a great man… He did a lot in both World Wars and I thought a lot of him.<\/p>\n
“He sat down and saw this picture, the Spy caricature of my grandfather, and he said ‘Who’s that man up there?’<\/p>\n
“I said that’s my grandfather, James Braid. He said ‘Right, I’ll stand up to that!’ and he stood up straight, this little old man.<\/p>\n
“I realised if he knew about him and thought that much of him, he was important because, of course, he was never boasted about by his son and daughter-in-law. They were just family,” Marjorie remembers proudly. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
James Braid was also a clubmaker and designer<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n\n
She adds: “We were just pleased to know when he won anything because he was grandpa, that was all.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always enjoyed the fact that people thought a lot of my grandfather because I just thought he was a nice man.<\/p>\n
“I just loved him as my grandfather.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"5 hours ago By\u00a0Javen Houston,\u00a0BBC Scotland \/ Sp\u00f2rs BBC James Braid, born 6 February, 1870, Earlsferry – died 27 November, 1950, London Venue: Royal Troon Dates: Thu 18-Sun 21 July Coverage: Live radio and text commentary on BBC Sport website, with video clips each day. Daily highlights programme on BBC Two from 20:00 BST. Click […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4385,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[3127,3128,3129],"class_list":["post-4384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scotland","tag-golfs","tag-greatest","tag-influences"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4384"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4386,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4384\/revisions\/4386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}