page_title: Walter Travis
section_title: Golfing career
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Travis / Golfing career
caption_attribution_description: English: Walter Travis, at the top of his backswing (c. 1919) Source: http://www.bodypowerswing.com/walter-travis-golfer-extraordinaire/ Copyrights likely remain with the original photographer (unknown) and almost certainly deceased. Photo is unsigned, undated, therefore the copyright owner (if any) cannot be determined by me.--EditorExtraordinaire (talk) 19:52, 19 April 2015 (UTC)
context_page_description: Walter J. Travis was an American amateur golfer during the early 1900s. He was also a noted golf journalist and publisher, an innovator in all aspects of golf, a teacher, and golf course architect.
context_section_description: 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 hardware and construction products. Travis married Anne Bent of Middleton, Connecticut, 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  moved into their new home in Flushing, New York, where they would live until their move to Garden City, on Long Island, in 1900.
  In 1896, while traveling in England, Travis learned that his Niantic Club friends of Flushing, New York, 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, Jr., and others.  He practiced relentlessly.  Within a year, Travis won the Oakland Golf Club championship with a score of 82.
  In 1898, Travis entered his first U.S. Amateur 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 in 1900, 1901, and 1903.  In 1904, he became the first player from America to win the British Amateur, 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 news of Travis's British victory sparked a surge of interest in the game of golf throughout the United States.
  In 1904, champion British golfer Harold Hilton described Travis: "In style, the American champion is essentially what may be termed a made golfer, for his is a style which by the wildest stretch of imagination could not be called ornate. Still, it boasts useful attributes; it is business-like and determined, and is one in which no energy is wasted. Like all golfers who really scored a success at the game, he keeps the right elbow well in to the right side, holding the hands very low, like Messrs. Hutchings, Fry and G. F. Smith—three of the best examples of golfers who have risen to eminence while lacking the advantage of playing the game in their youth. The swing of the club is not long—in fact, it might be termed a three-quarter swing—but it is sufficient to get a free action with the wrist, and although Mr. Travis does not obtain an abnormal carry, he nevertheless gets a long roll on the ball, and against the wind in particular he is beyond the average as a driver, especially as he appears to have mastered the art of the scientific hooking."
  Among his other major victories as an amateur golfer were the following:  Three North and South Amateurs 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 the U.S. Amateur.  With declining health diminishing his skills, Travis announced his retirement from competitive golf in 1916.
  Overall, "Travis competed in 17 consecutive U.S. Amateurs 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 betwee
caption: Travis at the beginning of the downswing (c. 1919). Note the flexing of the hickory shafts used during the period.
exif: {"Image Artist": "Mike Parker", "Image ExifOffset": "2134", "Image XPAuthor": "Mike Parker", "Image Padding": "[]", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2015:04:18 18:01:53", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2015:04:18 18:01:53", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "91", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "91", "EXIF Padding": "[]"}