From hickory to persimmon and on to the humble tee-peg, wood has made an invaluable contribution to the development of golf through the years. Indeed there was even an occasion during the second World War when the Wooden Golf Ball Championship was staged, because of a grave scarcity of the corewound product.
It happened at Potchefstroom, South Africa, where the winner of the men's event was a certain A A Horne with a score of 90, while the women's section was won by a Ms Corneille with a round of 116.
We are informed that the best results were obtained from the wooden balls by teeing up for every shot and using a two or three wood, along with a short iron and a putter. By facing the wooden clubs with about 3/16th of a inch thickness of balata belting or rubber insertion packing, distances of 200 yards were attained, while the life of the ball was enhanced.
The war had ended only four years when wood was to enter the picture again, in a far more intriguing context. It came in the wake of the 1949 Walker Cup which was unique from an Irish standpoint in that it marked the only occasion when the country had four representatives in the side - Joe Carr, Cecil Ewing, Jimmy Bruen, and the reigning British Amateur Champion, Max McCready.
And if an ambitious, American plan had achieved the desired outcome, four Irish clubs would now have an enduring memento of that milestone - in wood. The matches were played at Winged Foot GC in New York State and the British and Irish side was captained by Percy Belgrave "Laddie" Lucas CBE, DSO, DFC, who was a highly-respected figure in British golf until his death in March 1998. He had been a member of the teams of 1936 at Pine Valley and 1947 at St Andrews and there would appear to be good reason why he failed to get a match in the first of those encounters.
A left-hander, Lucas became known to his Pine Valley hosts as the "Southpaw Sprayer", because of his waywardness off the tee. We are told that during a practice round with the great Henry Longhurst, he hit yet another drive into the trees on the seventh hole. And that's when the English duo shouted to their caddies "Watch it! Watch it!" they received the immortal rejoinder: "Boy, you can't watch 'em. You just gotta listen for 'em."
As a fascinating postscript to that particular adventure during which, incidentally, Lucas was suffering from a virus, he was persuaded years later to attempt to get around his home course of Sandy Lodge in England in less than the existing record of 93 - blindfold. And he did so with a splendid 87. .
It seems a few days later, a postcard arrived at his home, unsigned. There were devious minds who thought, however, the handwriting looked remarkably like that of Longhurst. Their suspicions were supported by the contents of the letter which read: "It's a great pity they didn't blindfold you at Pine Valley. You never got round there in 87 with your eyes open."
In the event, Lucas had no better fortune as a Walker Cup captain than he had as a player, insofar as the 1949 side were thrashed 10-2. The only success by an Irish player was in the top foursomes in which Carr partnered England's Ronnie White to a 3 and 2 win over Ray Billows and Willie Turnesa. But I digress.
The nub of our little tale has to do with the fact that after the matches at Winged Foot, the British and Irish team went further north in New York State to the Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, for the US Amateur Championship, which was won, incidentally, by Charles Coe. And while there, they became the subjects of acorn diplomacy.
Long before John F Kennedy had entertained Nikita Kruschev, Dr John R Williams, the president of Oak Hill, attempted to build golfing bridges across the Atlantic with the help of his club's most flourishing commodity.
There are 80,000 oak trees at the Oak Hill Country Club, which competitors in the 1989 US Open and the 1995 Ryder Cup matches, discovered to their cost. One of them, according to Lucas, was a pin oak (Quercus palustris) designated to bear a bronze plaque.
The Walker Cup skipper went on: "The club had been a paragon of friendliness and hospitality. They clasped hands with Britain and gave expression to the strength of the ties which join two great English speaking nations." The plaque was dedicated during the course of a ceremony on the front lawn of the club.
Two years later, Lucas received a letter from the Oak Hill president, Dr Williams. In it he wrote: "The commemorative oak has fruited for the first time and I have gathered up some of the acorns and am sending them to you through the British Embassy at Washington. I wish that you will send some of them to each of the clubs represented by your team."
The idea of using diplomatic channels was a master stroke by the good doctor insofar as the British Department of Agriculture would probably have banned the importation of acorns because of the danger of disease. In the event, the ambassador agreed not only to send over the acorns in a diplomatic pouch, but he included a note to Lucas urging him to "fulfil the wishes of Oak Hill in the hope that this practical expression of Anglo-American relationships may come to fruition".
According to Lucas, the command was followed precisely. "This bloody great sackful of acorns turned up in my office and I had to put them around the UK," he recalled. "I sent handfulls to the clubs represented by the players - Cork (Bruen), Sligo (Ewing) and Sutton (Carr) in Eire and to Hendon, Hoylake, Parkstone, Royal Norwich, Sandy Lodge, Sunningdale and Wilderness in England (McCready was a member of Dunmurry). I enclosed the Doctor's instructions about planting, too, but given the results, I think he might have been too clever by half."
The Oak Hill official had written: "Let there be no delay. Acorns will not germinate if allowed to dry. Plant them in a small plot about six inches apart and three inches deep. In two or three years, they can be transplanted. In six to eight years you will have some fine, beautiful trees which may be set out in permanent location."
Lucas admitted some years later: "I really don't know what went wrong, but so far as I am aware there are only two left in existence. We have one at my club, Sandy Lodge, a poor dwarf of a tree, not at all representative of the noble theme it is designed to uphold. And there is another at Wilderness where Gerald Micklem was a member.
"Perhaps they were transplanted too quickly, or perhaps the British-Irish soil just does not appeal. The one that Arthur Perowne put in at Royal Norwich is as dead as a door knocker. It called it a day, tore up its card after going well for a few holes."
Though he commended Dr Williams for the gesture, Lucas concluded: "In fact acorns are like the people who put them in, planted, or bloody soon will be, I fear. Anglo-American relations have done rather better under successive governments than acorns."
They say that great oaks from little acorns grow. Notable exceptions, however, were those locations involving Laddie Lucas and the Walker Cup team of 1949. Four lots of which happened to fall on barren ground in this fair land.
