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The Vardon Invasion: Harry's Triumphant 1900 American Tour

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A favorite topic for discussion among golfers is how cross-generational matches would turn out. Would Tiger beat Jack Nicklaus? How would he fare against Ben Hogan? or Bobbie Jones? After reading The Vardon Invasion by Bob Labbance and Brian Siplo, I'd like to throw Harry Vardon's name into the mix.

The book tells the tale of how Vardon came to America in 1900 and energized the game in this country. He not only won the U.S. Open that year, but played 90 matches against the best amateur and professional golfers from Maine to Florida and west to Colorado. The book recounts many of those matches and is filled with interesting sidebars about his opponents and the courses they played.

I found descriptions of the courses themselves fascinating. Instead of the billiard-table greens and manicured fairways we play today, Harry and the boys teed it up on nine-hole tracks where irrigation was unheard of and greens might be "browns" of oiled and rolled sand rather than grass.

Vardon, of course, is best known here for his defeat in the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline by Francis Ouimet. He won the British Open, though, six times--a record that stands to this day. He won 75 of the 90 matches in the 1900 tour covered in this book--most of them played against the best ball of two top amateurs or pros. A record like that would be envied by golfers of any generation.

Bob Labbance and Brian Siplo compiled The Vardon Invasion through countless hours of pouring through newspaper accounts and club records. Their work has paid off with a highly readable tribute to the man against whom all future champions should be measured.

Dave Donelson, author of Heart of Diamonds: A Novel of Scandal, Love and Death in the Congo

I just finished reading the book "The Vardon Invasion: Harry's Trimphant !900 American Tour" and can highly recommend this offering. I really enjoyed the effort the book's author obviously made to track the little known information regarding this piece of American Golf History. There are so many ties between Vardon's trip and our own golfing past that were unknown until now. Anyone interested in golf history and superb writing will love this book and its' value to their golf library. A good solid book from a good solid author.

From his recent victory in the Open Championship to his arrival on U.S. shores and his journey up, down, back and forth across the country, The Vardon Invasion is a captivating book which depicts the less than stellar conditions of 1900 U.S. golf courses, the infatuation we held and the celebrity status placed upon the Granton Greyhound. Harry Vardon crisscrossed the country breaking scoring records with each round played. He challenged the best ball of two pros as well as joining forces with local amateurs in four ball competitions. His record was phenomenal given the conditions of the courses, the unfamiliar heat and humidity, and the lack of rules applied by his opponents. Anyone with any interest in the birth of American golf and the infectious spread one man's talents had on a nation should read this book. I am looking forward to the tale of his 1913 and 1920 visits.

One could argue that Bob Labbance writes solely for the choir - the golfing choir. His books - including The Life and Work of Wayne Stiles (Massachusetts-based golf course and landscape architect) and Keepers of the Green: A History of Golf Course Management - will certainly never make the New York Times Best-Seller List.

I discovered Labbance when I eagerly obtained The Old Man: The Biography of Walter J. Travis, and found that Labbance is not only a first-rate historian, but an excellent writer. If his books appeal only to a minority of golf history enthusiasts, they nevertheless fill critical gaps in our recorded history of the game.

Travis was America's first great golf champion, and a biography of this fascinating man was long, long overdue.

And Harry Vardon remains to this day one of the half-dozen greatest golfers of all time and the man who, more than any other single individual, was responsible for the rise and developing excellence of American golf after it first took hold on these shores.

But, while everybody knows about Vardon's historic loss to Francis Ouimet in the 1913 U.S. Open at Brookline (thanks to Mark Frost's book and the subsequent motion picture), practically nothing was known of Vardon's historic 1900 tour beyond a few passages in various golf history books.

Labbance has filled in that gap in splendid form, with many fascinating photographs and even small side biographies of many of the other prominent players, including the American pro who beat Vardon twice. As a historian and author myself, I prize the work of great historians who can also tell a great story, and Labbance has done it again.

If you are a golf historian, you need to read this book. Little has been written of Harry Vardon's famous tour of the U.S. in 1900 - his own "My Golfing Life" from 1933 touches on it only briefly. Labbance offers a detailed account of the matches Vardon played and the courses he set records on, with facinating side bars on various players. We gain insight into course conditions of the times, the lack of competition, and the book brings it to life with wonderful photos and course diagrams. The results of each match are listed in the back of the book. Labbance has done a great job with a somewhat obscure topic, and as with his biography of Walter Travis, this is a welcome addition to the scholarhip of golf history.

Bob Labbance has done yet another great job with golf history. If you are a golfer, this book will reveal things about the early days of American golf and the champuion from England, Harry Vardon who by the way, has the Vardon Trophy named after him for the PGA Pro who has the lowest scoring average on the tour. The book is well laid out, informational, entertaining and well worth it. Bob has written several other golf books that you should check out as well.

This is a long overdue addition to the library of golf.
Harry Vardon's tour of America in 1900 did as much to promote the game of golf in the early part of the century as did Francis Ouimet's win at the U.S.Open in 1913. This is a must have for those who know that golf didn't start in 1998 when Elderick Woods started to play.

Good book if you are a golf historian, a good look at golf at the turn of the century and how little Americans knew about the actual rules.