Grand Old Lady of Curtis Cup heading for St Andrews

The GB&I team assembled at Gleneagles Hotel for the 1936 Curtis Cup match (picture by courtesy of Gillian Kirkwood from the Women Golfer's Museum collection). Back row (left to right): Phyllis Wade (reserve), Pam Barton, Helen Holm, Betty Newell (reserve), Charlotte Walker, Jessie Valentine. Front: Marjorie Garon, Doris Chambers (captain), Wanda Morgan. On the right is a picture of Phyllis Wade in the mid-1930s when she was English champion.

Troon resident

Phil Wylie (96)

is link with

golden days

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
She's a "young 96" ... she loves a glass of sherry ... and she keeps you enthralled with her tales of the different world of golf of the 1930s.
She's Essex-born but long time Troon resident Phil Wylie, the Grand Old Lady of Curtis Cup history (Cal Carson Golf Agency image above, all rights reserved).
She will be 97 on August 12 and is the oldest surviving Curtis Cup player from either side of the Atlantic.
A little bit shaky on her feet, Phil is otherwise a very healthy looking pensioner with a keen interest in all things to do with golf.
She is particularly excited about her invitation from the Ladies Golf Union to attend the Past Players’ Dinner in the R&A clubhouse at the start of Curtis Cup week over the Old Course.
“I may not be able to get about as I once did but I like meeting people and I am looking forward to a reunion with all the past players.”
“Dining in the R&A clubhouse just wasn’t a possibility when I was a player. Now that is going to be something special. I wouldn’t miss it for anything. I just wish I could play in the past players' match over the Old Course earlier in the day."
Phil was English women’s champion as Phyllis Helen Wade in 1934, was reserve in attendance at the 1936 Curtis Cup match at Gleneagles and played in the Curtis Cup match of 1938 at Essex, Massachusetts. She remembers the legendary Glenna Collett Vare and Patty Berg playing for “the other side,” while her own team-mates included such memorable names as Jessie Anderson (Valentine to be) and Helen Holm.
“The United States won the match but my abiding memory is how happy I was to be playing in a Curtis Cup match and what great fun we all had,” recalls Phil.
“I think that’s the biggest difference between now and when I played. We all enjoyed ourselves, win or lose, and we weren’t afraid to show it. Nowadays, all the players look so serious about it. It doesn’t seem a game to be enjoyed any more.
“I should have played in the 1948 Curtis Cup match (the first since 1938 because of World War II) at Royal Birkdale but I had developed a very bad hook that season and I was made first reserve!”
A long hitter, she did, however, play for Great Britain against France in the forerunner of the Vagliano Trophy in 1937, 1939, 1947 and 1949.
Phil, who lives in a flat across the road from Royal Troon’s 17th hole, says she has not played golf “for something like 10 years” and she is not considering a comeback.
“My brain and my voice will, I hope last me out, but I am very shaky on my legs,” she said. “But I am grateful for the life I’ve had and the pleasure and the memories that golf has given me. It took me right round the world. I’m so lucky to be here.”
And Phil Wylie’s tip for the youngsters who would seek to follow in her footsteps as an international golfer?
“Practise, practise and then practise even more, so that when it comes to the crunch, it is almost natural to play good shots.”
Phil Wylie, or Phil Wade as she was then, was a star golfer in the pre-war days when playing in a Curtis Cup match in the United States entailed crossing the Atlantic by ship and a tour of Australia and New Zealand meant SIX MONTHS away from home.
Born in Essex on August 12, 1911, Phyllis Helen Wade can look back with pride on a marvellous golfing career.
Originally a member of Parkstone Golf Club, three miles west of Bournemouth, she played in two English women’s amateur championship finals. She won the first, in 1934 by beating Miss Mary Johnson of Hornsea by 4 and 3 in the 36-hole final at Seacroft, but lost the second, in 1936 when, as title favourite, she lost by 2 and 1 to Miss Wanda Morgan (Canterbury) at Hayling Island.
Phil’s career as an international player spanned the years before and after World War II. She made her debut for England in the home internationals of 1934 and played every year for the next five.
Actually, nobody played in the 1937 home internationals when Turnberry was the venue. All the teams travelled up to the Ayrshire venue and had completed their practice rounds.
Tragically, Bridget Newell, who had been beaten by Pam Barton in the 1936 British women’s open amateur championship and was a member of the England team, died suddenly on the eve of the internationals which were called off as a mark of respect. Bridget was a lawyer and the youngest magistrate in Britain.
“I remember that sad, sad time as though it were yesterday,” Phil told me as we had afternoon tea in the Marine Hotel, Troon last weekend.
“Bridget was complaining about having a very sore throat. But she was still getting about. None of realised how seriously ill she really was. She died during the night at the hotel. What a shock that was to everybody. Nobody felt like playing golf after that.”
The internationals were also called off in 1939 because war was declared against Germany in September that year.
The women’s home internationals resumed at Gullane in 1947 but the England team did not include Phil that year. Scotland won the championship _ and Phil was recalled to international duty in 1948 at Royal Lytham & St Annes. England duly regained the title by beating Scotland, Ireland and Wales.
Although that was the last time Phil played for England, she did make the last of her four appearances for the British Isles against France at Morfontaine a year later. This fixture was the forerunner of the Vagliano Trophy match and Phil played against the French in 1937, 1939, 1947 and 1949.
She toured Australia and New Zealand with the British Isles team in 1935 in the days when party went by sea and were away for months on end.
“I was fortunate to be chosen to be a member of the team under captain Mrs Hodgson. The other players were Jessie Anderson (later to marry George Valentine), Pam Barton, Ysobel Greenlees and Pat Walker.
“We went to Australia on the ‘Strathaird,” a wonderful ship. We practised on deck and I always remember that, to our surprise, the old golf balls we hit did not disappear into the sea but used to bounce across the water.
“We called in at Aden, Ceylon and India where we played a match against a men’s team in Bombay. We went to see the Taj Mahal.
“We landed eventually at Perth in Western Australia and we had been at sea for so long, it took us some time to get our land legs back. I remember the Australians were so hospitable and kind wherever we went. From here it was on to Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and back to Sydney and back on a boat to get to New Zealand.
“I remember it was very windy in Wellington, but apparently it is always very windy in Wellington. We did both islands by car, playing either exhibition games or matches against ladies and men. We were feted wherever we went.
“On the whole trip to Australia and New Zealand we never stayed more than two nights in any place. We sailed home via the Pitcairn Islands and back through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean and home. We were away six months in all but it was a truly wonderful trip. We visited so many places of interest and were treated like royalty.”
The British squad took Australian and New Zealand women’s golf by storm. There is no reference in the record books to the results of their matches against the countries _ presumably the reason the tour was arranged _ but, between them, the party of five players won four national open championships.
No wonder they were treated like golfing goddesses wherever they went Down Under.
Newspaper cuttings of the 1930s describe Phil Wade’s flair for foursomes play. She was apparently much in demand as a foursomes partner. While they were in New Zealand, Phil teamed up with Glasgow-born Ysobel Greenlees, a member of Troon Ladies, to win the country’s open women’s foursomes championship of 1935.
And Jessie Anderson won the New Zealand women’s open championship, played on a match-play basis, beating fellow-tourist Pat Walker in the final at Wellington.
In Australia, Pat Walker, from the Malahide club in Ireland, won the Australian women’s open amateur championship at Royal Melbourne. And, to complete the Aussie double, Pat Walker and Pam Barton won the Australian women’s open foursomes championship.
That trip rivals Phil’s Curtis Cup appearance in 1938 as the highlight of her playing career. Again it involved a boat trip, this time across the Atlantic, to the Essex County Club in Massachusetts.
In those days it was a six-a-side match and the GB&I team was Jessie Anderson, Nan Baird, Helen Holm, Elsie Corlett, Claire Tiernan and Phil Wade.
“I remember sharing a cabin with Helen Holm who was the British women’s champion that year (for a second time after a first success in 1934),” said Phil.
It was only the fourth match in the Curtis Cup series, which had begun in 1932 at Wentworth. In those early days, when the Curtis Cup match was played in Britain, the foursomes and singles programme was played on a single day.
When the United States were the hosts, the foursomes were played on the first day and the singles on the second.
Great Britain and Ireland had much the better of the foursomes, leading 2 ½- ½ at the end of the first day. Claire Tiernan and Helen Holm beat Estelle Page and Mrs John Crews by two holes while Jessie Anderson partnered Elsie Corlett to a last-green victory over Glenna Collet Vare and Patty Berg.
Phil and Pat Walker halved their match.
The Americans came out like match-play tigers on the second day to win five of the six singles. Tiernan was the only GB&I winner. The final result was United States 5 ½, GB&I 3 ½.
The Great Britain & Ireland side moved on to Illinois for the US women’s amateur championship, played later that September, at the Westmoreland Club, near Chicago.
“I returned home to Britain by myself on the ‘Berangaria’. We were told that in the event of War being declared we would go to Brest in the south of France and we would be responsible for making our own way back to England! Happily no war was declared for another 12 months.”
In 1939 Phil married a naval officer, Surgeon-Capt. J L Wylie, a Scot. When he retired, they set up home at Stewarton in Ayrshire. They had one son, Ian.
Phil became a member of Troon Ladies and the Ayrshire county team for many seasons. She won the Ayrshire county championship in 1954, beating Helen Holm in the final. She has been captain and president of the county over the years and an honorary member of Troon Ladies and Parkstone for a long time.
The only sadness in Phil’s life is that she has outlived all the golfers who were her peers.
So how did it all start for Phil Wade?
“I did not take up golf until I was 16 or 17 years old and it was not until I left school at 18 (in 1929) that I began to play regularly,” recalled Mrs Wylie.
“My father was a very keen golfer and he suggested I should have lessons from the Parkstone club professional Reg Whitcombe. I had about one lesson a week from Mr Whitcombe but I used to practise about two hours a day.
“Reg was one of three Whitcombe brothers, all of whom were professional golfers and who all played in Ryder Cup matches. Reg was a delightful person and an excellent coach but he stood no nonsense. You had to do as you were told.”
Not many girls can say they have had lessons from a Ryder Cup player AND an Open champion to be.
Reg Whitcombe, playing out of Parkstone, finished runner-up to Henry Cotton in the 1937 Open at Carnoustie and then won the Open title the following year at Royal St George’s.
Phil had been a longer hitter in her day. One report of a Hampshire v Surrey match at Stoneham in the 1930s, relates how “Miss Wade was three up at the ninth, having taken only 35 strokes” and that she “reached the green at the first hole (495yd) in two magnificent shots.”
When one considers she was using old-fashioned golf clubs and a ball which did not fly nearly as far as the modern version, it is clear that she was a powerful player.
But she was always a very elegant lady, light on her feet, and to this day still has a very charming personality.
Phil did not have a one-track mind about golf. She loved swimming and playing squash and one newspaper article of the 1930s said she was an accomplished dancer.
“I don’t know if I would say I was accomplished at it but I certainly enjoyed ballroom dancing.”