John Ball (golfer)

John Ball
Ball as caricatured in Vanity Fair, March 1892
Personal information
Full name	John Ball, Jr.
Born	(1861-12-24)24 December 1861 Hoylake, England
Died	2 December 1940(1940-12-02) (aged 78) Holywell, Wales
Nationality	England
Career
Status	Amateur
Best results in major championships (wins: 9)
The Open Championship	Won: 1890
British Amateur	Won: 1888, 1890, 1892, 1894, 1899, 1907, 1910, 1912
Achievements and awards
World Golf Hall of Fame	1977 (member page)

John Ball, Jr. (24 December 1861 – 2 December 1940) was an English amateur golfer of the late 19th and early 20th century.

Ball was born in Hoylake, Cheshire (now Merseyside). His father was the prosperous owner of the Royal Hotel, located near the Royal Liverpool Golf Club, in Hoylake. Ball grew up playing golf as a youth on the Royal Liverpool course, which was established in his early boyhood.

In 1878, at the age of 17, Ball finished fifth in The Open at Prestwick. His run of Amateur titles began in 1888 and stretched until 1912, when he was 51 years old. His best year was 1890, when he won both the Amateur and Open Championships. Bobby Jones, who won the Grand Slam in 1930, is the only other golfer in history to win those two tournaments in the same year.

After winning The Amateur Championship in 1888, Ball became the first English-born player to win The Open Championship in 1890, and in the same year won his second Amateur, the first to win both titles in the same year. Ball subsequently won the 1892, 1894, 1899, 1907, 1910, and 1912 Amateurs, a record eight titles in all, in addition to two runner-up finishes. Ball retired with a 99–22 record (81.8%) at The Amateur Championship. Ball was also runner-up in the 1892 Open Championship, finishing three strokes behind Harold Hilton.

Ball dominated amateur golf in Great Britain. He won all the important golf championships as well as the hearts and respect of his country. In the words of British golf historian Donald Steele, "No golfer ever came to be more of a legend in his own lifetime." He was the first amateur golfer in England to be named by the Royal Empire as an Immortal.

Although he gripped the club tightly in the palms of both hands, Ball’s swing was the most graceful and stylish of his era. Bernard Darwin wrote, "I have derived greater aesthetic and emotional pleasure from watching John Ball than from any other spectacle in the game." Ball learned the game competing against Harold Hilton on the links at Hoylake. In 1878, at the age of 16, he competed in his first Open Championship and finished fourth at Prestwick.

Ball was famous for refusing to carry a niblick, which had the loft of a modern-day 8- or 9-iron. He scorned the use of that club, describing it as "another bloody spade," and admonished the Rules of Golf Committee of the Royal and Ancient for permitting such horrid-looking contraptions to be allowed in competition. In a bunker, Ball would simply lay open the blade of a mid-iron and float the ball toward the hole with a smooth swing.