Robert Maxwell (golfer)

Robert Maxwell
1906 caricature of Maxwell by Spy (from Vanity Fair magazine)
Personal information
Nickname	Bobbie
Born	(1876-05-12)12 May 1876 Edinburgh, Scotland
Died	25 July 1949(1949-07-25) (aged 73) North Berwick, Scotland
Height	6 ft 2.5 in (1.89 m)
Weight	190 lb (86 kg; 14 st)
Nationality	Scotland
Career
Status	Amateur
Retired	1911
Best results in major championships (wins: 2)
Masters Tournament	DNP
U.S. Open	DNP
The Open Championship	4th: 1902
PGA Championship	DNP
British Amateur	Won: 1903, 1909

Robert Maxwell (12 May 1876 – 25 July 1949) was a Scottish amateur golfer who played during the late 19th century and early 20th century. Maxwell had four top-10 finishes in the The Open Championship. His best performance came in the 1902 Open Championship when he placed fourth. Maxwell won The Amateur Championship twice, in 1903 and 1909, both events having been played at Muirfield.

Maxwell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 12 May 1876. He was the son of Francis Maxwell and Adelaide Maxwell (née Hay). At age four, he was living in North Berwick, Scotland with his parents, two brothers, and a sister. He received his education at Eton College and was an energetic boy. While at Eton, he acquired a "short and concise" manner of speaking.

As a youth, he was adroit at football and rowing. By age seven, Maxwell had already honed his golf game and, thanks to golf lessons he had received from Ben Sayers, the precocious young lad carded a 74 in two rounds on the Ladies' Course at North Berwick. As a young man, he had powerful arms and wrists, a quick swing, and was a long hitter of the golf ball.

In 1909, Walter Travis, editor of The American Golfer magazine, described Maxwell as "... a big, tall, powerful man with massive proportions and a fine pair of legs under him. His style is rather forceful, and perhaps, as some would say, a trifle clumsy. He hits hard, but unlike many other hard hitters he is most wonderfully accurate. He employs an open stance ... and uses the Vardon grip with his right thumb down the shaft. With his irons he is wonderfully accurate ... and he uses an iron putter—and his style does not look as if it would make for delicacy, but he has an extraordinarily fine touch, and as a matter of fact he was about the best putter there was at Muirfield, hardly ever missing a short one."