WILLIAM WILSON
The little fellow with the floppy hat and the cut down driver is a sundial on the putting green of the Pinehurst, N.C. golf club. Next to him stands Willie Wilson, who 75 years ago, when he was about the boy's age, jumped the fence that guarded the ninth green near his father's house in Melrose, Scotland and became a golfer. After 107 seasons, Wilson's estimate of the game has not changed since that afternoon in 1883: "It's a humbling game."
Willie Wilson's golfing life spans the present with the all-but-historically dim past. He became a professional in 1899 and three years later came to this country on the advice of the great Harry Vardon. That year of 1902 Wilson became the pro at the York Golf and Tennis Club in York, Maine, and, incredibly enough, he still is today. Wilson spends the winters in Pinehurst, N.C. and estimates that he has given over 100,000 lessons. He exhibited the fundamentals of the game to the Russian and Japanese delegates at Teddy Roosevelt's 1905 peace conference in Portsmouth, N.H. He has warm memories of thousands of pupils. There was this fellow, Mr. Clemens, for instance. He had a terrible time; he was always standing much too close to the ball after hitting it. Good writer, though, under the name of Mark Twain.
PHOTO
JOHN G. HEMMER