The childhood and early life of Harry Vardon, the championship golfers of yesteryear, on the Jersey Channel Island, is covered in a recently released Windows Media Format video called Harry Vardon; Jersey’s favorite golf son.
Harry Vardon is revered on his home island as witnesses to a visit to the Jersey Museum in St. Helier. It is here that you can see a permanent exhibition donated by his widow, of the famous golfer’s medals from the period approximately 1890-1914.
Vardon grew up on the east coast of the island, near the port of Gorey and the imposing medieval castle of Mont Orgueil, closely observing the nearby coast of France. Along with the Royal Bay of Grouville, which was granted Royal status by Queen Victoria, this area forms the Grouville Common neighborhood where Harry Vardon and his parents lived at Amité Lodge as an infant and child. This was one of several small cabins that have long been raised to the ground, but today, on the 12th tee of the golf course, a block of Jersey stone has been placed on the ground. Its carved letters are losing their paint due to winter weather, but they still tell the story that the great golfer was born nearby. By watching the video it is possible to distinguish the dates of Vardon’s greatest triumphs. The Open Championship wins in 1896, 1898, 1899, 1903, 1911 and 1914. Also the US Open in 1900.
Harry’s father had worked in one of the shipyards that, in the old days of wooden ships, could be found around the coast of the island. But in the 1860s, the modern steamship was not built of wood and the industry entered terminal decline. Harry’s father was forced to earn a living as a yard worker and as a casual laborer. However, the Vardon family still lived in the common. So in 1877, when they were given permission to create a golf course on the land that stretched to the water’s edge, they were probably, like most of their neighbors, very unhappy that their peaceful surroundings were disturbed.
Harry was about eight years old when the “strange men”, as he called them in his book “My Golfing Life”, came to survey the land in which to play the game that was to have such a profound influence on his life. He would go on to win six open championships and, more importantly, to be the first British winner of the US Open in 1900.
At the entrance to the Royal Jersey Golf Club, today, stands a statute of Jersey’s most famous golfer’s son.
A Windows Media video bringing the story of Harry Vardon’s early years to life with old and new images of Harry Vardon’s birthplace is available on The Printed Word Jersey