Reginald Arthur Whitcombe (professional golfer), 1898 – 1957

The Storm and the Champion

On the morning of 8 July 1938, the weather at Royal St George’s Golf Club in Sandwich, Kent turned savage. What had been two days of calm, sunny conditions suddenly gave way to gale-force winds of a ferocity rarely witnessed at a major championship. The huge Exhibition Tent — the largest ever erected at The Open — was ripped apart. Debris was scattered across the course and carried as far as the clubhouse at Prince’s Golf Club, almost a mile away. Balls were blown off greens. Players lost control of their clubs mid-swing. Of the entire field, only three golfers completed the final 36 holes without posting a single score of 80 or above.

One of them was Reginald Arthur Whitcombe.

When the wreckage was counted, Reg had won The Open Championship by two strokes from Jimmy Adams, and three clear of the defending champion Henry Cotton. His rounds of 75 and 78 in conditions of near-impossible severity were, in the judgement of his fellow professionals, among the most composed performances the game had ever seen.

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Early Life & Origins

It was the moment the youngest Whitcombe brother stepped fully out of his brothers’ shadows — and onto the highest stage in golf.

Reginald Arthur Whitcombe was born on 10 April 1898 in Burnham-on-Sea, Somerset — the third and youngest of three brothers, all born in the same cottage beside the church at Berrow, in the shadow of Burnham & Berrow Golf Club. The story of how the family came to golf, and how their mother Bessie’s decisive move to Came Down Golf Club in Dorset shaped all three of their careers, is told in the Hall of Fame entry for eldest brother Ernest. But for Reg, the youngest, the circumstances of that move carried a particular weight.

By the early 1920s, Reg was winning regional tournaments and establishing himself as a force in the professional game. In 1928, he was appointed professional at Parkstone Golf Club in Poole, Dorset — a position he would hold until his death in 1957, nearly thirty years of service to a single club. His Open Championship medal from 1938 still sits in the Parkstone clubhouse today.

When Ernest was appointed professional at Came Down in 1910 and Bessie accepted the role of stewardess, Reg was just twelve years old. He arrived in Dorset as a boy and grew into a golfer under Ernest’s eye, apprenticed to his elder brother in the professional’s shop. The routine was simple and relentless: up early every morning, one club each, practising until the shots were grooved. It was a discipline that produced three of the finest professionals England has ever seen — and it was Bessie who made it possible, who held the household together and created the conditions for all three boys to flourish.

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A Boy Soldier

When World War II broke out in 1914, Reg Whitcombe was sixteen years old. He enlisted anyway, lying about his age — claiming he was nineteen — to serve in the 4th Battalion of the Dorset Regiment. He never made it overseas. Diagnosed with a heart condition during his service, Reg was discharged as a lance corporal and sent home, classified unfit for combat.

It is one of the great ironies of his story: the man who would later be celebrated for his physical composure under the most extreme conditions, who would win a major championship in a storm while others fell apart around him, was judged too fragile for war. He spent the remainder of the conflict back at Came Down, minding the professional’s shop while Ernest served with the Royal Field Artillery on the Western Front.

The heart condition never went away. In later life, Reg’s fitness regime became something of a talking point among his contemporaries. Authors Tom Scott and Geoffrey Cousins, writing in 1961, recalled him saying that he owed his longevity in the sport to the advice of a Bournemouth doctor who had placed him on a careful programme of exercise and diet. He managed the condition. He managed his game around it. And he kept competing at the top level of professional golf into his early fifties.

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Key Achievements

Reg’s rise to the top of the professional game was slower than either of his brothers. It was not until his mid-thirties — when most professional careers are beginning their decline — that he truly announced himself on the national stage. What followed was a concentrated burst of excellence that culminated in one of the most memorable Open Championship victories of the twentieth century.

The West of England Professional Championship — Seven Times

Before the national stage called, Reg dominated his region. He won the West of England Professional Championship seven times across his career: in 1922, 1931, 1933, 1934, 1938, 1948 and 1950. Seven victories spanning twenty-eight years. It is a record that speaks not just to talent but to extraordinary durability — a man still winning regional championships at fifty-two, having first won them at twenty-four.

The Irish Open, 1936

In 1936, Reg won the Irish Open at Royal Dublin — the third Whitcombe brother to win that title, following Ernest in 1928 and Charles in 1930. Three brothers, three Irish Open victories, across eight years. It remains one of the most remarkable family records in the history of golf.

Runner-up, The Open Championship, 1937 — Carnoustie

In 1937, Reg led The Open Championship at Carnoustie through three rounds. Playing in cold, driving rain on the final day, he held a two-stroke advantage going into the back nine. Then, on the seventh tee, the rain-slicked grip gave way — his club slipped as he swung, the ball travelled forty yards, and he took a six. That one moment of misfortune unravelled his lead. Henry Cotton, composed and relentless, finished two strokes clear.

Reg came second. He had led a major championship going into the final round and been beaten by the elements and a single loss of control. It was a painful near-miss — but it was also, in retrospect, the education that made 1938 possible.

The Open Championship, 1938 — Royal St George’s, Sandwich

This is Reg Whitcombe’s defining moment, and it deserves to be understood in full.

The 73rd Open Championship had not even begun without drama. The original venue, Royal Cinque Ports at Deal, had been devastated by abnormally high tides that February — flooded to such an extent that it resembled, in one account, an inland sea. The championship was moved at short notice to Royal St George’s.

The first two days unfolded in sunshine. Reg opened with rounds of 71 and 71, placing him two strokes behind the halfway leaders — Dick Burton, Jack Busson and Bill Cox sharing the lead at level par. Then the weather changed.

On the final day, with 36 holes still to play, gales rolled in off the Channel with a violence that transformed the course. The Exhibition Tent — the largest ever erected at The Open — was torn apart. Canvas and timber were carried across the fairways and scattered as far as Prince’s Golf Club, almost a mile away. On the 384-yard eleventh, the wind was so fierce that Alf Padgham, playing downwind, drove the green. On the fourteenth, Cyril Tolley watched a shot clear the water hazard known as the Suez Canal, only to be blown back into it.

In the third round, only nine players broke 80. In the fourth, only seven managed the same. The halfway leaders disintegrated: Burton shot 83 and 80; Busson posted 83 and 80; Cox went 84 and 80. The leaderboard was being rewritten not by brilliance, but by survival.

Reg Whitcombe survived. Despite four-putting the ninth in the third round and the first in the fourth, he posted 75 and 78 — the only player in the field alongside Jimmy Adams and Henry Cotton to complete the final day without a score of 80 or worse. His total of 295 was two clear of Adams and three clear of Cotton. Both brothers who had travelled to Sandwich — Charles finished tenth, Ernest nineteenth — watched the youngest Whitcombe lift the Claret Jug.

Fellow professionals, in the accounts that followed, were unequivocal: what Reg had done in those conditions was something exceptional. His ability to manage his game, control his emotions and make sound decisions under extreme duress was the mark of a champion. He was already forty years old.

The Ryder Cup, 1935

Reg made his only Ryder Cup appearance in 1935 at Ridgewood, New Jersey — the historic occasion when all three Whitcombe brothers played together for Great Britain. Charles captained the side; Ernest played in the foursomes, partnering Charles for the team’s only foursomes victory. Reg was not selected for the foursomes but played in the singles, taking Johnny Revolta to the final holes before a late run of bogeys ended his hopes.

He was named in the Ryder Cup squad again for 1939. The competition was cancelled when war was declared.

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The Book, the Medal and the Legacy

In 1938, the same year he won The Open, Reg published an instructional book: Golf’s No Mystery! It was typical of the man — practical, unpretentious, the product of someone who had thought deeply about the game rather than someone who merely played it. The book stands as evidence that Reg’s understanding of golf extended well beyond instinct.

He continued as professional at Parkstone until his death on 11 January 1957, aged fifty-eight — the youngest of the three brothers to die, and by many years the first. His Open Championship medal from Sandwich remains at Parkstone to this day, kept in the clubhouse of the club he served for nearly three decades. He was succeeded there by Peter Alliss, who went on to become one of the great voices of the game.

Behind the whole story — behind Came Down, behind the morning practice sessions, behind the apprenticeship in the professional’s shop — was Bessie Whitcombe. The mother who brought her boys to Dorset, who kept the household at Came Down running while Ernest was at war and Charles was finding his feet, who created the environment in which a twelve-year-old Reg learned what it meant to be a professional golfer. The Claret Jug that Reg lifted at Sandwich in 1938 had its origins, in ways that are easy to overlook, in the decisions of a woman who moved her family to a hillside golf course in Dorset decades before.

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Why This Matters Today

Reg Whitcombe’s story is about late flowering and quiet persistence. He spent years being the third brother — the youngest, the one who hadn’t yet quite matched what Ernest and Charles had achieved. He was passed over for the Ryder Cup team until his mid-thirties. He led The Open in 1937 and lost. And then, in 1938, in conditions that destroyed everyone around him, he stood firm and became a champion.

There is something in that for anyone who has ever felt like they are running slightly behind where they ought to be. The Claret Jug came to Reg Whitcombe at forty years old, in a storm, on a course that wasn’t even supposed to host the championship that year.

Sometimes the right moment arrives late. And sometimes it arrives in the worst possible weather.

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Reginald Arthur Whitcombe is the third of three brothers inducted into the Whitcombe Hall of Fame as part of our founding golf trilogy. Read also: [Ernest Robert Whitcombe, 1890–1971] and [Charles Albert Whitcombe, 1895–1978].

Sources include: Wikipedia; The Open Championship official records and player profiles; 1938 Open Championship records; Came Down Golf Club historical archives; Golf Compendium; Where2Golf; Parkstone Golf Club; Peter Fry, The Whitcombes: A Golfing Legend (Grant Books, 1994); Tom Scott & Geoffrey Cousins, Golf Begins at 45 (1961).