Hardcover
170 pages

$75.00 plus $15.65 postage within Australia

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Contents

From fundamental beginnings at Adelaide Golf Club’s Glenelg links in the 1890s, Florence Fowler (née Ayers) became a South Australian golfing pioneer. As a teenager, she learned to play the game alongside her father, uncle, brothers and sisters, who were also members of the fledgling club. Florence won five South Australian Women’s Amateur Golf Championships between 1906 and 1922 and was a three-time runner-up in the Australian Women’s Amateur Golf Championship. Competing in regional and national championships in the United Kingdom from 1907 onwards, Florence was also a trailblazer and mentor for the following generation of Australian international women golfers. Concluding an outstanding thirty-year-long career, Florence reached her personal golfing pinnacle by winning the 1931 Italian Ladies’ Open Championship at the remarkable age of 54. This book illuminates Florence’s scrapbook of her 1907–09 trip to the United Kingdom. Contained within are images and artefacts of her travels, including several previously unpublished photographs of Old Tom Morris and also a pair of original sketches Florence made from life of the ‘colossus of golf’.

Foreword by Gillian Kirkwood

The contribution that women have made to golf has often been overlooked in the history of the game. Very few women have written golf books, or taken photographs, or drawn pictures of their own experiences. Florence Fowler rather broke the mould in the early part of the last century, when she documented her travels to Europe and the United Kingdom with photographs, drawings and ephemera, pasted into scrapbooks to record her memories.

We are so lucky that Florence’s niece, Elizabeth Mann, donated Florence’s many scrapbooks and art work to the Royal Adelaide Golf Club, and that Marjorie Ridgway and now Andrew Baker have researched and documented her life in the first half of the 20th Century. Andrew’s first book was a comprehensive biography of Florence’s life. This book fills a gap between 1907 and 1909 when, as Miss Florence Ayers, she travelled to the United Kingdom, played golf, married Maxwell Fowler and played more golf, before returning to Australia in 1909. The second half of the book contains a veritable Who’s-Who of golfers that she captured with her caricaturing skills.

Florence lived a privileged life as the daughter of a well-to-do Adelaide family, and then as the wife of a British naval officer, and was able to attend many iconic golfing events and venues. The photographs of her visit to St Andrews during the Autumn Meeting in 1907 are very revealing. Previously unknown images of Tom Morris are a delight, and the crowds watching the play would put present day spectators to shame. The experience of playing at St Andrews, Royal Portrush, Royal Cinque Ports and Royal Birkdale would have refined her golfing skills, and the tournaments she played in would have honed her competitive edge.

Her pen, pencil, crayons and water-colours captured the personalities of the time. In 1935 the Ladies Golf Union sent a touring team to Australia, where they played fourteen courses in five states, including Kooyonga, Adelaide in August. The touring team, which included Pat Walker, Jessie Anderson, Yosbel Greenlees, Phyllis Wade and 18-year-old Pam Barton with manager Mrs Hodson were warmly welcomed by members of the Royal Adelaide Golf Club on two occasions during their tour, but unfortunately they could not play on the course because there was a Men’s Championship in progress. I like to think that the striking image of a very cheerful Pam Barton (Page 93) was drawn during that time. Pam tragically died in a war-time air accident in 1943 at the age of 26. In her short life she won the French, two British and one American Amateur Championships, and she was much loved by all who knew her.

Once again Andrew Baker has brought Florence Fowler to life with an entertaining account of her exploits, and I commend this book to you as an example of what life was like for the privileged Australian golfer in the early part of the 20th Century.

Gillian Kirkwood, June 2025

Past (and last) President of the Ladies Golf Union
Chairman of Trustees of the Women Golfers Museum
Director of The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews Trust (World Golf Museum)

About Gillian Kirkwood

Gillian Kirkwood is a past Ladies Golf Union (LGU) Councilor and past Scottish Ladies’ Golfing Association Chairman. She is also a highly experienced rules official. Reflecting her keen interest in the history of ladies’ golf, Gillian chaired the Board of Trustees of the Women Golfers’ Museum. Mrs Kirkwood was appointed president of the LGU during its merger with the R&A in 2017. She owns and operates the Heritage of Golf Museum with her husband, David, in the pro shop of Gullane Golf Club in East Lothian.