The Departments of Environment and Health Golf Society

There have been three sagas in golfing history of amazing recoveries from apparently hopeless physical handicaps and subsequent championship triumphs - by Ben Hogan, Jimmy Walker and Dr. J.D. MacCormack, who died last Saturday at the age of 82. Hogan, left for dead on the road after a motor smash in 1949, and sustaining multiple injuries, fought his way back to health to win three American Opens, two of them after the accident, as well as many other tournaments. His courage was brought home to millions by the film of his life, "Follow the Sun".

Walker, the Scottish amateur chosen for the Walker Cup team in 1959, also was involved in a car smash which cost him his kneecap and made it improbable that he would ever walk properly again, much less play any game. He, too, gritted his teeth and positively forced himself to recover. Within a year he was back on the course and not only regained his Walker Cup place in 1961 but won the Scottish championship that year for the one and only time.

In some respects, however, MacCormack's experiences, although the least publicised, were the most remarkable of the three. During the first war, when serving in the R.A.M.C. he was not only severely wounded but badly shell-shocked as well. Brought to hospital in 1916, his prospects of living were regarded as slight. Live he did but he was paralysed from the waist down and in that condition he remained for almost six years.

His desire to come back to the game he loved burned with an intensity as fierce as that in the minds of Hogan and Walker many years later, and in 1922 he went to a physician in London who had outstanding successes with similar cases. Slowly, painfully but progressively J.D. MacCormack learned to walk again but the hopes of actually playing golf seemed as remote as ever - yet within eight months of his return to Dublin, J.D. won his first championship, the Irish Close, in June of 1923 - an achievement as near miraculous as anything in the history of sport.

Wearing a steel corset lined with rubber to support muscles weakened by years of non-use, he set about regaining the power and rhythm of his swing with fanatical determination. He overcame intense pain and fatigue in the process but his spirit never wavered and never was a triumph more complete than when he beat Louis Werner, nine years his junior, in the 36 holes final at Milltown. After all that, the record of his major achievements makes fantastic reading - Irish Close Championship - 1923, 24, 25; Tailteann National and International champion - 1924; Irish Amateur Open championship - runner-up 1924; Amateur Championship - quarter-finalist 1924, semi-finalist 1931; leading amateur, Open Championship of Ireland 1932; Internationals - 1924, 27, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37; Captain of Irish international team - 1934, 35, 36, 37. The term miracle is not an overstatement about this particular golfing career.

Note: The MacCormack Cup for which we play was won by J.D. MacCormack for the best gross score at an outing of the Department of Local Government & Public Health in 1926 and was presented to the Golfing Society by his widow following his death. It was first played for in 1974.