WIMBLEDON TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS : Ever So Carefully, He Watches Grass Grow

Jim Thorn is an artist whose medium is the rich English soil. For the last 37 years he has been growing grass, beautiful grass, nearly perfect grass.

Jim grows the 18 lovely rectangular lawns of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. He is the artist who paints the backdrop for Wimbledon.

But even for so respected an artist there are indignities to be endured. From tennis players, and from foxes.

“We do have one inherent problem,” Thorn says. “Foxes. Urban foxes. They’ll come onto the grounds at night and urinate on the court. It burns the grass.”

Other than shooing them away, nothing can be done about the intruders, since the fox is a protected species. So is the tennis player. Protected and pampered. Often the players are not much kinder to the Wimbledon lawns than are the foxes.

This year there will be more grumbling than usual, complaints that the courts are too slow. The English skies have been raining steadily in recent weeks, ignoring Jim Thorn’s prayers. In the 110 years of Wimbledon, the courts have never been greener, never lovelier. And never slower.

Jim Thorn is sitting alongside one of his courts Saturday afternoon, basking in a rare spot of sunshine. Two Wimbledon entrants are practicing. One of the women looks over at Jim, makes a face and says, “The courts are too slow.”

His artistry under attack, Thorn smiles.

“It’ll give you time to think, won’t it?” he says cheerily.

Wimbledon is the last stand for grass in the tennis world. Of the major tournaments, only this one is contested on God’s natural surface. The U.S. Open abandoned grass years ago, and now the Australian Open has announced a switch to synthetic courts.

Players complain that grass, by slowing the ball, strips the game of finesse, takes away the base-line game and turns the sport over to the serve-and-volley monsters. Only the strong--the Beckers and the Navratilovas--survive. Critics deride lawn tennis as a home-run derby.

Grass courts are almost as outmoded and anacronistic in our modern time as cobblestone streets. Wimbledon, in a very British way, ignores the criticism. Major Walter Clopton Wingfield introduced the sport of lawn tennis here at Wimbledon in 1874, and lawn tennis it shall remain.

Being the last of a dying breed, Wimbledon now more than ever sees itself as the ultimate test of tennis.

“I think it’s beautiful,” Jim Thorn says. “That’s what makes it (the tournament) exciting, is the grass. Anything can happen. If you have a uniform surface worldwide, it would get monotonous and boring.

“I hear the criticism. Ivan Lendl says the grass is only fit for cows. He still comes to play. They all come to play. If they can’t cope with it, they are not the top professionals I expect them to be, they’re only doing themselves a disservice.”

Thorn is a slight man, in his 60s. He always wears a tweed cap, always carries a walkie-talkie, and always goes by Jim (“James sounds like a chauffeur, don’t you think?”).

In his 37 years in grass, he has overseen golf courses, bowling greens, cricket fields. For the last five years he has been the man in charge of Wimbledon’s lawns, year ‘round. He lives in a two-story brick house on the club grounds. Late in the evenings and early in the mornings he walks the grounds, checking on his 18 tournament courts and his 14 grass practice courts.

When Thorn came to Wimbledon, the lawns were slipping. He didn’t need the job, he was getting on in years, but the challenge was issued: “You always say how good you are,” the club officials told Thorn. “Go and do it.”

He has brought the Wimbledon lawns back to life. I ask him about pride in his work.

“Pride?” he says. “Oh, yes, my word, that’s what it’s all about. That’s my life’s work out there.”

Is his the finest grass in the world?

“Oh yes, without a doubt,” he says. “We can’t afford not to be. I’d look a right Charlie if anyone had better courts. My friends at Eastport and Queen’s always maintain theirs are better, but I know that’s nonsense.

“We have more resources available to us, more equipment, more staff, more money. I’d be a right idiot if I couldn’t get it better than anyone else.”

Jim Thorn’s grass is almost sacred. Each court is mowed daily by members of his crew, to the exact height of one-quarter inch. The clippings are fine as sawdust. By the end of the Wimbledon fortnight, during which the courts are allowed to dry out and speed up, the daily clippings will be like green dust.

On the Friday before the tournament started, though it was raining and the main stadium was deserted except for a few workers, Centre Court and Court No. 1 were guarded by uniformed security officers, standing at a dignified parade rest.

I happened to witness the changing of the guard. Not as dramatic as the scene at Buckingham Palace, but no less important.

“Bloody boring,” muttered the officer being relieved of his watch. “Like watching grass grow.”

To Jim Thorn, nothing could be less boring than watching grass grow. He watches the grass grow, and he watches the heavens.

“I desperately need sunshine,” he says, eyeing dark clouds on the horizon.

In tending the grass, Thorn relies on a combination of intuition and science.

“The player demands are so high now,” he says, “it has become very technical. I’ve got to use special instruments, to measure the moisture content and so forth. A lot of the natural art is going out of the work. Occasionally, though, you can still go out and work your art. I can change the color, the texture of the grass, the texture of the soil.

“After 37 years you build up an affinity with grass.”

But not necessarily with the sport.

“I don’t particularly like tennis,” Thorn says. “I know the sport, I know what they’re doing, but I can’t find a particular interest in it. I don’t think I should become interested in the game itself. I would lose my target. I’ve got to concentrate on the grass.

“Now golf, I could play golf every day. I think everyone should play golf.”

Not in weather like this. Late Saturday afternoon, rain poured down in buckets. Jim Thorn’s tennis courts grew lovelier and slower.