History

Robert Skene

When Great Britain challenged the United States for the Westchester Cup in 1939, there was a great effort put into scouring the British Empire for the top players it could produce. The search was responsible for finding Australian Bob Skene.

Charles Robertson (Bob) Skene was born was born in Assam, India, May 26, 1914, to an Australian tea planter. His father, Curtis Skene, distinguished himself in polo, attaining an 8-goal handicap in 1929. Bob was sent to school in England only to rejoin his family at their new home in Australia. He began his playing career in 1931 in country club polo in Australia with family and friends. By the age of 18, he was rated at 2-goals, and attained a 7-goal rating by 1937.

Following the British team’s trial matches in California in 1939, Skene was selected to play the Number 1 position and turned an outstanding performance in the matches at the Meadow Brook team. Later that year he played on a multi-national League of Nations team that won the National 20-Goal, and played on Jock Whitney’s Greentree team with Tommy Hitchcock, Jr., and J. P. Grace, Jr. That Greentree team was a 1939 US Open finalist and won the Monty Waterbury. His aggressive play earned him a 9-goal handicap, and he was credited for his accurate and disciplined style of play.

His participation in the game was interrupted by World War II, when he joined the Indian Army and became an officer. He volunteered to serve with the revered Gurkhas (the only polo playing regiment in the Indian Army). In February of 1942 he was captured by the Japanese and held as a Prisoner of War in Malaya for three-and-one-half years.

Polo recovered slowly after the war, but in 1949 Skene was invited by Lord Cowdray to play for Great Britain against Argentina and Chile. Having not played in ten years, he was given a temporary handicap of 6-goals, but was elevated to 9-goals again after only thirty days.

He moved to the United States in 1950, settling in Los Angeles, where he played at and managed the Beverly Hills Polo Club. At the end of the 1950 polo season he was raised to 10-goals, a handicap he held for seventeen consecutive years.

Bob Skene went on to win two Argentine Open Championships, three US Open Championships the Monty Waterbury again and multiple Pacific Coast Opens.

For years he served as the manager and mentor of the Santa Barbara Polo Club, where a 20-goal tournament continues to be played in his honor.