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Charles B. Macdonald
Charles Blair Macdonald was perhaps the single most important person in the development of golf in the United States. Yet his forceful personality often overshadows the significant contributions he made to the game he loved so much. Macdonald was, among other things, the inaugural U.S. Amateur champion, founding Vice-President of the USGA and, not inauspiciously, "Father of Golf Architecture."
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Macdonald exhibits the technique that earned him the title of inaugural U.S. Amateur Champion in 1895. Macdonald had criticized the veracity of two events purporting to be national championships held in 1894 (not coincidentally, Macdonald was the runner-up both times). It was this criticism that led, in part, to the creation of the United States Golf Association in December 1894.
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Charles Blair Macdonald first learned the game of golf in St. Andrews in the 1870s. Under the tutelage of Old Tom Morris, Macdonald developed a passion for what he believed to be the true spirit of the game. Macdonald was one of the foremost early proponents of the game in the United States. Competitors at the 1899 U.S. Amateur championship at Onwentsia (Ill.) Club are (pictured left to right) Walter J. Travis, Macdonald, Findlay S. Douglas and Herbert Harriman.
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Macdonald made frequent trips back to St. Andrews and other legendary courses throughout the British Isles. It was from these trips in the first decade of the 1900s that Macdonald came up with the idea to take the very best of links architecture and import it to the United States. At his National Golf Links of America, Macdonald fashioned holes after the famous Redan hole at North Berwick, Scotland, and the Alps hole at Prestwick, Scotland, among others. Here he is pictured on the right with Mr. and Mrs. Henry M. Atkinson from a voyage in 1931.
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Macdonald's greatest creation, and the one closest to his heart, was the National Golf Links of America in Southampton, Long Island, N.Y. The National hosted the inaugural Walker Cup Match between the United States of America and Great Britain and Ireland in 1922. The victorious home team featured such greats as Bob Jones, Francis Ouimet and Chick Evans. This photograph of Macdonald is from that event.
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Known as much for his off-course proselytizing as his on-course exploits, Macdonald is shown here bending the ear of Edmund H. Driggs, Jr. at Mid-Ocean Club in 1924. When, as a younger man, he returned from St. Andrews to find no golf being played in America, Macdonald often referred to these as the "Dark Years." His passion for the game and for sharing it with others was evident.
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Another of Macdonald's legendary designs is the Mid-Ocean Club in Bermuda. Its fifth hole, known as "Cape," stands as the archetype for the genre. Macdonald is pictured here at Mid-Ocean in 1932 during his later years. He died in 1939.
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Whether he is remembered as the "Father of Golf Architecture," the inaugural U.S. Amateur Champion, or the founding vice-president of the United States Golf Association, Charles Blair Macdonald's influence is felt throughout the game he learned as a boy in St. Andrews and promoted so vigorously at home in America.
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