Golf

Golf in America is younger than most people think. The game had been played in Scotland for centuries, but it did not take root here until the late 1880s.

A group of men laid out a few holes in a pasture in Yonkers, New York, in 1888 and called themselves the St. Andrew's Golf Club, after the Scottish home of the game. Within a decade courses were going up all over the Northeast, and the United States Golf Association was formed in 1894 to settle the rules and run championships. Much of the early game was played by people who belonged to country clubs, and the photographs reflect that.

The equipment changed fast. Golfers of the 1880s played a solid ball made of gutta-percha, a hard tree gum. Around 1900 the rubber-cored ball arrived, and it flew so much farther that courses had to be lengthened. Clubs were still made with wooden shafts, usually hickory, and they had names instead of numbers, such as mashie and niblick.

The turning point for American golf came in 1913, when a 20-year-old amateur named Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts. He had grown up across the street from the course and learned the game as a caddie. He beat 2 of the best British professionals in a playoff, and the story put golf on the front pages for ordinary readers.

Look at the clothing in these pictures. Men played in jackets, ties and knickers, and women played in long skirts and hats well into the 1910s. Look at the caddies too, often young boys carrying a loose canvas bag. Look at the courses as well. Many of them were rough and open, with sheep or cows still keeping the grass down, a long way from the manicured greens of today.