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- Johnny McDermott signals the end of dominance by Scottish-born
professionals in early American golf by becoming the first native
to win the U.S. Open. At 19, he's also the youngest winner ever.
- Englishman Harold Hilton is the first player to win the British
and U.S. Amateur in the same year.
- The USGA increased yardage for determining par:
Three — up to 225 yards
Four — 225 to 425 yards
Five — 426 to 600 yards
Six — 601 yards and over
- John Ball wins his eighth British Amateur championship —
still a record number of victories in a major event.
- The USGA introduces a handicap limit of six on entrants for
the U.S. Amateur.
- Twenty-year-old American amateur Francis Ouimet stages the
game's biggest upset, beating English stars Harry Vardon and
Ted Ray in a playoff to win the U.S. Open at The Country Club
in Brookline, Mass. The resultant headlines spark a surge of
interest in the game in America.
- Jerry Travers wins his fourth U.S. Amateur.
- Harry Vardon wins his sixth British Open, one more than each
of the other two members of the "Great Triumvirate," J.H. Taylor
and James Braid.
- Walter Hagen, a stylish 21-year-old professional, wins the
first of his two U. S. Open titles, leading after every round.
- Francis Ouimet becomes the first with career U.S. Open and
Amateur titles, beating Jerry Travers in the final of the U.S.
Amateur.
- Jerry Travers adds the U.S. Open to his four U.S. Amateur
crowns, then retires at age 28.
- All British and Canadian championships are suspended because
of World War I. They resume in Canada in 1919 and Britain in
1920.
- The amateur run on the U.S. Open continues. Chick Evans is
the third amateur to win in four years, shooting a record 286.
He is also the first to capture the U.S. Open and Amateur titles
in the same year.
- Fourteen-year-old Bobby Jones makes his U.S. Amateur debut,
reaching the quarterfinals at Merion Cricket Club.
- The Professional Golfers' Association of America is formed
in January. In October, Jim Barnes wins the first PGA Championship,
taking the $500 first prize.
- The USGA championships (U.S. Open, U.S. Amateur, U.S. Women's
Amateur) and the PGA Championship are suspended in 1917 and
1918 because of World War I.
- Bobby Jones, 15, wins the Southern Amateur.
- Par yardage is again changed:
Three — up to 250 yards
Four — 251 to 445 yards
Five — 446 to 600 yards
Six — more than 600 yards
- George Crump, founder and designer of Pine Valley Golf Club,
dies; only 14 holes of the New Jersey course have been completed.
The remaining holes open within a few years.
- Among the fund-raising tours by professional and amateur golfers
for the war effort, the Dixie Kids -- featuring Atlanta teenagers
Perry Adair, Watts Gunn, Bobby Jones and Alexa Stirling -- raise
$150,000 for the Red Cross.
- Pebble Beach Golf Links opens on California's Monterey Peninsula.
- The first golf book to use high-speed sequence photography
— Picture Analysis of Golf Strokes, by Jim Barnes
— is published.
- Harry Vardon, 50, competing in his third U.S. Open, plays
the last seven holes in even fives to finish second, one stroke
behind his English countryman, 43-year-old Ted Ray. Ray becomes
the oldest man to win the Open (a record that will stand until
1963).
- Alexa Stirling wins her third consecutive Women's Amateur
(1916, 1919, 1920 -- the championship wasn't held in 1917 and
1918).
- The USGA creates the Green Section for turfgrass research.
- The USGA and R&A agree to a standard ball — 1.62 inches
in diameter and 1.62 ounces.
- Jim Barnes romps to a nine-stroke win in the U.S. Open and
President Warren Harding, a USGA Executive Committee member,
presents the trophy at Columbia Country Club near Washington,
D.C.
- Jock Hutchison wins the British Open using deep-grooved irons;
they were banned four years later.
- A Cinderella story: 20-year-old Gene Sarazen, a sixth-grade
dropout from a working-class family, wins the U.S. Open and
PGA Championship.
- An admission fee ($1) is charged for the first time at the
U.S. Open.
- Walter Hagen becomes the first American-born player to win
the British Open.
- Intended for all interested countries, the first Walker Cup
match between amateurs from the United States and Great Britain
(the only taker) is held at National Golf Links of America in
Southampton, N.Y. The United States wins.
- Public-course golfers get their own tournament — the
USGA's Amateur Public Links Championship.
- Glenna Collett wins her first of six U.S. Women's Amateur
titles.
- Walter Hagen is the first professional to found a golf equipment
company under his name.
- Winged Foot Golf Club opens, with 36 holes designed by A.W.
Tillinghast. Designers like Tillinghast, Alister MacKenzie and
Donald Ross make the 1920's the Golden Age of golf architecture.
- After several near-misses in the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur,
Bobby Jones, 21, claims his first major title by beating Bobby
Cruickshank in a playoff for the U.S. Open.
- The Texas Open, in its second year, has golf's biggest purse
yet — $6,000. Walter Hagen wins. The tournament is part
of a growing winter circuit for the professionals.
- Gene Sarazen beats Walter Hagen in a classic 38-hole final
at the PGA Championship when a tree stops Sarazen's ball from
going out of bounds on the deciding hole.
- Steel-shafted clubs are permitted in the United States by
the USGA as of April 11; the R&A continues to ban their use
in Great Britain until 1929.
- Bobby Jones wins the first of his five U.S. Amateur titles,
at Merion Cricket Club in Ardmore, Pa.
- Walter Hagen's unmatched reign begins in the PGA Championship
— he wins the first of four consecutive titles.
- The USGA introduces sectional qualifying rounds for the U.S.
Open.
- Willie Macfarlane shoots a record 67 in the second round of
the U.S. Open and goes on to defeat Bobby Jones in a playoff.
- The first complete fairway irrigation system is installed
at Brook Hollow Golf Club in Dallas, Texas.
- The Havemeyer Trophy, which goes to the U.S. Amateur champion,
is destroyed in a fire at Bobby Jones' home club, East Lake,
in Atlanta.
- Bobby Jones is the first to win the U.S. and British Opens
in the same year.
- Walter Hagen beats Leo Diegel in the final of the PGA Championship.
The night before, when a carousing Hagen is told his opponent
had long since gone to bed, he replies, "Yes, but he isn't sleeping."
- Walter Hagen wallops Bobby Jones, 12 and 11, in a 72-hole
challenge match billed as the "World Championship."
- Jess Sweetser is the first American to win the British Amateur
since Walter Travis in 1904 — and the first United States
native ever.
- Walter Hagen wins his fourth consecutive PGA Championship.
- The United State Department of Agriculture says it has developed
"the perfect putting green grass" -- creeping bent.
- Bobby Jones wins the British Open and U.S. Amateur, and publishes
Down the Fairway.
- The United States whips Great Britain 9-1/2 to 2-1/2, in the
inaugural Ryder Cup match at Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts.
- Cypress Point Golf Club opens in Pebble Beach, Calif.
- Walter Hagen wins the British Open. He would take his final
title in the championship the following year at Muirfield.
- Bobby Jones and Glenna Collett continue to dominate amateur
golf. Jones wins the U.S. Amateur final by a 10 and 9 margin.
Collett claims the Women's Amateur, 13 and 12.
- Great Britain evens the fledgling Ryder Cup series by winning
on its home turf at Moortown, England.
- Twenty-year-old Horton Smith sweeps out of Missouri to win
eight professional tournaments, including four in a row in the
spring.
- The world's two best women amateurs meet in the British Ladies
Amateur. Great Britain's Joyce Wethered beats America's Glenna
Collett, 3 and 1, at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland,
claiming her fourth British title.
- The U.S. Amateur goes to the West Coast for the first time,
at Pebble Beach Golf Links. Bobby Jones is the victim of a first-round
upset.
- Bobby Jones wins the Grand Slam — the U.S. Open, U.S.
Amateur, British Open and British Amateur — then retires
at age 28.
- Glenna Collett wins her third consecutive U.S. Women's Amateur.
- The onset of the Depression brings a slowdown in golf-course
construction, which lasts through the end of World War II.
- Seventeen-year-old Ben Hogan registers as a professional at
the Texas Open.
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