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Founding USGA Member Shinnecock Hills Has Carved Place In Golf
James Foulis won the first U.S. Open played at Shinnecock in 1896. (USGA Photo Archives)
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By David Shefter, USGA
Far Hills, N.J. -- Just by being one of the USGA's original clubs puts Shinnecock Hills Golf Club in a special place in American golf history. In December of 1894, the Southampton, N.Y., club joined four other clubs - St. Andrews, The Country Club, Newport Country Club and Chicago Golf Club - as the first five members of the fledgling USGA.
But over the past 100-plus years, this club on the eastern end of Long Island has become known for much more than a founding member of the USGA.
It has hosted seven USGA championships and one Walker Cup. Two of its members (Lucy Barnes and Beatrix Hoyt) were the first two champions of the U.S. Women's Amateur. Some of its early members included J. Frederic Byers, who in 1922 became president of the USGA and was the first American to become a member of the Oxford and Cambridge Golfing Society, and Eben Byers, winner of the 1906 U.S. Amateur.
And the golf course consistently ranks as not only one of the best in America, but as one of the finest in the world.
Back in 1896 when Shinnecock hosted the second U.S. Amateur and U.S. Open (they were held back to back), the course only played 4,400 yards. Still, considering the technology of that era and the relative infancy of the game in the U.S., the layout was plenty challenging.
H.J. Whigman, a Scot who happened to be a solid player and the son-in-law of 1895 U.S. Amateur champion and noted golf architect Charles Blair Macdonald, was the qualifying stroke-play medalist for the U.S. Amateur with a 36-hole total of 163. His second-round 77 was considered at the time to be a sensational round of golf.
That championship was the first to conduct 36 holes of qualifying to pluck out the top 16 competitors for match play. The feeling was by having qualifying, it would eliminate some of the lesser-skilled participants. The event drew 58 entrants, an upgrade from the 32 who competed the previous October. Whigham went on to win the championship, beating upstart J.G. Thorp, 8 and 7, in the final. Thorp had upset Macdonald in the first round, but the defending champion had been ill that week.
A day after the Amateur final, the Open took center stage. Before the championship started, however, there was some controversy. Twenty-one-year-olds John Shippen and Oscar Bunn (a Shinnecock Indian), both of whom had honed their skills under the tutelage of Shinnecock pro Willie Dunn (he had since left the club for the head job at Ardsley Country Club where he had designed the course), were entered in the field.
Shippen's father, a Presbyterian minister and school teacher of African-American ancestry, had married a Shinnecock Indian. The younger Shippen had married a Shinnecock Indian, while Bunn had been a caddie at the club.
Shinnecock Hills clubhouse circa 1900. (Hal B. Fullerton Collection/Suffolk County Historical Society)
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Other contestants balked at participating if these two "minorities" were allowed into the field. USGA President Theodore Havemeyer quickly responded to the situation, saying that the competition would go on, even if Bunn and Shippen, who were given a chance to win the championship, were the only two players in the field. That would not be the case as a total of 28 players -- 17 more than the previous year -- played. The only one who failed to show was Britain's Willie Park, whose boat from England arrived a day too late.
Unfortunately for Bunn, his opening-round 89 took him out of contention in the one-day, 36-hole competition. Shippen, however, finished in a tie for fifth, posting rounds of 78-81 to place seven strokes off the pace of winner James Foulis (152), whose impressive second-round 74 gave him the title by three strokes over defending champion Horace Rawlins.
R.B. Wilson, Shinnecock's head professional, shot 82-80 to finish in ninth place, 10 strokes behind the winner. Dunn, the club's former professional, struggled to an uncharacteristic 87 in the second round for a 36-hole total of 165.
Following the championship, the members realized that if Shinnecock was going to be considered a true test for elite competitors, the layout needed to be revised. So it began a practice that has become quite familiar today - renovating the course to toughen it for the game's elite players. The members felt at least two holes needed to be at least 500 yards, several more needed to be between 300 and 400 yards and the course required a couple of short holes. Natural hazards were preferred over artificial ones. Better turf needed to be planted and bunkers should be of sufficient size and depth to catch errant shots.
By 1897, those alterations had been made to the course, just in time for Shinnecock to entertain the 1900 U.S. Women's Amateur. Incidentally, the USGA would go back four more times (1967 Senior Amateur; 1977 Walker Cup Match; 1986, 1995 U.S. Open).
Part II: Hoyt Catalyst In 1896 Women's Amateur Going To Shinnecock
Part III: Nation's Top Seniors Invade Southhampton
E-mail address: mediarelations@usga.org
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