Architects

Named after his father, Arthur Vernon Macan Jr. was born in Dublin. Macan Sr. graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a degree in medicine and learned all too quickly about surgery while on the battlefield serving in the Prussian Army as a field doctor.

“A.W. Tillinghast, known in his day as “Tillie the Terror”, was as outstanding golf architect, and also one of the most colorful characters in the history of golf,” wrote Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten in The Golf Course. “The only child of a wealthy Philadelphia couple, Tillinghast was a spoiled, pampered youth. He ran with a local gang of boys – called The Kelly Street Gang – who seemed bent on engaging in the most scandalous behaviour that could be attempted in the late 1890s.

Alex Russell was descended from the Russell family, who were farmers in the Kingdom of Fife during the 18th century, and he was the first child of Philip Russell and Mary Gray (“Cissie”) Guthrie. Both his parents were golfers at Geelong and Royal Melbourne golf clubs.

Alice Dye, born Alice Holliday O’Neal in Indianapolis, left Shortridge High School to study at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where she first met her future husband. She then graduated with a Batchelor of Science degree in Zoology in 1948 before marrying Pete Dye a couple of years later then moving back to her home city with him.

Educated at Queen Elizabeth Grammar School, Wakefield before commencing medical studies at Caius College, Cambridge in 1888, Alister MacKenzie graduated from university with a couple of degrees in 1897, by which time he was already working in his father’s general medical practice.

Allan Robertson was born in the Auld Grey Toon of St Andrews at a point in history when golf was beginning to captivate the imaginations of well-heeled gentlemen. Robertson was the pre-eminent club and feathery ball-maker of his time, inheriting his grandfather’s business from his father.

Archie Simpson was born to brick masons and weavers in Earlsferry in Fife in 1866. “Though the world of golf in general may have been but a small one in 1870,” wrote Bernard Darwin in James Braid’s biography, “Earlsferry was a very busy little golfing world on its own account… There were doubtless some who were fine golfers though little known outside their own parish, but there were other’s who carried the fame of Earlsferry far and wide, in particular the Simpson family, six brothers, headed by Jack and Archie.”

Arnold Palmer’s father Deacon was the head professional and green keeper at Latrobe Country Club in Pennsylvania so the young Arnie grew up in a golfing environment, helping his father about the club. He attended Wake Forest College in North Carolina but left in 1951 to enlist with the US Coast Guard, where he served for three years.

Arthur Hills started playing golf when he was seven. He lived just across the railroad tracks from Ottawa Park Golf Course – a municipal course built around 1900 where he could play golf for 26 cents before noon – in Toledo, Ohio.

Bernhard von Limburger learned the game of golf in Scotland as a young boy and joined the local Gaschwitz Golf Club near his hometown of Leipzig. ‘Limmy’, as he was nicknamed, soon became an excellent amateur golfer, winning the German Amateur Closed Championship three times between 1921 and 1925, and he went on to represent Germany thirty-five times in international golf competition.

Bob graduated from the University of Miami with a degree in Art in 1961 before serving with the military at Fort Richardson in Alaska. During his term of service, he earned a Masters in Fine Arts from the University of Alaska through an Army extension program then moved back to Miami with his wife and young family.

Bob Grimsdell left his native England when he was a teenager and travelled to South Africa. He joined the South African armed forces and was subsequently deployed to France during the First World War, holding a commission in the Royal Air Force until 1920. After hostilities ended he moved back to England, married, and became the professional at Chorley Golf Club in Lancashire.

Bob Harrison was educated at St Ignatius College in Sydney before graduating from the University of Sydney with a degree in Civil Engineering. His final year thesis was written about a golf-residential project for the Lend Lease Corporation and he spent more than a decade with that company on golf-residential work and commercial project management.

Brian Silva’s father, John Silva, was a feature shaper who was really handy operating a D4 bulldozer in the light construction business. Brian was only 8 or 9 when he was sitting on his dad’s lap while he worked on projects for architects like Geoff Cornish, George Fazio and Phil Wogan.

In 1872, aged sixteen, Charles Blair Macdonald sailed from Chicago across the Atlantic on a paddle steamer to live with his grandfather in St Andrews to study at the Auld Grey Toon’s University. He quickly became adept at the game of golf and within a year he played in matches with Old Tom Morris and his son Young Tom. His fond reminiscences are chronicled in his book, Scotland’s Gift – Golf.

Hugh Alison, as he was known to his friends, was educated in Worcestershire at Malvern College before going on to study history, law and divinity at New College, Oxford. He represented the university in the 1903 and 1904 Varsity matches and in the second of these contests, he famously pitched onto the 18th green at Woking from the clubhouse verandah roof.

Donald Steel wrote a story for the Sunday Telegraph with Ken Cotton, who subsequently became his senior partner. He was building two courses – St Pierre and Ross-on-Wye – in the early 1960s, so he went to both locations and wrote a piece about building new golf layouts, which he found absolutely fascinating.

Cecil Hutchison was educated at Eton College, Windsor, where he excelled at a number of sports. He played cricket for the school then went on to represent the Household Brigade and turn out occasionally for Marylebone Cricket Club between 1898 and 1904.

Cabell Robinson was born in Washington DC and grew up in the suburbs of Maryland. He attended the Episcopal High School in Alexandria, Virgina then enrolled at Princeton University, graduating with a degree in history. He went on to study landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, becoming friends with another student, Rees Jones.

Charles Redhead was born in Leicestershire and moved over several county boundaries to Lancashire before leaving England for the Emerald Isle prior to the outbreak of the First World War.

Bill Coore grew up in Davidson County, North Carolina, just thirty miles south of Winston-Salem, where he spent his college years playing golf at Old Town Club, the home course for Wake Forest. After graduating in 1968 he started his career in golf architecture working on course construction for Pete Dye in the South Atlantic region.

Dan Soutar was the second eldest in a large family of eleven so he was more or less forced to leave school early at the age of 12 to earn a wage and support his siblings. He caddied at Carnoustie then apprenticed at 14 as a cabinet-maker.

Born in Kansas City, Missouri, Dana was educated at the University of Arizona from 1980 to 1983, where he studied Business. Playing for the men’s golf team, he shot a course record 64 at Randolph Park Golf Course in Tucson then set another course record while home in Kansas City between semesters with a 62 at Minor Park Golf Course.

Dave Thomas was the son of William Thomas, a mining engineer from Aberdare who also played full back for Wales at rugby. Bill was relocated to run mining operations in the northeast of England and that’s where Dave was born – though there was never any doubt about which country he would represent at sport, given the chance.

David McLay Kidd was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, ten miles to the west of Glasgow city centre. His father, Jimmy Kidd, was a greenkeeper at Glasgow (Killermont) Golf Club, and as a child he’d listen with enthusiasm to his father’s ramblings about golf course maintenance, while as a teenager he’d earn pocket money raking bunkers for his dad. Jimmy later moved to the Gleneagles estate where he became Director of Golf Courses.

Devereux Emmet was born into a large family of ten children, nine of whom lived into adulthood. His father William Jenkins Emmet was a keen yachtsman and his mother Julia Colt Pierson was an illustrator and painter. His brothers all became prosperous businessmen and his three sisters were gifted artists.

In 1904, Louis Sibbett (”Dick”) Wilson was born into construction as the son of a golf course contractor, helping his father as a young man during the building of the West course at Merion Golf Club.

Donald James Ross was born in 1872 to Murdoch Ross, a stone mason by trade, and his wife Lillian Campbell. Their first child had died soon after birth that same year so Donald became the eldest in the family, followed in subsequent years by three brothers and two sisters.

Donald Steel grew up as a young boy in Hillingdon on the outskirts of London during a time of bombing raids and air raid shelters. His father was a surgeon, physician and Medical Director of a large hospital and his mother was a nursing sister.

After enrolling with the University of Georgia for one year then graduating from the University of Toronto as a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture in 1981, Doug Carrick gained experience on a number of golf course, land planning and recreational projects with a couple of Toronto-based design firms.

Born in 1910, the son of a publican, Eddie Hackett is widely regarded as “the father of golf course design” in Ireland, though he never formally trained as an architect and only really became involved in laying out courses when he reached his late fifties.

Born in Sydney to Henry Wellstead Apperly and Alice Langton Apperly in 1889, Eric was known as something of a “boy champion” in his formative years, having taken up golf to help overcome ill health. He lost in his first New South Wales Amateur final in 1907 but he would go on to win the event five times between 1912 and 1930 whilst a member at Killara Golf Club then Manly Golf Club.

Ernie Els grew up in Germiston, on the outskirts of Johannesburg, where he played a wide variety of sport, excelling at cricket, rugby and tennis. Indeed, his prowess with a tennis racquet was such that he won the Eastern Transvaal Junior Championships at the age of thirteen.

John Jacob “Frank” Pennink was born in the city of Delft, which lies between The Hague and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Hawtree is the longest continuous practice of golf course construction and design on record. Started by Frederick George Hawtree in 1912, the firm was then operated by his son Frederick William Hawtree after World War II until grandson Martin Grant Hawtree took over the reins in the early 1980s.

Hawtree is the longest continuous practice of golf course construction and design on record. Started by Frederick George Hawtree in 1912, the firm was then managed by his son Frederick William Hawtree when he joined the firm in 1938. Grandson Martin Grant Hawtree entered the family business in the early 1970s, taking over operations a decade later.

Gary Player, the youngest of three children born to Harry and Muriel Player, had a tough start in life. Tragically his mother died when he was only eight years old. Player later wrote that his sad loss “has been a means for me, as it were, to settle some unfathomable debt.”

Educated at Episcopal Academy in Newtown Square, then the University of Pennsylvania, George Thomas joined his father’s investment banking firm, Drexel & Company, after completing his studies in 1894. He married Edna Ridge in 1901 and they had two children, George Clifford III and Josephine Moorehead.

Son of George and Susan Low (without an “e” at the end of the surname), George Lowe was born in the rural parish of Carmyllie, between the Angus towns of Arbroath and Forfar, and he moved with his family when he was eight years old to Carnoustie, where he quickly fell in love with the game of golf through caddying.

Gil Hanse attended secondary school at Hunter Tannersville High school in Tannersville, New York before gaining his undergraduate degree from the University of Denver. Hanse then earned a Masters degree in Landscape Architecture from Cornell University in 1989.

Graham Marsh, nicknamed “Swampy,” was a fine cricketer as a young man – his younger brother Rodney was a batsman/wicket-keeper for Australia from 1970 to 1984 – and he trained as a mathematics teacher at Claremont Teachers College after graduating from the University of Western Australia.

Greg Norman, nicknamed The Great White Shark, was born in Mount Isa, Queensland to parents Mervin and Toini Norman in 1955. His mother, the daughter of a Finnish carpenter, played off a single-figure handicap and it was her who introduced Norman to the game when the family moved to Brisbane.

Sir Guy Campbell was the great grandson of Robert Chambers, the early British golf historian and co-designer of the original 9-hole course at Royal Liverpool. Like his father, he was educated at Eton and the University of St Andrews, excelling at both rowing and cricket.

Harry Colt was the youngest of six children born to a solicitor father who died when he was only two years old. His mother then moved the family from London to Malvern, where he played golf at Worcestershire Golf Club’s original course on the common, becoming a proficient, plus-handicap player.

Vardon was born in Jersey, the son of an English gardener (Philip George Vardon) and a French mother (Elizabeth Augustine Bouchard), into a family of six boys and two girls. Both he and his younger brother Tom spent most of their summer holidays caddying on the local links.

The son of a barrister, Fowler was born in north London and educated at Rottingdean then Grove House School, Tottenham before becoming a partner in a private bank in the West Country. Bernard Darwin described him as ”an erratic genius… perhaps the most daring and original of all golfing architects and gifted with an inspired eye for the possibility of a golfing country.”

John Henry Taylor is rightly regarded as a golfing pioneer. He was one of the best golfers of his era then played a significant role in shaping the way that the game is now played. Born into an ordinary, working class family in Devon, his father passed away when he was only eleven years of age, forcing him to leave school in favour of paid employment.

Jack Nicklaus was born in Columbus, Ohio, the son of Charlie and Helen Nicklaus. He attended the Upper Arlington High School, where he competed in basketball, baseball and track and field. Within three years of taking up golf at the age of ten, he had broken 70 at his father’s club, Scioto, and was playing off a +3 handicap.

James Braid was born in 1870 to James Braid (a farm worker) and his wife Mary (née Harris) who was an accomplished weaver. His father had two other children from an earlier marriage of which he had been widowed. James came into the world at Liberty Place, between Earlsferry and Elie, but the family later moved to a small weaver’s cottage at 36 High Street, Earlsferry.

Javier Arana, nicknamed ‘Cisco’ within the family, was the eldest of three sons born to Luis Arana Urigüen and Maria Dolores Ybarra López de Calle. His parents – Luisón and Lola as they were known – were from wealthy Basque Country families which had amassed fortunes from mining activities in the Bilbao region.

John Abercromby was the son of a medical doctor, James Abercromby, who died very young at the age of 40 in Cape Town, South Africa, when John was only ten years old. His widowed mother Johanna moved the family to Britain soon after her husband passed away, settling in Felixstowe on the coast of Suffolk.

John Harris was educated at Pangbourne Nautical College, an independent boarding school in Berkshire where he gained civil engineering and surveying qualifications before joining the family construction company which was run by his father and uncle.

John Morrison was educated at Charterhouse School in Goldaming, Surrey from 1905 to 1911, during which time he captained the school’s cricket and football teams. He also captained the Public Schools Team against the MCC in his final year at Charterhouse before he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge to study history and law.

Kyle Phillips graduated from Kansas State University in 1981 with a degree in Landscape Architecture. That same year, he began his career in golf working with Robert Trent Jones Junior, eventually rising from the position of Design Associate to Vice President.

Tom Mackenzie was born in the west of Scotland, the son of a mechanical engineer father and a mother who was a historian and Old Norse linguist. While still a teenager, his family moved to the Highlands and he spent a good part of his formative golfing years in Dornoch working as a greenkeeper and a caddy.

Hawtree is the longest continuous practice of golf course construction and design on record. Currently, Martin Hawtree is the third generation practitioner in a business started by his grandfather, Frederick George Hawtree, more than a hundred years ago. His father, Frederick William Hawtree, ran the firm after World War II before passing on the baton to Martin.

Mike Hurdzan started out in golf at Beacon Light Golf Course in Columbus, Ohio, where his father worked as a golf instructor. The facility was owned by Jack Kidwell, a man deeply involved in the game as a PGA member, course superintendent and golf course architect.

Mike Clayton was a successful amateur player, winning his state championship in Victoria in 1977 then the Australian Amateur the following year (when he beat Tony Gresham 1-up in the Final match at Royal Queensland), before turning professional at the age of twenty-four in 1981.

A 1987 graduate of Lake Forest College in Chicago where he studied Business Administration, Mike DeVries apprenticed with golf architect Tom Doak for a couple of years before going on to the University of Michigan to complete his Masters in Landscape Architecture in 1994.

Born and raised in Ohio, Mike Strantz enrolled as a studio art student at Miami University on reaching the age of eighteen. His artistic talents were never in question but his study plans changed when he decided to forge a career in golf and so he graduated in 1978 from Michigan State University with a degree in turfgrass management.

The company was hit by a very heavy blow in late 2012 when founding partner Robin Nelson passed away after a long battle with ALS. Partners Neil Haworth and Brett Mogg decided to carry on with the business and to best preserve Robin’s legacy they have kept the Nelson & Haworth name intact.

Nick Faldo didn’t start playing golf until he reached the age of 14 and it’s said he only got into the game after watching Charles Coody win the 1971 Masters tournament on his family’s new colour television set. Only three years later, he was playing in the English Amateur Championship at Woodhall Spa, which was an early indication of his dedication to the game.

In 1835, at the age of fourteen, Old Tom was apprenticed to Allan Robertson, who most historians consider as the first golf professional, and he worked in his mentor’s St Andrews workshop making golf balls and clubs. It’s said they were never beaten in a challenge match when paired together – especially in high stakes matches such as one for £400 against the Dunns of Musselburgh in 1849.

Born in the Ibaraki prefecture, in the northeast part of the Kanto region, Osamu Ueda studied Forestry and Landscape Architecture in the Faculty of Agriculture at Kyoto University before setting up the Ueda Landscaping Office in his hometown Osaka.

Pete Dye and his wife Alice Dye met in the late 1940s when they were both studying at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. They then married and moved to Indianapolis, Alice’s home city, where their two sons, Perry Dye and Paul Burke (PB as he’s known), were born.

Pat Ruddy was born in the small town of Ballina in County Mayo, but raised in the even smaller town of Ballymote, in County Sligo, where his father Martin (who was known as ‘Sid’) ran the local post office.

Pete Dye and Alice Dye first met whilst studying at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida. They then married in 1950 and moved to Indianapolis, Alice’s hometown, where they raised two sons, Perry and Paul Burke Dye. Pete quit his successful career in insurance to concentrate on golf course design and, once the children were a little older, Alice followed him into what eventually became one of golf’s best known design companies.

Born in Kentucky, the son of Dr. James A. Maxwell and Caroline Harris, Perry Maxwell was educated at the University of Kentucky, Lexington and Stetson University in Florida but poor health (he suffered from tuberculosis) prevented him from finishing his studies. He moved to Oklahoma where he met his wife Raymonde Woods then settled into a banking job as a cashier, eventually rising through the ranks to become vice president of the Ardmore National Bank.

Born the son of Paul Francis (“Pink”) and Elizabeth Dye in 1925, Pete more than likely inherited his work ethic from his father who was, at various times, a politician, bar owner, insurance agent and postmaster in his hometown of Urbana in Champaign County, Ohio.

Peter Matkovich grew up in the mining town of Shabani, close to Fort Victoria, in what was then called Southern Rhodesia. Nowadays, the town is called Zvishavane and is located in the Midlands Province of modern Zimbabwe.

Peter Thomson was the first of four sons born to Arthur Thomson, a signwriter, and Grace Watson, a dressmaker, in the working class suburb of Brunswick, and he learned to play golf as a junior on the 9-hole Royal Park layout across the road from where the family lived.

Philip was the son of Alexander Mackenzie Ross, who was born in Edinburgh in 1850, on the doorstep of the historic Bruntsfield Links,. He was the owner of the Café Royal Hotel in the Scottish capital and was also the most successful exhibition caterer of his day.

Rees was educated at Montclair High School in New Jersey, two years behind his brother Robert Trent Jones Junior. He graduated from Yale University with a Batchelor of Arts degree in 1963 then enrolled for a landscape architecture course at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Robbie Robinson graduated with a BSc degree from the Ontario Agricultural College (now the University of Guelph) in 1929 but before then he’d actually fashioned his first golf course design as an undergraduate, updating and renovating a private course in Fenelon Falls for Sir Joseph Flavelle, a wealthy businessman who made his fortune in the meatpacking business.

Robert Trent Jones arrived in New York harbor aboard the steamship Caronia from the port of Liverpool on Monday, 29th April 1912, exactly two weeks after the Titanic had sunk on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic. He, along with his mother and younger brother, was soon reunited with his father who had arrived nine months earlier to work as a carpenter with the New York Central Railroad building freight cars in Rochester.

Robert was educated at Montclair High School, taking golf lessons as a teenager from both Tommy Armour and Claud Harmon Sr. and playing in competitions under the auspices of the New Jersey State Golf Association and the Metropolitan Golf Association of New York.

Robert von Hagge, the adopted son of Ben Hagge (a golf course landscaper who built layouts for architects such as William Diddel, Donald Ross and George O’Neil) was literally born and raised on a golf course, working as a caddy, shop boy, maintenance crewman, assistant superintendent and assistant professional – all before his 17th birthday.

In 1976, Rod Whitman left Ponoka Composite High School in Alberta to enrol at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where he worked towards a Batchelor of Science degree.

After six years of study, Ron Fream graduated from California Polytechnic Institute in Pomona with an Ornamental Horticulture degree in 1964. His intention was to then work towards a masters in turf grass management at Washington State University, followed by a position as a golf course superintendent somewhere.

Ron Kirby went to Washington Elementary and Briscoe Junior High, graduating from Beverly High School in 1950. He then went to turf school at the University of Massachusetts on a Francis Ouimet Caddy Scholarship, attending Saturday morning art classes at Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He left his studies due to a change in his draft status classification, joining the Coast Guard in 1951.

In 1965, Peter Thomson commenced his career in golf course design when he joined up with John Harris and Michael Wolveridge. Initially the firm was called South Pacific Golf Pty Ltd but soon became Harris Thomson and Wolveridge.

Colonel Stafford Vere Hotchkin was born in 1876, the only son of Thomas John Stafford Hotchkin and Mary Charlotte Edith Lucas, elder daughter of George Vere Braithwaite. He served in the 21st Lancers and Leicestershire Yeomanry and was attached to the Royal Horse Artillery during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in World War I.

Lee Schmidt graduated from the School of Agriculture at Purdue University in 1970 before becoming a design associate for Pete Dye – a fellow Hoosier – where he worked on projects such as Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic during his seven years with the old master.

Seiichi Inoue was born in 1908 in Akasaka, one of Tokyo’s most prosperous districts. The young Inoue showed academic promise and was studying at high school to become a doctor when he was struck by Japanese encephalitis, a viral brain infection that’s spread via mosquito bites.

Long Island-born Seth Raynor graduated in 1898 from Princeton University with a degree in Engineering and Geodesy and subsequently went on to run a successful landscape and surveying business in Southampton.

Shiro Akaboshi

The Thompson family (James and Jeanie and their two children, along with Jeanie’s parents and other members of the McCron family) emigrated from Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland to Canada in 1882. Not long after they arrived in Toronto, the Grand Trunk Railway opened a new freight and repair yard on the east side of the city, offering employment to James. His family soon expanded, with Stanley becoming the seventh of nine surviving children.

Tom Bendelow was raised in Aberdeen, one of nine children born to John Bendelow and Mary Edwards, and he learned how to play the game with his father on the old Kings Links near the city centre. He trained as a typesetter and worked on the Aberdeen Free Press before marrying the daughter of a local farmer, Mary Ann Nicol, then emigrating to America in 1892, with his wife and daughter following a year later.

Tom Doak was born in New York and was raised in Stamford, Connecticut. He played junior golf at Sterling Farms Golf Course, a five-minute stroll away from his front door. As a youngster Doak accompanied his father on business trips, visiting Harbour Town, Pinehurst No.2 and Pebble Beach whereby he became fascinated by the architectural variation between golf courses. He began reading dusty old golf course architecture library books unearthed by his mother. His obsession had well and truly begun.

Tom was born into a well-respected East Lothian golfing family. His father and uncle Jamie – Willie Dunn Sr.’s twin brother – were fine golfers and famous for indulging in big money matches against the likes of Allan Robertson and Old Tom Morris.

Tom Fazio was born in Norristown in the northwestern suburbs of Philadelphia and was educated at nearby Lansdale Catholic High School. He “entered the business of golf course architecture as a teenager in 1962,” wrote Geoff Cornish and Ron Whitten in The Golf Course, “assisting his uncle George in course construction. His on-the-job training and experience gave him intimate knowledge in engineering, landscape design, soils, accounting and business. By the early Seventies he became a full partner with George and the partnership became one of the nation’s leading course design firms.”

The Toronto-based design firm of Thomas McBroom Associates was formed in the late 1980s, following Tom McBroom’s graduation from the University of Guelph with a Batchelor of Landscape Architecture degree.

In 1895, Tom Simpson matriculated into Trinity Hall, Cambridge to read Law, receiving a bachelor’s degree in 1898, followed by a master's degree in 1902. He married Edith Baynes a year later then was admitted to the Bar in 1905. Strangely, there’s no record of him playing golf competitively whilst at university, though he was subsequently elected to the Oxford & Cambridge Golfing Society in 1934.

Tom Weiskopf was a pupil at Benedictine High School in Cleveland, Ohio before attending Ohio State University in Columbus, where he played for the university state team. He won the Western Amateur in 1963 – an event won by Jack Nicklaus two years previously – then turned professional the following year.

Michael (“Mick”) Allen Morcom was born in 1876 then raised in the Victorian gold rush town of Stawell, He was married in his early 20s to Alice Kleeberger and in 1898 their first son, Afton, was born. Two years later, after moving to Bendigo, Vern became a younger brother to Afton.

Walter James Travis was born in Maldon, Australia, the fourth of eleven children born to Charles and Susan Travis. As a child, and later in life, he was described as “slight of build, with above average intelligence”. Walter was a good student, displaying a talent for writing and a keen interest in a number of sports.

William Flynn was raised in Milton, outside Boston, where he competed against Francis Ouimet in inter-scholastic golf matches when playing for the school team. Flynn’s career in golf got under way at Merion Cricket Club when he was part of the construction team on what’s now the East course at Merion Golf Club.

William Watson was born in his family’s Dura Den Cottage, outside Cupar in Fife, in 1860. He was the first of seven children – three boys and four girls – brought into the world by Mary and John Cobb Watson. His father operated farms and mills in the local area, spending his leisure time playing golf on the links at St Andrews, where he was a member of the R&A.

Willie Campbell was born in Musselburgh and caddied for the three-time Open champion Bob Ferguson when he played on the local links. He played in five of the first six Open championships at Prestwick before finishing second in 1886, which was the closest he ever came to winning the event.

Willie Park Jr. was born in 1864 in Musselburgh, the second of four sons belonging to (Old) Willie Park, the four-time Open Champion. Young Willie would win the Open twice himself, becoming one of five Musselburgh golfers to do so. In fact, of the first twenty-nine Opens played, eleven were won by men from the Honest Toun.