Charles B. Macdonald
Encyclopedia
Charles Blair Macdonald (November 14, 1855 – April 21, 1939) was a major figure in early American golf. He built the first 18-hole course in the United States, was a driving force in the founding of the United States Golf Association
, won the first U.S. Amateur championship, and later built some of the most influential golf courses in the United States, to the extent that he is considered the father of American golf course architecture. He is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame
.
to naturalized American parents — a Scottish father and Canadian (part Mohawk
) mother — and grew up in Chicago
. In 1872 at age 16, he was sent to St Andrews University, and while there he took up playing golf with a vengeance. Tutored by Old Tom Morris, Macdonald soon became proficient enough that he played matches on the Old Course at St Andrews
against several of the leading golfers of the day, including Young Tom Morris. Macdonald returned to Chicago in 1874 and became a successful stockbroker, but rarely played golf for the next 17 years (a period he termed the "Dark Ages").
area at the St. Andrew's Golf Club, and in 1892 Macdonald convinced several associates to begin playing, and founded the Chicago Golf Club
. He at first built nine rudimentary holes, which was the first golf course west of the Allegheny Mountains
. In 1893 he expanded the course to 18 holes, creating the first full-length course in the United States. The Chicago Golf Club decided to move to a more permanent home in Wheaton, Illinois
, and in 1895 Macdonald built a new 18-hole course there, which is still the club's home today (the original 1892 site is now the Downers Grove
Golf Course).
and St. Andrew's Golf Club both held "national championship" tournaments. Macdonald finished second in both, and on both occasions he angrily denounced the manner in which each competition was held, with the result that both tournaments were declared unofficial. That fall, delegates from the Chicago Golf Club (including Macdonald), St. Andrew's, The Country Club
, Newport Country Club, and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club
met in New York City to resolve the problem. The result was the formation of the United States Golf Association
(USGA), which would administer the official championship. Macdonald was named Vice President of the organization. The first U.S. Amateur was held in 1895 at the Newport Country Club, and this time Macdonald won, beating Charles Sands
12 & 11 in the final (which is still the record winning margin).
brokerage firm of C.D. Barney
(through mergers, now Smith Barney
). With only a couple of exceptions, most golf courses in the U.S. at that time were laid out in rudimentary fashion, with little strategy required of the golfer. Macdonald, by virtue of his experiences at St Andrews and later trips to Great Britain, was determined (not immodestly) to build the most noteworthy course outside the British Isles. He searched Long Island
for a suitable site to emulate the classic seaside links
of Scotland, and eventually settled on a site in Southampton, New York
(near Shinnecock Hills Golf Club) in 1906. He dubbed the Southampton home at 119 Whites Lane "Ballyshear" and the house was designed by F. Burrall Hoffman
. The home was purchased by Michael Bloomberg
in 2011.
In 1908, he organized a group of 70 founders to contribute $1,000 each, and the National Golf Links of America opened for play in 1909. Many of the holes were his versions of famous holes from British courses, a pattern he would repeat on later courses. Macdonald would tweak the course for the rest of his life, altering every hole somewhat over the next 30 years. The course hosted the inaugural Walker Cup
in 1922, and is considered a landmark of golf architecture even today. In 2005, Golf Digest
ranked it the #9 course in the United States.
With the National Golf Links course, Macdonald began collaborating with Seth Raynor, who would later become a famous golf architect (a term coined by Macdonald in about 1910) in his own right. The pair would collaborate on a number of courses over the years, including Piping Rock Club
in Locust Valley, New York
, the Yale University
golf course
, the Old White Course at The Greenbrier
, and Mid Ocean Club
in Bermuda
(a course conceived to escape the reach of Prohibition). One of the most famous was the Lido Golf Club, a course which took an enormous amount of effort to construct and had several unique holes, and was considered at least on par with the National Golf Links while it existed (a course by the same name exists on its location today, but it was built by Robert Trent Jones
in 1947).
In 1928, Macdonald published his book Scotland's Gift: Golf, which covers the spread of golf (prominently featuring himself) in the United States from its beginnings in the early 1890s to 1927, when there were some 4,000 courses in the country. It devotes several chapters to four of his courses, and gives his design philosophy. He is often called the "Father of American Golf Architecture".
, in the Lifetime Achievement category.
LA = Low Amateur
NYF = Tournament not yet founded
NT = No tournament
DNP = Did not play
WD = Withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place
DNQ = Did not qualify for match play portion
R256, R128, R64, R32, R16, QF, SF = Round in which player lost in match play
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10
Source for U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur: USGA Championship Database
Source for 1906 British Amateur: Golf, July, 1906, pg. 29.
United States Golf Association
The United States Golf Association is the United States' national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and interprets the Rules of Golf. The USGA also provides a national handicap system...
, won the first U.S. Amateur championship, and later built some of the most influential golf courses in the United States, to the extent that he is considered the father of American golf course architecture. He is a member of the World Golf Hall of Fame
World Golf Hall of Fame
The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site serves both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 golf organizations from all over the world.The Hall of...
.
Early years
Macdonald was born in Niagara Falls, OntarioNiagara Falls, Ontario
Niagara Falls is a Canadian city on the Niagara River in the Golden Horseshoe region of Southern Ontario. The municipality was incorporated on June 12, 1903...
to naturalized American parents — a Scottish father and Canadian (part Mohawk
Mohawk nation
Mohawk are the most easterly tribe of the Iroquois confederation. They call themselves Kanien'gehaga, people of the place of the flint...
) mother — and grew up in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
. In 1872 at age 16, he was sent to St Andrews University, and while there he took up playing golf with a vengeance. Tutored by Old Tom Morris, Macdonald soon became proficient enough that he played matches on the Old Course at St Andrews
Old Course at St Andrews
The Old Course at St Andrews is the oldest golf course in the world. The Old Course is a public course over common land in St Andrews, Fife, Scotland and is held in trust by The St Andrews Links Trust under an act of Parliament...
against several of the leading golfers of the day, including Young Tom Morris. Macdonald returned to Chicago in 1874 and became a successful stockbroker, but rarely played golf for the next 17 years (a period he termed the "Dark Ages").
Chicago
By the late 1880s, a group of Scottish immigrants had brought the game to the New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
area at the St. Andrew's Golf Club, and in 1892 Macdonald convinced several associates to begin playing, and founded the Chicago Golf Club
Chicago Golf Club
Chicago Golf Club is a private golf club in Wheaton, Illinois in the United States. It is the oldest 18-hole course in North America and was one of the five clubs which founded the United States Golf Association in 1894. Its founder, Charles B. Macdonald, won the first official U.S...
. He at first built nine rudimentary holes, which was the first golf course west of the Allegheny Mountains
Allegheny Mountains
The Allegheny Mountain Range , also spelled Alleghany, Allegany and, informally, the Alleghenies, is part of the vast Appalachian Mountain Range of the eastern United States and Canada...
. In 1893 he expanded the course to 18 holes, creating the first full-length course in the United States. The Chicago Golf Club decided to move to a more permanent home in Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton, Illinois
Wheaton is an affluent community located in DuPage County, Illinois, approximately west of Chicago and Lake Michigan. Wheaton is the county seat of DuPage County...
, and in 1895 Macdonald built a new 18-hole course there, which is still the club's home today (the original 1892 site is now the Downers Grove
Downers Grove, Illinois
Downers Grove is a village in Downers Grove and Lisle Townships, DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 48,724 at the 2000 census, with an official estimated population of 49,250 in 2008.-History:...
Golf Course).
United States Golf Association
In 1894, the Newport Country ClubNewport Country Club
Newport Country Club, founded in 1893, is a historic private golf club in Newport, Rhode Island in the United States that hosted both the first U.S. Amateur Championship and the first U.S...
and St. Andrew's Golf Club both held "national championship" tournaments. Macdonald finished second in both, and on both occasions he angrily denounced the manner in which each competition was held, with the result that both tournaments were declared unofficial. That fall, delegates from the Chicago Golf Club (including Macdonald), St. Andrew's, The Country Club
The Country Club
The Country Club, located in Brookline, Massachusetts, is one of the oldest country club in the United States. It holds an important place in golf history, as it is one of the five charter clubs that founded the United States Golf Association, and has hosted numerous USGA tournaments including the...
, Newport Country Club, and Shinnecock Hills Golf Club
Shinnecock Hills Golf Club
Shinnecock Hills Golf Club is a links-style golf club located in the hamlet of Shinnecock Hills in the town of Southampton on Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. It has hosted the U.S. Open four times in three different centuries and will host the 2018 U.S. Open...
met in New York City to resolve the problem. The result was the formation of the United States Golf Association
United States Golf Association
The United States Golf Association is the United States' national association of golf courses, clubs and facilities and the governing body of golf for the U.S. and Mexico. Together with The R&A, the USGA produces and interprets the Rules of Golf. The USGA also provides a national handicap system...
(USGA), which would administer the official championship. Macdonald was named Vice President of the organization. The first U.S. Amateur was held in 1895 at the Newport Country Club, and this time Macdonald won, beating Charles Sands
Charles Sands
----Charles Edward Sands was an American golfer, tennis and real tennis player who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics and in the 1908 Summer Olympics....
12 & 11 in the final (which is still the record winning margin).
Golf course architecture
In 1900, Macdonald left Chicago to live in New York, becoming a partner in the Wall StreetWall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
brokerage firm of C.D. Barney
Charles D. Barney
Charles Dennis Barney was an American stockbroker and founder of Charles D. Barney & Co., one of the predecessors of the brokerage and securities firm Smith Barney....
(through mergers, now Smith Barney
Smith Barney
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney is a retail brokerage joint venture between Morgan Stanley and Citigroup.On January 13, 2009, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup announced that Citigroup would sell 51% of Smith Barney to Morgan Stanley, creating Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, which was formerly a division of...
). With only a couple of exceptions, most golf courses in the U.S. at that time were laid out in rudimentary fashion, with little strategy required of the golfer. Macdonald, by virtue of his experiences at St Andrews and later trips to Great Britain, was determined (not immodestly) to build the most noteworthy course outside the British Isles. He searched Long Island
Long Island
Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...
for a suitable site to emulate the classic seaside links
Links (golf)
A links is the oldest style of golf course, first developed in Scotland. The word "links" comes from the Scots language and refers to an area of coastal sand dunes and sometimes to open parkland. It also retains this more general meaning in the Scottish English dialect...
of Scotland, and eventually settled on a site in Southampton, New York
Southampton (village), New York
Southampton is a village in Suffolk County, New York, USA. The village is named after the Earl of Southampton. The Village of Southampton is in the southeast part of the county in the Town of Southampton...
(near Shinnecock Hills Golf Club) in 1906. He dubbed the Southampton home at 119 Whites Lane "Ballyshear" and the house was designed by F. Burrall Hoffman
F. Burrall Hoffman
Francis Burrall Hoffman was an American born architect best known for his work with James Deering’s Villa Vizcaya in Miami, Florida.-Biography:...
. The home was purchased by Michael Bloomberg
Michael Bloomberg
Michael Rubens Bloomberg is the current Mayor of New York City. With a net worth of $19.5 billion in 2011, he is also the 12th-richest person in the United States...
in 2011.
In 1908, he organized a group of 70 founders to contribute $1,000 each, and the National Golf Links of America opened for play in 1909. Many of the holes were his versions of famous holes from British courses, a pattern he would repeat on later courses. Macdonald would tweak the course for the rest of his life, altering every hole somewhat over the next 30 years. The course hosted the inaugural Walker Cup
Walker Cup
The Walker Cup is a golf trophy contested biennially in odd numbered years between teams comprising the leading amateur golfers of the United States and Great Britain and Ireland...
in 1922, and is considered a landmark of golf architecture even today. In 2005, Golf Digest
Golf Digest
Golf Digest is a monthly golf magazine published by Condé Nast Publications in the United States. It is a generalist golf publication covering recreational golf and men's and women's competitive golf. Condé Nast Publications also publishes the more specialized , and Golf World Business. The...
ranked it the #9 course in the United States.
With the National Golf Links course, Macdonald began collaborating with Seth Raynor, who would later become a famous golf architect (a term coined by Macdonald in about 1910) in his own right. The pair would collaborate on a number of courses over the years, including Piping Rock Club
Piping Rock Club
Piping Rock Club is a country club in Locust Valley, New York.-History:The Piping Rock clubhouse was designed by American designer Guy Lowell, and built in 1911. Lowell based his designs on American colonial architecture a desire to link the house with the landscape...
in Locust Valley, New York
Locust Valley, New York
Locust Valley is a hamlet located in Nassau County, New York. Locust Valley is an unincorporated area of the Town of Oyster Bay...
, the Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
golf course
Yale golf course
The Yale golf course, owned and operated in New Haven near the West Haven border by Yale University, is a fine example of early American golf course design, with large, deeply bunkered greens and narrow rolling fairways challenging the golfer; it is considered one of the best collegiate golf...
, the Old White Course at The Greenbrier
The Greenbrier
The Greenbrier is a Forbes four-star and AAA Five Diamond Award winning luxury resort located just outside the town of White Sulphur Springs in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, United States....
, and Mid Ocean Club
Mid Ocean Club
The Mid Ocean Club is a private 6,520 yard, 18-hole golf course in Tucker's Town, Bermuda. Designed by Charles Blair Macdonald in 1921, it was modified to its current design in 1953 by Robert Trent Jones. It is consistently placed highly among world courses and is ranked 45th by Golf Digest for...
in Bermuda
Bermuda
Bermuda is a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic Ocean. Located off the east coast of the United States, its nearest landmass is Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. It is about south of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and northeast of Miami, Florida...
(a course conceived to escape the reach of Prohibition). One of the most famous was the Lido Golf Club, a course which took an enormous amount of effort to construct and had several unique holes, and was considered at least on par with the National Golf Links while it existed (a course by the same name exists on its location today, but it was built by Robert Trent Jones
Robert Trent Jones
Robert Trent Jones, Sr. was a golf course architect who designed about 500 golf courses in at least 40 US states and 35 other countries all around the world...
in 1947).
In 1928, Macdonald published his book Scotland's Gift: Golf, which covers the spread of golf (prominently featuring himself) in the United States from its beginnings in the early 1890s to 1927, when there were some 4,000 courses in the country. It devotes several chapters to four of his courses, and gives his design philosophy. He is often called the "Father of American Golf Architecture".
Honors
In 2007, Macdonald was elected as a member of the World Golf Hall of FameWorld Golf Hall of Fame
The World Golf Hall of Fame is located at World Golf Village near St. Augustine, Florida, in the United States, and it is unusual among sports halls of fame in that a single site serves both men and women. It is supported by a consortium of 26 golf organizations from all over the world.The Hall of...
, in the Lifetime Achievement category.
Amateur wins (1)
| Year | Championship | Winning Score | Runner-up |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1895 | U.S. Amateur | 12 & 11 |  Charles SandsCharles Sands ----Charles Edward Sands was an American golfer, tennis and real tennis player who competed in the 1900 Summer Olympics and in the 1908 Summer Olympics.... |
Results timeline
| Tournament | 1895 | 1896 | 1897 | 1898 | 1899 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Open U.S. Open (golf) The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open golf tournament of the United States. It is the second of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour... |
DNP | WD | T11 | DNP | DNP |
| U.S. Amateur | 1 | R16 | SF | SF | SF |
| The Amateur Championship The Amateur Championship The Amateur Championship is a golf tournament which is held annually in the United Kingdom. It is one of the two leading individual tournaments for amateur golfers, alongside the U.S. Amateur... |
DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP |
| Tournament | 1900 | 1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Open U.S. Open (golf) The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open golf tournament of the United States. It is the second of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour... |
29 | DNP | 53 | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP |
| U.S. Amateur | DNP | R16 | DNP | DNP | DNQ | R32 | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNQ |
| The Amateur Championship The Amateur Championship The Amateur Championship is a golf tournament which is held annually in the United Kingdom. It is one of the two leading individual tournaments for amateur golfers, alongside the U.S. Amateur... |
DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | R128 | DNP | DNP | DNP |
| Tournament | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 |
|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Open U.S. Open (golf) The United States Open Championship, commonly known as the U.S. Open, is the annual open golf tournament of the United States. It is the second of the four major championships in golf, and is on the official schedule of both the PGA Tour and the European Tour... |
DNP | DNP | DNP |
| U.S. Amateur | DNQ | DNP | DNQ |
| The Amateur Championship The Amateur Championship The Amateur Championship is a golf tournament which is held annually in the United Kingdom. It is one of the two leading individual tournaments for amateur golfers, alongside the U.S. Amateur... |
DNP | DNP | DNP |
LA = Low Amateur
NYF = Tournament not yet founded
NT = No tournament
DNP = Did not play
WD = Withdrew
"T" indicates a tie for a place
DNQ = Did not qualify for match play portion
R256, R128, R64, R32, R16, QF, SF = Round in which player lost in match play
Green background for wins. Yellow background for top-10
Source for U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur: USGA Championship Database
Source for 1906 British Amateur: Golf, July, 1906, pg. 29.