How golf came to America.

Early traces, 1650 to 1800

The first American records of club-and-ball games are scattered, and most come from secondary sources. According to Wikipedia:

• Dutch settlers at Fort Orange, later Albany, New York, are recorded playing kolf in 1650, and an Albany ordinance of 10 December 1659 banned the game in the streets because of broken windows. Kolf was the Dutch game described on the origins page, whose link to Scottish golf is debated.
• A New York Royal Gazette advertisement of 1779 offered golf clubs and balls for sale.
• A South Carolina Golf Club was established at Charleston in 1787, and Wikipedia's Royal Montreal article names Savannah Golf Club, dated to 1794, as an earlier North American club than Royal Montreal.

The date of the first shipment of golf equipment is disputed. Wikipedia records clubs sent to William Wallace in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1739, while LINKS Magazine cites clubs shipped to Charleston in 1743. LINKS also says Scottish troops played golf during the Revolutionary War, and that occasional play continued through the 19th century before the Yonkers club.

The Apple Tree Gang, Yonkers

LINKS Magazine tells the story of the club that claims to be America's oldest. In late summer 1887 John Reid, born in Dunfermline, asked his friend Robert Lockhart, a New York linen merchant, to order six clubs and two dozen gutta-percha balls from Old Tom Morris's shop in St Andrews.

• 22 February 1888: Reid and John B. Upham play on a three-hole course laid out across a cow pasture in Yonkers, New York.
• 14 November 1888: five friends form the Saint Andrew's Golf Club over dinner at Reid's home, with Reid as president and Upham as secretary-treasurer.
• March 1889: the club plays its first mixed foursome.
• 1892: the club moves to a 34-acre apple orchard with six holes, which gives the founders the nickname the "Apple Tree Gang".

Reid became known as the "Father of American Golf". LINKS presents Saint Andrew's standing as the oldest golf club in America as the club's own claim, and it is not the only one. Search summaries of LINKS and other pages mention a club in Burlington, Iowa, said to date to 1881, and Oakhurst at White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, said to date to 1882. We could not confirm either from a page we could read.

North of the border, Royal Montreal Golf Club was founded in 1873 by eight men led by Alexander Dennistoun and calls itself the oldest club in continuous existence in North America, according to Wikipedia.

Two national champions, one governing body

History.com says that in summer 1894 the Newport Golf Club and St Andrew's Golf Club each staged an amateur event and called it the national championship, which prompted the formation of a national body.

On 22 December 1894 the Amateur Golf Association of the United States was formed in New York, and was soon renamed the United States Golf Association. Its five founding clubs, per History.com, were:

• Newport Golf Club, Rhode Island
• St Andrew's Golf Club, New York
• Chicago Golf Club, Wheaton, Illinois
• Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, Southampton, New York
• The Country Club, Brookline, Massachusetts

LINKS says the founding dinner was hosted by Saint Andrew's member Henry Tallmadge, who became the USGA's first secretary. According to Wikipedia, Theodore Havemeyer was the first president, and the U.S. Amateur trophy is named after him.

The first national championships, 1895

The year itself is disputed. History.com places the first U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open and U.S. Women's Amateur in autumn 1894, while Wikipedia and the USGA's records give 1895. The 1895 date is the better supported. The size of the first Women's Amateur field also varies by source: USGA museum material, as summarised in search results, describes 11 opponents, while the USGA results list and Golf Channel's history give 13 entries. The Women's Amateur moved to match play from 1896, according to Wikipedia.

Wikipedia says the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur were first played at separate clubs in 1898. The 1896 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills is remembered for John Shippen and Oscar Bunn, whose story is on the access and integration page. History.com credits USGA executive committee member Leighton Calkins with introducing handicapping and the idea of par around 1911 to 1912; that is a single source's claim.

Ouimet, 1913

The 1913 U.S. Open was played at The Country Club, one of the USGA's founding clubs. On 20 September 1913 Francis Ouimet, a 20-year-old amateur and former caddie, won the U.S. Open in an 18-hole playoff, in driving rain, against Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. He scored 72 to their 77 and 78. According to Wikipedia, his caddie was 10-year-old Eddie Lowery.

AmateurGolf.com says the win put golf on the front page of many American newspapers for the first time and inspired a new generation of players. Vardon's record in The Open is on the Open history page.

Steel and the U.S. Open

American golf also moved first on steel shafts. The Golf Historical Society of Canada says the USGA legalised steel shafts in 1924 (National Club Golfer dates the R&A's change to 26 November 1929), and that Billy Burke in 1931 became the first player to win the U.S. Open with steel-shafted clubs. More on that is on the equipment history page.

The USGA Golf Museum

According to Wikipedia, USGA Executive Committee member George Blossom proposed a historical collection in 1935, and a Museum and Library Committee followed in 1936. Bobby Jones's putter Calamity Jane II, given in 1938, was its first significant donation. The museum had its first dedicated space at 40 East 38th Street, New York, from 1951, and moved with the USGA in 1972 to Liberty Corner, New Jersey, into a 1919 building designed by John Russell Pope. After a renovation begun in 2005 it reopened on 3 June 2008 with the Arnold Palmer Center for Golf History. Wikipedia also says the USGA's testing center moved from Liberty Corner to Pinehurst, North Carolina, in 2024.

The professional side of American golf, from the PGA of America in 1916 to the Masters and the PGA Tour, is covered on the professional game page.