Tag: Golf

Blog Articles

U.S. Golf Started on a Cow Pasture

Tor Hanson

Originally published on September 4, 2013 This month, one hundred years ago, a game of golf changed the sport forever. Taking on two of the topseeded players in the world, an unassuming 20-year-old beat all odds to win the 1913 U.S. Open. But who was Francis Ouimet — and why isn’t he as well-known as Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Hogan or Tiger Woods? It has a lot to do with the man, who was humble to a fault. Award-winning Golf Channel writer Mercer Baggs took a closer look at one of the most influential players in the history of … Continue reading U.S. Golf Started on a Cow Pasture

Blog Articles

A Great Game of Golf a Century Later

Tor Hanson

Originally published on August 5, 2013 A hundred years ago, American golf changed dramatically. Long an elite sport played mainly by rich men, it became the sport we know today, a game that anybody can play. The game-changer was an 18-hole playoff among two Brits and a 21-year-old American born to immigrant parents. The competition that played out on Sept. 20, 1913, has been called “the greatest game ever played.” Francis Ouimet came from a modest upbringing in Brookline, Mass. In high school the self-taught Ouimet became the best student player in the state. To learn more about his early … Continue reading A Great Game of Golf a Century Later

Homesteader

Excuse Us While We’re Playing Through: The Golf Tourney Up Pilot Butte

Tor Hanson

Published in the Deschutes Historical Society Newsletter “Homesteader” – July 2010 Today Pilot Butte is a beloved place for Bend’s many “butte walkers.” And every Fourth of July, spectators wager how much of the butte will catch on fire from fireworks gone astray. But in April 1927, Pilot Butte was the setting for serious game of golf. The backdrop for the Pilot Butte golf challenge was a bet between Frank R. Prince, the editor of Brooks-Scanlon’s company newspaper, “Deschutes Pine Echoes” and Carl A. Johnson, the manager of the Bend-Silver Lake Stage Company. The wager: Play from where the pavement … Continue reading Excuse Us While We’re Playing Through: The Golf Tourney Up Pilot Butte