Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

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Clubmakers

George Smith
Carnoustie/California

It may upset the good burghers of Carnoustie to know that of their five famous golfing sons, Alec and Willie and George were born in Dundee, George in 1883. George Smith followed his two brothers to America in 1899. Unlike them, he went further west than Chicago to become an instructor at the San Rafael links in 1900 then professional at the Claremont Club in Oakland, California, beginning in September 1901, presumably making use of contacts established by his brothers on winter tours.

In a reversal of the usual family history, his father John, known as “Pop” at the club, also came to America to become greenkeeper at Claremont. Playing from here George won the Pacific Coast Championship in 1905. He also pocketed the first prize at a tournament held at his own Claremont club in December 1910 with his brother, Mac, in second place.

The California Open Championship did not officially start until 1919 but the Del Monte Open at Pebble Beach has been treated retrospectively as the state’s Open Championship with George Smith winning in 1906, 1909 and 1912.

George Smith left Claremont at the end of 1911 to become professional at the Del Monte course where he had enjoyed much success. He announced his departure from here on 12 June 1916 saying he was going to help out his brother Alec at Wykagl in New York. Fine, so far as it goes, but one week later, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle ran a story to say Alec was leaving Wykagl for the Shenecossett CC in New London, Connecticut, with an all-star cast of assistants including George.

Exactly how things panned out after that I am unsure but, in 1920, both brothers spent the winter as professionals at the Belleair Country Club in Belleair Heights, Florida. By 1922 George was professional at the Hyde Park CC in Cincinnati, smashing the course record with a 63 and playing in the city in an exhibition match with Walter Hagen, Joe Kirkwood and Otto Hackbarth.

This probably where I would hang my hat on his career, From Fields to Fairways: Classic Golf Clubs of Minnesota published by the University of Minnesota Press has him taking over from Chick Frazer at Somerset in Minnesota and winning the Minnesota Open Championship in both 1924 and 1936 but, so far as I am aware, that George Smith went on to be a long-serving professional at Onwentsia. That cannot be our man as he died back in California in 1939.

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