Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

Registration
Edit profile

catalogue
auction
shopping cart
shipping

history
makers

search
faq
news
links
about
contact

Clubmakers

Macdonald Smith
Carnoustie/California

Macdonald 'Mac' Smith would not be the last Scotsman to be described as the best golfer never to have won a major championship but he would certainly be in contention for the award of this dubious epithet.

One of the most stylish players, both in his attire and his swing, ‘the prettiest swing I ever saw’, according to Harvey Penick or more poetically described by his friend Tommy Armour, ‘His swing is as graceful, as smooth and as apparently effortless as the swooping glide of a gull through the blue sky. He has the cleanest 21-jewel stroke in golf. He treats the grass of a golf course as though it were an altar.’ Smith's own description was more prosaic, "Wind, then unwind".

Born in Carnoustie on 18 March 1890, he was one of five brothers, with Alec, Willie, George, and Jimmy who made successful careers as golf professionals in the United States. Alec, Willie and George were already professionals there when Mac emigrated with father, John and mother, Joann, to California in 1907. Jimmy travelled a few months later.

George was the professional at the Claremont club, between Oakland and Berkeley, and wasted no time in employing his young brother as his assistant, the earliest reference I have found for this is a review in The Golfers’ Magazine of January 1908.

Mac’s career took off rapidly. He won the Pacific Coast Open Championship in 1910 and tied for first in the US Open in Philadelphia that year, losing to his brother Alec and runner-up John McDermott. In 1912 he played a challenge match at the Del Monte club with Dr D P Fredericks defeating E S Armstrong and Mike Brady and is described as ‘the young professional from the Claremont club’ but he was back at Del Monte that same year as a professional with brother George in charge. From here he became the third of the Smith brothers to win the Western Open, held that year at the Idlewild club in Flossmoor, Illinois.

The San Francisco Examiner out-New Yorking New York in its dismissal of the rest of the country, described him returning to California to become professional at the Mt Diablo Park club where John, his father was head greenkeeper, in 1917 after ‘going to Eastern clubs’. This oriental odyssey included spells at Wykagl in 1913 where brother Alec was head professional and Oakmont CC near Pittsburgh from where he won the Metropolitan Open in 1914. But something wasn’t right. Mac had a problem with alcohol. Some suggest it was linked to his brother Willie’s death in 1915 and accounts of how long it lasted range from five to ten years. The week after he convincingly won the Metropolitan at Scarsdale in 1914 he played in the US Open at Midlothian. Fellow California professional, Jack Neville, wrote of Smith’s qualifying rounds,

'Macdonald Smith had the best round of the first eighteen holes played. I followed a portion of his round and under the circumstances I think it was the finest effort I have ever seen on a golf course. Mac came to the first tee a sick man. He has not been in good health for some time and I question if he can last out the tournament. However he played perfect golf, though he could not even stoop to tee his ball and seemed to lack power in his long game. He holed everything possible on the greens. In the afternoon his putting went back on him on a few holes and he required four more strokes to finish the second eighteen than the first. His total of 148 brought him a tie with Francis Ouimet for second place.'

Was it the demon drink which had made him unwell? We will probably never know. Certainly he almost disappeared from the golfing radar between 1916 and 1920 though not as completely as subsequent articles suggest. He won the West Coast of Florida Open Championship at Belleaire in March 1917 ahead of Jim Barnes. In addition to his post at Mt Diablo Park in 1917, he was advertised by the Vendome Hotel in San Jose as the professional at the San Jose Country Club. He also spent time in the US army during America’s involvement in WW1 and lost his hearing fighting in France, only being discharged towards the end of 1919. But, clearly, the drinking was bad. Tommy Armour, who admired him beyond reason, said, "He was through. As through as completely and as conclusively as any athlete can be". By 1919 he was working in the Union Iron Works Shipyard in San Francisco. He had no money and had lost all his teeth, these being replaced by a wooden set. The teeth are beyond dispute: there is a grotesque picture of him smiling with them in the San Francisco Examiner as he started on his comeback in a tournament in March 1920.

That newspaper and its golf correspondent adored him. Article after article suggested he was on the verge of returning to greatness and willed him to success. It spoke discreetly about ‘his ill health’ and ‘his injury’ (though it does specifically mention a near career-ending wrist injury) and ‘when Mac is right’, and ‘if Macdonald Smith takes care of his health for the next few months’ all would be well. He came second in the San Francisco Open in March 1920 but the winner, John Black, only warranted a few lines with the rest of the article devoted to Smith and his first round course record 64. Shortly after he set a new course record at his old San Jose club and the Examiner showered praise on the Olympic Club in San Francisco ‘which spread itself over the golfing map by engaging Macdonald Smith as its professional’ in April 1920 and, in case it had not occurred to the club, they reminded them that ‘doubtless give Smith every opportunity in their usual liberal manner by sending him East or across the pond’ for any event for which he deemed himself suited. For all that, it was probably neither the Examiner nor the Olympic Club which put Mac back on track. He met Louise Cahill Harvey, a rich widow, twice married and 13 years his senior, who weaned him from the drink, bought him new teeth and married him in 1922.

His career blossomed. He was third in the 1923 Open Championship at Troon and tied for third the following year at Hoylake. 1925 he sailed for Prestwick with high hopes. The organisers completely lost control of the event. Smith led by five shots over Jim Barnes going into the final round. He needed only a 78 to win, this after setting a course record 69. The crowds built and built, wandering in from the beach, reaching 15-20,000, or nearly 30,000 in Tommy Armour’s opinion. It took five hours to get round the course fighting the crowds, He was unsighted to the extent that, at the third, he and playing partner Tom Fernie could not see one another for the crowd and, playing their approach shots at the same time, had their balls collide in mid-air costing Smith a shot.

"Many times we had to play over the heads of the gallery," he recounted, "It was not such a difficult proposition at times but where individuals were bobbing up here and there it was disconcerting. They would not let me swing a club; they would not let me take the line, even for a six-foot putt".

He finished with an 82 and did not play in the Open again for another three years, probably the prime years of his career. He came second to Bobby Jones at the US Open in 1930 and to the same player at the Open Chanpionship that year. In 1932 he was again runner up, this time to Gene Sarazen. In 1931, the Open was at Carnoustie and he was tied for 2nd after 54 holes but fell away in the last round. The winner, Tommy Armour, wrote about it later, 'I knew deep in me that the title belonged to Mac'.

Yet Armour could also see what really mattered. ‘Here I am sympathising with Mac Smith when he's really one of mankind most to be envied. Mac has peace in his heart. He has triumphed over ill-health and over Mac Smith. He is no Caledonian tragedy even though he often has been batted back a step away from golf's heights. Open champion or not, he has the dignity of a true champion, the mien of a monarch.’

For those sympathising with the fact he never won a major, his win in the 1928 Los Angeles Open might put things in perspective. The winner of the US Open that year won $300 (well, he would have had he been professional but the winner was Bobby Jones). Mac Smith, on the other hand, received $3500 as the winner’s share of the LA Open. He won the same tournament the following year and in 1932 and 1934. In that second spell of playing he also won a further two Metropolitan Opens, another two Western Opens, the North and South in 1925 and the Canadian Open the following year.

Mac died in Glendale in August 1949 where he had been professional at the Oakmont CC since 1934.

His career was not about clubmaking but he was a traditionalist, one of the last top professionals to switch from hickory to steel shafts in the 1930s. Nicoll of Leven produced the Mac Smith Duplicate set, copies of his irons. I also recently came across a newspaper article written in 1916 which claimed he invented the deep groove iron and showed it to Jock Hutchison who had a copy made and used it to devastating effect in the 1921 Open Championship. It does not give a date for this happening and I would think that Ben Sayers’ “Stopum” iron of 1913 may predate this but it may have been something he developed independently.

For all his near misses in major championships, there is one that really intrigues me. Francis Ouimet won the US Open in 1913 beating a couple of lads from Jersey and our American friends cast it as ‘The Greatest Game Ever Played’ but twice I have seen articles in which the golf correspondent of the San Francisco Examiner in the 1920s suggests the result should have been otherwise. ‘Macdonald Smith should easily have defeated this trio without any effort, as he had only to make a 78 to win the event. And we will bet on this player making 75 on any course in the country. But something happened between rounds. Charlie Adams, was there and says there never should have been a sensational international tie’. Now Charlie has been dead for about 80 years so no exclusive for me but we eventually got to hear about the last secret of Fatima so I’m aye hopeful.

Search the catalogue for clubs by this maker