Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland: Clubmakers

Registration
Edit profile

catalogue
auction
shopping cart
shipping

history
makers

search
faq
news
links
about
contact

Clubmakers

John A Park
Musselburgh/New Jersey et

John Archibald “Jack” Park went to the United States in 1898 to manage brother Willie’s golf shop in mid-town Manhattan after their younger brother, Mungo left the business. Wikipedia will tell you he left on the strength of a victory in Carnoustie over Braid, Taylor, Vardon and Willie Fernie in 1897, a tournament so momentous none of the respected annals of golf nor the local papers mention it. Did they mean the 1898 tournament where Braid defeated Park in the first round? Who knows but a wee caveat if you use Wikipedia for golf history.

In addition to managing the family shop, John (generally in the UK), Jack (more usual in US accounts) became professional at the Essex County club in March 1899 from where he played in the US Open at Baltimore that year where he finished 6th, his best result in the tournament. He was still with the Orange club in 1901, tied 9th in the Open, but one gets the feeling something is going wrong. He signed a new contract with the club in 1901 but went back to Musselburgh for a couple of months.

By the next August he is training for the US Open at the Yountakah links in Nutley, NJ, playing over the course three times a day. He finished 25th in the US Open that year.

I do not know what he did for the next three years. The New York Tribune commented in November 1905 that he ‘was getting back in the game’. He was in New York at that time but ‘in a day or two would set sail for South America where his brother Mungo has a green’. Mungo was, indeed, the dominant force in Argentinian golf. Jack subsequently chipped in with a runner-up spot in the Argentina Open of 1907 behind Mungo meaning two Scottish brothers were first and second in a national golf championship in Latin America: that surely has pub quiz question written all over it. Not the country’s Open but important enough to warrant a mention in the US Golfers’ Magazine in 1908 (maybe a slow news’ month), where Park was identified as professional at Golf Club Argentineo and winning a 72 hole tournament at the Mar del Plata club in Buenos Aires.

The same year he is back in Musselburgh as a professional, playing in the Open Championship if not exactly setting the heather on fire with a 40th place finish. 1909 and 1910 are not much better and he is back in the US in the summer of 1911 at Whitemarsh Country Club in Philadelphia. Again he goes back to Musselburgh for the winter, with another entry in the Open at Sandwich but with the stated intention of coming back to America and ‘a green in the Metropolitan District’ in the Spring. And so it came to pass. A deal with the Bedford Spring Club in Pennsylvania was announced in April 1913 but, with other clubs negotiating and mentioned in the newspaper reports, he either still had a strong reputation in the US or a fine PR machine.

Back he went to Scotland for the winter of 1914 and a 73rd place finish in the Open. He came back to America and the Maidstone Country Club on Long Island where he was professional until 1924, He and Willie designed a major extension to the course in that last year, and the year before Willie’s death, placing it in the top blah blah of Long Island, American, World Courses for eternity and for those who care about such nonsense.

Jack Park died in East Hampton in 1935.

Search the catalogue for clubs by this maker