Home Page
Registration
Edit profile

catalogue
auction
shopping cart
shipping

history
makers

search
faq
news
links
about
contact
Antique Golf Clubs from Scotland
Clubmakers
John Patrick
Edinburgh/New York
John was the eldest son of John Malcolm Patrick, and so a nephew of the famous Leven clubmaker, Alexander Patrick, and born in Campbeltown in 1875.

He won a prize in Dunbar for making model clubs when he was 13 and was an apprentice (probably to his father) living at home with the family in Leven in 1891.
He emigrated to New York in the 1890s (the US census for 1910 says in 1895) and he played in the US Open that year with the affiliation of the Tuxedo club in New York. He finished tied 7th, a top ten finish, but, then again, there were only eleven competitors.

Ultimately he would bring three brothers to the United States to be professional golfers but he wasted no time with the first, Alex, joining him at Tuxedo in 1896. They played a competitive match against each other over the Tuxedo course at the end of June with John winning by one hole.
The two brothers played a foursome match against Sam and Will Tucker of the St Andrews Club in August of that year, four rounds of 9 holes. Although the Patricks had the better stroke total, the St Andrews pair won by one hole and took the purse donated by the Tuxedo members.

There were 37 entrants for the 2nd US Open Championship in 1896 at Shinnecock Hills and John Patrick was there from Tuxedo again. Two rounds of 86 were not going to get him near the prize money but he did finish ahead of brother Alex.
In June 1899 married Fanny Gleeson in New York City. Twelve years his senior, Fanny was born in Gloucestershire and, in fact, was Fanny Gleeson Phipps as she had been previously married, to James Phipps, with at least one child.

John remained at Tuxedo until 1900 at which time he moved to Englewood, New Jersey, officially as assistant to that club’s first professional, Harry Stark. John and Fanny appear on the Englewood census for 1900 (Fanny having knocked ten years off her age) with John described as a ‘maker of golf clubs’. It must have been a short stay as later in the year he became professional at the Century GC in Westchester County, NY.

The following April John took charge of the 9-hole Water Mill course, near Southhampton on Long Island, which had been laid out the previous year by John Dunn. In 1902 he became professional at the new Eastern Parkway club in Brooklyn.

What went wrong for him after this I do not know. The Sun rather cryptically reported in 1908 that

‘John Patrick, after bringing over three brothers and starting them on the high road that has led to success, struck a wave of poor luck and by the advice of the more fortunate trio went back to Scotland.’

What he did in Scotland is also not clear. Neither he nor Fanny seem to be on the 1911 census but in March 1915 they adopted a son, Philip King Wilson. This information comes from John’s military record. He joined the newly-formed RAF at the end of July 1918 and his papers describe him as a boatbuilder. Of course he may not have been in this profession since returning from America. It could have been a wartime move to a much-needed, and probably reserved, trade. Fanny, with an address in Sloan Street, Leith, was given as the person to be notified should be become a casualty but when he was discharged in April 1920 he had a different address, Gardens (probably meaning Gardner’s Crescent) in Edinburgh. On the 1921 census Fanny is at Sloan Street (and still massaging her age as her daughter, Winifred Phipps, living with her is only nine years younger than she is!). Fanny is shown as married but head of the household but no John and no adopted son. The only other person in the house is a boarder, James Dewar.

Fanny remained in Leith until her death in February 1950. John, for now, is a mystery. Was he the John Patrick who ran a golfing school in Grindlay Street, Edinburgh, and was instrumental in setting up the Harburn club in West Lothian in 1925?

Catalogue Search the catalogue for clubs by this maker