Golf’s Greatest Comeback: Auction Spotlight

The Golf Auction just recently closed out an auction for the clubs used in what might be the greatest comeback in major championship history. Your first thought might be Ben Hogan’s 1950 US Open, but if your don’t know the story of Babe Zaharius’ miraculous 1954 US Open victory your life is emptier for it.

Just one month after undergoing invasive surgery to fight colon cancer, her doctor said that she would never play championship golf ever again. One month later she was teeing it up  at Salem CC for the 1954 Women’s U.S. Open (with these very clubs and bag). Zaharias through sheer guts played while having to wear a colostomy bag.

Not only did Babe win, she beat the field by a record breaking 12 strokes.

It would be the last major victory of Babe Zaharius’ career, her 10th major. Sadly the cancer would claim Babe’s life just two years later at the age of 45.

This historical set of golf clubs set an all-time record for a set of women’s golf clubs selling for $296,246.80

Want to hear more?

Later this year the TalkinGolf History Podcast will be releasing the History of Babe Zaharius. Tune in for this once in a lifetime story.

The First Golfer in America?

We know that golf was played on American soil in the 1780s in Charleston, SC on a course known as Harleston Green, but was the game played 50 years earlier than that in Boston?

We may not have evidence of golf being played in Boston, but we do know that the instruments needed to play golf were in Boston in 1729.

On October 13, 1729 Governor William Burnet’s clubs and golf balls were listed as inventory upon his death the month prior. Burnett was a mere 41 years old when he died. Govenor Burnett had lived in America for the previous 9 years.

From the evidence of his golf inventory, which included 9 long nose wooden clubs including a putter, a track iron and 84 feathery golf balls one could gather than Governor Burnett either played golf in America or at the very least intended to do so. The staggering number of feathery golf balls would have been worth their weight in gold.

We may never know for sure - but we seem to know one thing for sure- Governor William Burnett was a golfer who lived in the New World and perhaps the first man who may have played here.

Interested in the early history of the game of golf in America? Here is a short podcast on the early days of golf in America and a theory as to why the game died around 1800.

The TalkinGolf History Podcast’s: “The Birth & Death of Golf in America

Artifact from the Golffice

The oldest item from the Golffice is this membership certificate to the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers circa 1784.

How old is this membership certificate?

• It was signed a mere 40 years after the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers wrote the first ever rules of golf

• The Honourable Company was over 100 years away from playing golf at Muirfield and this was signed when they played their golf at the 5 hole Leith Links.

• It was signed 76 years before the first Open Championship

• George Washington was 5 years away from becoming the first President of the United States

• Napolean Bonaparte was in Military School

• Mozart was only 28 years old

The real question for this historian, is whether these membership certificates are transferrable. Until told otherwise, I will dream of playing foursomes on the grounds where amateur, Harold Hilton claimed Muirfield’s first Open Championship.