October 4, 1895: The 1st Golf U.S. Open

The Open Championship Cup trophy

October 4, 1895: The 1st U.S. Open golf tournament is held, at the Newport Country Club in Rhode Island. Horace Rawlins, a 21-year-old Englishman, won it, with a score of 173 -- in 3 rounds.

NOTE: For a long time, with this project, I resisted putting in references to golf, because of the kind of people who tend to play it. I finally caved in, although I haven't included as many references as I would if it were a real sport, which it is not.

Rawlins, from the Isle of Wight off the south coast of England, never entered another major golf tournament, and died in 1935, at the age of 60.

The U.S. Open, held at different sites, was traditionally, chronologically, the 2nd of professional golf's 4 "majors," until 2019, when the PGA Championship, formerly the 4th, was moved to between the Masters and the U.S. Open. It is often considered the hardest to win, due to the difficulty of some of its courses. Famously, Sam Snead was unable to win it: From 1942 to 1954, he won 3 Masters, 3 PGA Championships, and 1 British Open, but could only finish 2nd at the U.S. Open, which he did 4 times.

As to those locations: It has been played 9 times at Oakmont Country Club in the Pittsburgh suburb of Oakmont, Pennsylvania; 7 times at Baltusrol Golf Club, outside New York City in Springfield, New Jersey; 6 times at Winged Foot Golf Course, outside New York City in Mamaroneck, New York; 6 times at Oakland Hills Country Club, in the Detroit suburb of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; 5 times at Merion Golf Club, in the Philadelphia suburb of Ardmore, Pennsylvania; 5 times at the Olympic Club, in San Francisco; 5 times at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, in Shinnecock Hills, Long Island, New York; 4 times at the Myopia Hunt Club, in the Boston suburb of South Hamilton, Massachusetts; 4 times at The Country Club, in the Boston suburb of Brookline, Massachusetts; 4 times at the Inverness Club, in Toledo, Ohio; and 4 times at Pebble Beach Golf Links in Pebble Beach, outside Carmel, California.

(UPDATE: Pinehurst Resort, in the Charlotte suburb of Pinehurst, North Carolina, hosted for a 4th time in 2024. Oakmont hosted for a 10th time in 2025.)

Willie Anderson, Bobby Jones, Ben Hogan and Jack Nicklaus hold the record for the most U.S. Open victories, with 4 each. Hale Irwin is the oldest winner, at 45 in 1990. The youngest winner is John McDermott, in 1911: He would still be a teenager for a few more weeks.

As golf was so dominated by men from the British Isles early on, McDermott was also the 1st American-born winner. Gary Player of South Africa, in 1965, was the 1st winner from neither the U.S. nor the British Isles. Not until 2007 would the winner come from outside the U.S. or the British Commonwealth: Ángel Cabrera of Argentina.

The record low score is 268, set by Rory McIlroy of Northern Ireland in 2011. His 16 under par was also a record, since tied by American Brooks Koepka in 2017.

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October 4, 1895 was a Friday. The great silent film comedian Buster Keaton was born. The only major professional sport in America at this point was baseball, and the season had already ended, with the Baltimore Orioles (not the current team with the name) having won the National League Pennant, and thus, unofficially, the World Championship. So there were no other scores on this historic day.