Taft's Game.

Golf was played in the United States before 1888, but the U.S. Golf Association (USGA), with five charter clubs, was not established until 1894 as the governing body of U.S. play. By 1900 there were more than 1,000 courses in the United States, with Massachusetts and New York each having more than 150. The game spread rapidly from 1900 to 1920. A 25 June 1909 New York Times story reported a boom in golf when President William Howard Taft began playing the game to keep up his health. The number of players at some public links was reported to have doubled following media coverage of Taft's interest.

The 1910 Open.

On 18 June 1910 Alex Smith (one of five brothers, all of whom were professional golfers) won the USGA Open Golf Tournament after an eighteenhole playoff round against John J. McDermott and Macdonald Smith, the first three-way play-off in the Open's history. In...