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The First 100 Clubs in America
Golf's roots in America stretch from Charleston, South Carolina, to Yonkers, New York -- and beyond Actually, it's the first 126 clubs in America. In the true spirit of the game, we thought it was only fair to take the first 100 and ties. Simply because breaking the ties would have created the opportunity for vast argument.
The United States Golf Association, which compiled this list, has been receiving letters from clubs of all sizes from across the country, asking that their founding dates be recognized. Documentation is often sketchy at best, so determining an exact date for each club's founding is troublesome. In fact, once this list is published there will, no doubt, be clubs we have left out who will write the USGA, requesting to be recognized. For the moment, we begin with the South Carolina Golf Club, founded in 1786 in Charleston, South Carolina. It is the first known golf club in America. Its members played on the Harleston Green in Charleston and disbanded some 25 years later. (The Savannah Golf Club died at about the same time.) The club's Charleston reincarnation became the Country Club of South Carolina, which flourishes today. Most of the clubs founded before 1888 on this list were at first devoted to other pursuits; golf came later. For purposes of determining the birth of the game in this country, the book Golf In America: The First One Hundred Years, points to the St. Andrew's Golf Club in Yonkers, New York. Founded in 1888, it is considered the oldest continuously operating golf club in America. Members from five of those early clubs -- St. Andrews's; The Country Club of Brookline, Massachusetts; Shinnecock Hills Golf Club of Southhampton, New York; Newport Country Club of Newport, Rhode Island; and Chicago Golf Club -- met in New York on December 22, 1894. They formed the United States Golf Association, whose centennial we celebrate in 1995.
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