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Amateurs Look to Make History at The Country Club

by Jeff Skinner

The last time most of us saw The Country Club in Brookline Ma. the American Ryder Cup Team was sprinting across the green as they celebrated Justin Leonard’s remarkable putt.  It was 1999 and the U.S. had completed an amazing comeback against the European Team.

This week the world’s top amateurs will try and write their own chapter in the history of one of America’s most historic clubs as the USGA has returned to the scene of the greatest amateur victory in golf history for the 2013 U.S. Amateur.

It was at the Country Club in 1913 that 20 year old amateur and caddie Francis Ouimet won the U.S. Open and defeated two of the greatest golfers of the day, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray.

Ouimet’s win was the seminal moment in American golf.  Until then it was a game for the upper class but after Ouimet’s victory golf’s popularity exploded in America.

The Country Club is also one of the five founding clubs that formed the USGA in 1894.  Brookline , along with Newport Golf Club, Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, St. Andrews Golf Club (Yonkers) and Chicago Golf Club joined together to start the USGA in order to run a national championship.

It’s been 100 years since Ouimet’s win transformed golf in America and the USGA is back to honor his game changing achievement.

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