Golf Hall of Fame: A Look at Five Who were Overlooked

Hall of Fame Overlooked Entrant #3: John McDermott

Francis Ouimet is immortalized today for his role in Americanizing the game of golf. In 1913, Ouimet, an amateur, famously beat heavily favored Britishers Harry Vardon and Ted Ray to win the U.S. Open,

But Ouimet’s stunning victory had the unfortunate side-effect of marginalizing the contributions of a contemporary who deserved far better.

Four years before Ouimet’s emergence, John McDermott, a brash 17-year-old Philadelphian who showed up at the U.S. Open being played at Englewood Golf Club in New Jersey, and is pictured above to the left. At that point, no native American player had ever won – or seriously contended –in the Open. McDermott managed nothing better than a tie for 49th. But one year later at Philadelphia Cricket Club he played his way into a playoff with two of the Smith brothers, Macdonald and Alex. Alex shot 71 to win, McDermott posting a 75 and Macdonald 77.

The near-miss only fueled McDermott’s already brimming drive to succeed, and in 1911 he did. Beating Mike Brady and George Simpson in a playoff, he became the first native-born American to win the country’s national championship. McDermott returned as a 20-year-old in 1912 and won again, this time by two strokes.

Those two victories by a non-British-born player were part of the motivation behind the decisions of Vardon and Ray to cross the Atlantic to compete in the 1913 U.S. Open in the first place.

When Ouimet pulled off his upset win in 1913, McDermott finished eighth, four strokes out of the playoff. As the pre-eminent American professional, he was the first American to accept the challenge of the British Open, finishing fifth behind J.H. Taylor, Ray, Vardon, and Irishman Michael Moran. To the Scots, such a performance by a Yank had to that point been unthinkable

From that point on, McDermott’s story is one of the game’s great tragedies, ranking just behind Young Tom Morris and Tony Lema. He finished top 10 in the 1914 U.S. Open and boarded a ship to return to Britain for that year’s Open championship. But the ship was delayed en route, and McDermott did not compete.

On the return home, the ship was rammed by a freighter. McDermott, in a barber’s chair at the moment of impact, scrambled for a lifeboat and was rescued along with the other passengers. But the experience appeared to have unhinged his always volatile nature. Collapsing after his return home, his family confined him to a mental institution, where for the most part he remained for the next half-century. McDermott never played competitive golf again.

The knock on McDermott’s candidacy is the truncated duration of his career. It lasted just parts of seven seasons. There’s no disputing that.

But there’s also no disputing that while he played, McDermott was the best player in America. Only the 1910 playoff loss prevented his winning three consecutive U.S. Opens. It also ought to be worth something that it was McDermott, not Ouimet, who ended the domination of British-born players in the American game.