John Reid - Victorian Golf - Are there 2 John Reids?

[Jaeger Kovich]

Question - Are there 2 John Reids who influenced the early Victorian Golf period in the US?


1 - St. Andrew's Golf Club in NY was clearly founded by "John Reid". He was certainly influential in bringing golf to the US from his native Scotland and loved to share his passion for the game.


2—John Reid of the Philly Area—A golf pro who laid out the original course of Huntingdon Valley CC. It seems like John Reid also laid out an early version of Atlantic City CC, as well as possibly Riverton CC and Lancaster.


3 - "John Reid" appears in a number of early tournament entries for early USGA type events playing out of the St. Andrew's GC. A golf pro likely wouldn't have been able to do this, which leads me to think there are/were 2 John Reids... Does anyone know?


Cheers, thanks.

[Sven Nilsen]

Yes

[Joe Bausch]

Yes

Tks.

[Simon Barrington]

Jeager

Certainly there were two different John Reid's exerting great influence in the early days of US Golf

This previous GCA thread may assist:

     https://www.golfclubatlas.com/forum/index.php/topic,44705.25/wap2.html

It seems the Philadelphian John Reid was known as "Jack" which is a "pet" or Nick" name for John, and it was/is not uncommon for Scots to be known by their middle name or nickname to distinguish from family members with the same first & surnames.
The use of "Jnr.", the "III" or "IV" etc. was/is a largely American tradition I believe.

"Jack" landed in US c.1895, whereas John Reid of St Andrews GC of NY (Born on October 14, 1840 – Died on October 7, 1916) landed c.1866 some 8 years before "Jack" Reid was born.


As an aside, John Reid of St. Andrews GC of NY had two sons who also moved the game forward, the following from the "Yale Golf History" website:-

"Like father, like sons John Reid, leader of the Apple Tree Gang, did not go to Yale, but he sent his two sons to New Haven.

The older, John Reid, Jr. (Class of 1899) helped found the Yale University Golf Club in 1896 and was a member of the team that won the first intercollegiate championship, sponsored by the USGA in 1897. The same year, he won the University Championship and was elected vice-captain of the team. He was the individual intercollegiate champion in spring of 1898 and led the Yale squad to the intercollegiate championship in the fall.

A year after he graduated, his brother Archibald (Class of 1904) arrived to continue the family golfing tradition. Archie was a member of the 1902 intercollegiate champion team and captain in 1904.

John Sr. was proud of his sons, but it seems he set a high standard. Both John Jr. and Archie competed successfully after college. One year, Archie was defeated in his United States Amateur match. His father, reading this in his morning newspaper at breakfast, was said to have turned gruffly to his wife, “I see whereyour son has lost a golf match!”

But, it surely was his son John Jr., who, as the usga secretary, presented the trophy to Francis Ouimet, the winner of the US Open in 1913 at The Country Club in Brookline. Ouimet, an unheralded twenty-year old American amateur, bested the English professionals, Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, in a thirty-six hole playoff. Ouimet made “the shots heard round the world” in the “greatest game ever played,” described so dramatically in Mark Frost’s book of that title."

Cheers

[Jaeger Kovich]

Thanks guys. 3 John Reids is a lot to keep track of in early American Golf!


I had never heard of John Reid of The Apple Tree Gang helping design any other courses, so I wanted to double-check something I read about one of the others.

[Marty Bonnar]

A wee fun item including John Reid:
https://youtu.be/WZivmWCpjps
Enjoy!
F.

[Colin Sheehan]

Here's a short slideshow about the John Reid trophy which is awarded each April to the men's golf Ivy League Champs. It technically has another name, but the actual trophy was dedicated to JR on November 12, 1910 "by a few of his friends and admirers whose lives he has brightened and whose emotions he has quickened by his sympathetic renderings and poetic interpretation of the songs and ballads of his native land and who are privileged to tender this expression of their esteem for his sterling qualities of head and heart and his rare combination of the attributes which constitute the charm of the genuine Scot" 


https://photos.app.goo.gl/Hf5duxAYtHmXJqTx6


It includes a brief bit of info on his two sons who went to Yale. The older was among those who started the team in the fall of 1896 and the other became a USGA President.

[Jaeger Kovich]

Marty and Colin, Thanks for adding more cool John Reid tidbits to this. I'm working on a plan for St. Andrew's GC in Westchester, and it is very cool to learn more about their founder.

[Marty Bonnar]

I don’t think Reid’s home town, Dunfermline, makes nearly enough of him or Robert Lockhart. To be fair though, they have tended to be over-shadowed by that other son of the town, one Andrew Carnegie!
Cheers,
F.