Just a short drive from the heart of this historic community, the tower of the World Golf Hall of Fame is a beacon for golf lovers travelling the I95, and it is only natural that visitors from Niagara/Ontario are drawn to seek out our local link supplied by Marlene Stewart-Streit -- the first Canadian inducted into the Hall.
But they'll be surprised to find that the Fonthill phenom, who was inducted in 2004, isn't Canada's only presence. And most Americans, including many staff and volunteers at the Hall of Fame, are also surprised to learn that the man considered the Father of American Golf was Canadian by birth. Although that is how is he listed in the guidebook.
In fact, Charles Blair Macdonald, who was inducted into the Hall in 2007 in the Lifetime Achievement category -- as a Canadian -- entered the world on Nov. 14, 1855, in Niagara Falls, Ont., the son of a Scottish immigrant father and a Canadian (part-Mohawk) mother.
His folks moved on to Chicago and, when he was 16, the younger Macdonald was sent to Scotland to live with his grandfather and study at St. Andrews University. Needless to say, the allure of golf and the famed Old Course captured him and he learned the game at the hands of Old Tom Morris and regularly played with Young Tom Morris.
When he returned to Chicago two years later, there was not a single golf course in the U.S. After laying out a seven-hole course in conjunction with the 1892 Chicago World's Fair, Macdonald was asked to design another two, the latter of which, in Wheaton, Ill., became the Chicago Golf Club. While these were not the first golf courses in the United States, these two were the first 18-hole courses in America.
Macdonald, by brunt of what biographers describe as an outsized ego and personality, helped give birth to what later became the United States Golf Association. This evolved when in 1894 two early American golf clubs, Newport and St. Andrews, attempted to conduct national amateur championships. When Macdonald did not win either, although he came close in both attempts, he claimed each was not a true national championship because of inconsistent rules and they were not conducted by a true national body. As a result of the outcry he created, five prominent clubs came together later in the year to form the USGA'S predecessor Amateur Golf Association of the United States.
The next year, Macdonald won the first U.S. Amateur to become America's first true national champion.
Macdonald died on April 21, 1939, remembered as a giant in U.S. golf history, but a Canadian and a Niagaran for all that.
Marlene Stewart-Streit, of course, is still active in the sport and her accomplishments as an amateur are well recognized in Florida.
The pathway surrounding the lake overlooked by the World Golf Hall of Fame bears commemorative brickwork honouring some of the greats of the game, and there, between the challenging 18-hole putting course and the entrance to the hall itself, is a section paying homage to her. The centrepiece is a stone from "Family and Friends of Hall of Famer Marlene Streit." It is surrounded by bricks bearing the names of those who wanted to pay tribute. The names range from that of her mentor, the late Gordie McInnis, to fellow members of golf courses and organizations, to those who chronicled her exploits -- including The Standard's former sports editor Jack Gatecliff and CKTB Radio's sports broadcaster Rex Stimers.
Inside the Hall of Fame itself, after a fascinating stroll through the game's historic roots and personalities, including the chance to play an 1800s-style green using a hickory-shafted putter and a gutta percha ball, comes Shell Hall, housing the Wall of Fame bearing the bronze relief plaques of the 130 members.
At the top left of one six-plaque grouping is the image of Stewart-Streit, right next to another female phenom, Annika Sorenstam. They are joined in the grouping by PGA greats Payne Stewart and Curtis Strange, and Louise Suggs -- the first female inductee into the Hall of Fame who won 58 LPGA tournaments, including 11 major championships, and J.H. Taylor, the Englishman among the great golfers from the 19th century.
Pretty good company for the kid, who at 15 would ride her bicycle to Lookout Point Golf Club to caddy, using the money she earned to pay the $25 junior membership fee and putting her under the tutelage of local legend Gordie McInnis Sr.
The bicycle rides signalled the start of a stellar amateur career. Only a year after taking up the game, she finished runner-up in the Ontario Junior Girls' Championship and in 1953 she made her mark on the international stage by capturing the 1953 British Women's Amateur.
Her career spanned more than five decades with at least one major amateur victory in each, including 11 Canadian Ladies Open Amateurs, nine Canadian Ladies Closed Amateurs and four Canadian Ladies Senior Women's Amateur tournaments. Most significantly, she is the only woman ever to win the Canadian, British, American, and Australian amateur titles.
And in 2003, at age 69, she became the oldest woman to win a USGA championship when she defeated Nancy Fitzgerald with a par on the fifth extra hole in the U.S. Senior Women's Amateur. The following year, she became the first Canadian member of the World Golf Hall of Fame and today is still active in the promotion of the game.
Naturally, there is much, much more to the Hall of Fame both inside and out, including its two golf courses -- The King and The Bear and The Slammer and The Squire -- and a day's visit might just not be enough for aficionados of the game.
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