Society of Golf Historians

The Godfather of American Sports Writing - Herbert Warren Wind would disagree with you. One of the greatest writers of all-time- he understood the importance of our game’s history and America’s place in it. We don’t own this game Shane, we are merely the custodians of it. To think that there was ever a time the Open wasn’t a major is perhaps the biggest flaw in what you have written. The Open was a continuation of Challenge Matches to determine the Champion Golfer- a history that pre-dates the Open. In 1860 the greatest golfers in the world played to determine that title and they were but only eight- but the eight best in the world. Sure it was a small sample size but as the game grew so did the Open. I will be honest - I know a lot of people don’t care about golf history- I know a lot of people think golf history started with Arnold Palmer, but in my wildest dreams I didn’t think I would have this debate with a writer for Golf Digest. It’s shocking and a little disheartening. I am way too close to the subject matter but it actually pains me that you believe this. I am fine ending it here - but I will end with this- while the professional hub of golf may currently reside in the US, it shouldn’t allow us to rewrite its history. If Arnold Palmer was alive today I am sure he would tell you that he didn’t invent the majors - that his efforts popularized the modern grand slam in the eyes of the American public.

I'm done because your arguments are dogmatic and fundamentalist. "It was a major in 1860," give me a break. I think assigning it some permanent unchanging status is actually appreciating its evolution less. I am not arguing it wasn't a "major" in 1955 or 1959, but that its status compared to 20 years earlier was at greater risk due to events beyond a tournament's control, and it was resuscitated in part by the recognition of Americans. This is a simple and obviously true point, and it needs no further defense from me.

THE PLAYERS is over. It had the pressure, the stage, the field, the finish — and yes, a whole lot of MAJOR feel. Now as the conversation shifts to Augusta, @KVanValkenburg of @fried_egg_golf offers the bigger-picture question: Who decided what a major even is in the first place? History, power, prestige, timing — it’s never been quite as fixed as we pretend.

Shane- every single day for the last 20 years I have spent hours researching golf history. Every week I write atleast two articles about golf history- every two weeks I try to produce a podcast dedicated to golf history. I do all of that without taking a dime. I assure you I am not delusional, nor do I have a clouded sense of history. I am quite grounded on this point that I have basically dedicated my life to. My prism is the game itself - not American golf history- just golf history.

@SHistorians @KVanValkenburg @5ClubsGolf @fried_egg_golf @Garywilliams1Up @GolfChannel @SiriusXMPGATOUR @PGATOUR @SIRIUSXM @TheOpen for whatever reason you're uncomfortable with the idea that an American might have boosted the Open's status in a country (America) where it really mattered and had long-term effects on what the Open would become, and it's clouding your sense of history

Hell NO Shane!!! What the flying hell- it’s @TheOpen. I cannot believe there is a golf writer alive on this planet who would argue the Open was at some point not a Major. It has always been a Major…ALWAYS…when 8 golfers showed up in 1860 it was a Major…when Americans didn’t attend, it was a Major. If there was some crazy law that stated that there should only be one Major…it would be the Major. This game is so much bigger than the landform between the Atlantic and Pacific and golf history didn’t start with Arnold Palmer.

do you honestly not believe the status of a golf tournament like the Open can ebb and flow with historical changes? Do you think the Open in 1959 was the same as the Open that Bobby Jones won? It does not diminish the history or beauty of the Open to say that there was a specific point in time when it badly needed a boost from some Americans, and that while, yes, these Americans recognized the history, it was not inevitable that they would do so, and there's an easily imaginable alternate timeline where the Open isn't one of golf's modern majors. The Ryder Cup needed to be saved by a Portland grocer a few years earlier. History works in ebbs and flows.

Jesus I just said this again- do you honestly believe that @TheOpen wasn’t a Major Championship prior to Palmer? Or that somehow it was and then it wasn’t? I am reading this again, “there was a real danger it would have never have reclaimed the global status needed in the decades to come to be a major.”

Call it American-centric if you want, but America was the dominant golfing nation in the post-war period and remains so today. If people like Hogan and especially Palmer had not made the effort to go, along with the promotional effort Palmer undertook, there was a real danger it would never have recovered the global status needed in the decades to come to be a major. Diminishing what they did to connect the Open's history with the modern era and with the American golfing public, all very necessary at the time, is poor form for a historian.

I find your assertion flawed. I also think it’s a very American point of view. This isn’t an American argument it’s a historical one. It’s not our game - it’s very much Scotland’s game that we play. You think that Hogan, Snead and Palmer went to Scotland to save the Open- I would argue the opposite- that they recognized the historical importance of the oldest and arguably most important major. The one that inspired our US Open, which inspired the rest. They recognized post-war what Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen had known before them- The Open is history. BTW the American who should get the credit for pushing the historical importance of the Open is not Palmer, Snead or Hogan it was amateur golfer (and American) Frank Stranahan.

Post war when Snead and Hogan won it? It didn’t attract Americans because the winnings wouldn’t cover the cost of the trip. Doesn’t your argument that “it was diminished because Americans didn’t play in it” seem a bit… American Centric? Which BTW is a major argument against the Players- don’t we have enough with three majors in this country? Just because few Americans didn’t play in it- doesn’t mean it wasn’t a Major. I am sure @theopen and @RandA would concur seeing how it was the first Major- the Major which started them all. Should the Australians not be proud of Peter Thomson’s 5 Opens? The creation of the fourth major isn’t natural or unnatural it just happened - the timing can be debated- probably not 1934, possibly 1935 but well before 1960…likely in the 1940s but there isn’t a sacred scroll. Palmer popularized the Modern Professional Grand Slam. I just don’t see what the fuss is about. We don’t need a fifth major…it didn’t help the ladies game and watering down the importance of majors by adding a fifth is unnecessary.

there was nothing "natural" about the Masters assuming the role of the fourth major, it was entirely manufactured, and one thing you routinely ignore in this analysis is the diminished status of the Open in the post-war period, running all the way through the 1950s, and how critical Palmer's participation was to re-elevating that status in the US.

Yes, even before the The Masters was established, writers were already searching for the professional equivalent of Bobby Jones’ 1930 feat. The question was clear: what would constitute a “Professional Grand Slam”? This particular article comes from 1931, just one year removed from Jones’ achievement, and shows that the concept was already taking shape. Three championships consistently appeared in those early discussions…the The Open Championship, the U.S. Open, and the PGA Championship. The fourth, however, was unsettled. Writers experimented sometimes pointing to events like the French Open, as they searched for the fourth. That ambiguity only lasted until the Masters arrived and naturally completed the set. Some of this, of course, is semantic, a question of how “major” was defined at the time versus how we classify major championships today. But the underlying idea of a four-event professional slam clearly predates 1960. So to your original point (your article), while Arnold Palmer undoubtedly popularized the modern Grand Slam narrative in 1960, he didn’t invent it. The framework was already in place, and by then it included the Masters. Palmer gave it clarity and cultural weight, but not origin. And even if we grant Palmer’s version, we’re still looking at 66 years of consistency. In reality, the four modern majors have been effectively established for closer to 80 years, a structure that has proven remarkably durable despite a push for a 5th. Your article shows us the early origins for the quest for four.

@SHistorians @KVanValkenburg @5ClubsGolf @fried_egg_golf @Garywilliams1Up @GolfChannel @SiriusXMPGATOUR @PGATOUR @SIRIUSXM When Tommy Armour spoke about it, he was including the Canadian Open. Newspaper accounts at the time counted six grand slams, including the Metropolitan Open.

@CambridgeGrey @firmandfastgolf @AdrianLogue Adrian is a great guy

Just listening through the @firmandfastgolf podcast back catalogue, recommended listening. I really enjoyed Episode 16: with @AdrianLogue. So, Adrian what thinks you about this path? Cheers 🥃

@gietzschean Oddly enough this store was one of the inspirations for the #Golffice.

The iconic Ralph Lauren store in Chicago

@JasonThesi93027 #1???

@SHistorians As a Gopher and the father of a Cyclone, you can probably imagine where Iowa sits in my eyes. Her boyfriend and his entire family are Hawkeyes so we are always getting from them.

My eldest is heading back to college tomorrow, so dad is making snicker-doodles, in an effort to try to keep her here for the weekend.

@JamesBurgessMBA @chadmumm @JustinWheelon @GolfDigest Is it?

@SHistorians @chadmumm @JustinWheelon @GolfDigest Great rage bait

A couple of years ago I set out to design one of the coolest pair of golf shoes ever- I think I accomplished that goal. These Nike Jordan I golf shoes are hand painted with the original 1932 Dr. Alister MacKenzie routing of Augusta National. The details are incredibly precise, yet all painted on by hand. There are a truly one of one work of art. #GolfHistory

@JasonThesi93027 Because it’s your daughter I am not going to say anything about tha awful school. My son will be attending the U of Iowa in the Fall:)

@SHistorians If the sorority was open this weekend, mine would be going back to Ames for the 88 degrees and sun!

@MidwestGolfJake “Lost” My spelling errors are horrid on social media

@MidwestGolfJake I low count but I am easily at a half dozen in my belly. I don’t do drugs- I don’t drink much at all, but cookies are my drug! I don’t remember a single time in my entire life that I have said no to a good cookie.

I could be wrong on this bit of merchandise history which bleeds into #Golfhistory, but I heard from a semi-credible source that the BIG LETTER hat epidemic… Hat Zero if you will…originated in Tampa, Florida. There will not be a newsletter dedicated to this history.

My favorite painting within the R&A collection and one of my favorite golf historians. I was born in the USA, but my spiritual birthplace was Musselburgh, Scotland! Have a great evening!

Funny Kevin - I swear to God I thought you were being the smug one and responded accordingly. I say this because you yourself made the case for it not being a major. The club certainly wanted the Augusta National Invitational to be a smash hit. They scheduled it as you know to match up with the migration back from spring training. I am unaware of any written campaign to make it a Major. I have no proof of tha intent- do you? They needed members that’s was there primary motivation. The press served that purpose.

@SHistorians @5ClubsGolf @fried_egg_golf @Garywilliams1Up @GolfChannel @SiriusXMPGATOUR @PGATOUR @SIRIUSXM Instead of being so smug about this, you might want to make room for a little nuance. Your idea, for instance, that the Masters never campaigned for major status is hilarious. What do you think paying for sports writers to come to Augusta on the way to spring training was?

You know as well as everyone that there is no such body to make that decision (and thank god for that). All of the four majors made it without spending hundreds of millions on a 5th major marketing campaign. I laid out how the PGA Tour could claim their own major in my newsletter.

@SHistorians @5ClubsGolf @fried_egg_golf @Garywilliams1Up @GolfChannel @SiriusXMPGATOUR @PGATOUR @SIRIUSXM So in the end, the distinction comes down to capitalization, which was applied arbitrarily and with no clear standards.