Nine holes. That's all Newport had, so they played it four times in a single day and that was the championship — 36 holes, done by dark, 1895.
Okay, so. Eleven guys in the field, and the one who wins is the assistant pro at the host club. Horace Rawlins, 21, English, 173 strokes. You know what an assistant pro does most days? Not this. And then Willie Dunn comes in two back at 175, and I'm sorry, I'm pulling for Dunn. He'd been around, he'd been the name people said, and he lost the first one by two on a course somebody else swept the shop floor at. Two strokes across 36 holes. You'd take that round again if anybody offered.
I'm with you on Dunn, Toby. Musselburgh man, and he'd taken that unofficial match the year before, so he came in carrying the name and left two shots light. Two in thirty-six is a gust of wind.
The whole thing was bolted onto the back end of the Amateur championship, almost as an afterthought — the amateurs were the main event in 1895. Rawlins took home $150 and a gold medal for his 173. (Dunn got the sympathy, which keeps.)