John McDermott — First American to Win the US Open
Pennsylvania
The neighborhood around the Kingsessing Library in Southwest Philadelphia produced one of American golf's most important champions. John J. McDermott grew up here, learned the game by caddying at the Aronimink Golf Club when it was still located in this area, and went on to change the history of the sport.
In nineteen eleven, at the Chicago Golf Club, the nineteen-year-old McDermott became the first American-born player ever to win the United States Open Championship. The tournament had previously been dominated by British professionals who had emigrated to the United States, and many in the sport assumed that dominance would never end. McDermott ended it.
He came back the following year and won again, defending his title and proving the first victory was no accident. Between nineteen ten and nineteen fourteen, he was considered one of the finest golfers in the world, helping to establish the idea that American-trained players could compete at the highest level.
Illness cut his career short after nineteen fourteen. He never returned to championship form. But what he started in Chicago in nineteen eleven, an American era in the game, has never ended.
