The tournament and golf course were the inspiration of Thomas Suffern Tailer, Sr. A wealthy New Yorker who summered in Newport, Tailer was a member of Newport Country Club and also, quite clearly, bitten by the golf bug. In 1919 he purchased 65 acres adjacent to Newport CC and built his own nine-hole course.

He did not cut corners. He hired one of the country’s finest golf architects, Charles Blair MacDonald, who brought along his equally famous protégé, Seth Raynor. At Ocean Links, they fashioned a seaside masterpiece, with nearly every hole featuring a water view and three greens resting on the ocean’s edge. The course was ready for play in less than two years.

It was immediately lauded. “The Ocean Links stands for the last word in golf architecture,” praised Golf Illustrated in 1923.

From “Long-Gone Ocean Links & the Gold Mashie,” by Rob Duca.