Golf is one of those sports with a long-running sense of its own history. For instance, when the U.S. Open returns to Pebble Beach in 2019, it will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of the opening of the famed Monterey Bay course. The same thing happened in 2009 when Beverly hosted the U.S. Senior Amateur. Two summers ago I attended the 100th anniversary tournament of Walter Hagen’s 1914 U.S. Open triumph at Midlothian. Last year, Jordan Spieth won the season’s first two majors and his accomplishments were being compared to the exploits of Gene Sarazen in the 1920s. In fact, today’s golf fans hear more about Hagen, Sarazen, and Bobby Jones than NFL fans ever hear of their contemporaries such as Red Grange and Bronco Nagurski, football stars of the 1920s and 1930s.
Exactly one century ago, golf was becoming more Americanized. Those initial U.S. Opens from 1895 through 1910 were dominated by English and Scottish professionals such as Harry Vardon, Willie Anderson and Alex Smith. Yet by the time 1911 rolled around, the game had taken a foothold upon America. Johnny McDermott of Philadelphia won the National Open in 1911 and 1912, caddie Francis Ouimet took home the 1913 Open in most dramatic fashion, Hagen won his first major in 1914, and Jerome Travers made it five in a row for American golfers with his victory at Baltusrol. More golf history was to be made during that summer of 1916, some 100 years ago, with an American golfer winning both the U.S. Open and Amateur.
Charles “Chick” Evans was born in July of 1890 in Indianapolis. Evans’ family moved to Chicago when he was 8 years old and it relocated to the north side near the Edgewater Golf Club. By the time he was a 10-year-old, Evans started to caddie at Edgewater and play golf in his spare time. He immediately took to the game and won the regional high school title, the Western Interscholastic, in 1907 and 1908. He took business classes at Northwestern University and began playing regional golf on the amateur and professional level.
At age 17, he won his first of three Chicago Amateurs. That same year he won the Western Junior. He followed it up with a victory later that summer in the Western Amateur, nowadays known as “the Masters of Amateur Golf.” Evans’ win in the Western Amateur, the oldest amateur tournament other than the British Amateur and the U.S. Amateur, was no fluke as he would go on to win it a total of 10 times. Along the way, he also won the 1911 French Amateur, the 1911 North and South at Pinehurst, and the 1914 CDGA.
Yet while Chick was the dominant amateur golfer in America prior to the Bobby Jones era, he also was able to show his talents among the pay-for-play gang. Against a strong professional field, he won the 1910 Western Open at Beverly. He also would win another tour event some 15 years later when he won the Kansas City Open. However, it was the summer of 1916 when he made his biggest splash in the world of golf. At the 1916 U.S. Open at Minikahda in Minneapolis, he ended up taking home the title by a two-stroke margin of victory over Jock Hutchinson. Hutchinson was no slouch as he would go on to win the PGA Championship, the British Open, two PGA Seniors and was the first honorary starter at the Masters. Later that summer at Merion, he defeated two-time defending champion Robert Gardner in the finals of the U.S. Amateur. Evans was the first golfer to win both the U.S. Open and the U.S. Amateur in the same calendar year. Four years later he would win a second U.S. Amateur with a finals win over Ouimet at the Engineers Club of New York.
During the 1920s, Evans started receiving offers to perform in golf movie shorties as well as write golf instructional books. The only glitch in all this was that Evans would lose his amateur status if he accepted money for such projects. Wanting to participate in these projects, he made a career decision that would affect thousands of young people for decades to come. Evans would perform and write, but the monies from his endeavors would be donated to his newly formed foundation. The Chick Evans Scholarship Foundation would provide college scholarship money to caddies. The first two scholarships were awarded in 1930 and today more than 9,800 full scholarships have been awarded and Evans Houses are located on 14 campuses, including Purdue, Ohio State, Marquette, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and Michigan State. A 15th Evans House is currently being built on the University of Oregon campus. Proceeds from the PGA Tour’s BMW Championship (formerly the Western Open) represent the major contributions to the Evans Scholars Foundation to this day.
Evans, who had six top-10 finishes in the U.S. Open and played competitive golf from 1910 through 1940 with just seven hickory shafted clubs, was a competitive golfer well into his 70s. In 1967, he played in his final Western Open at Beverly as a 77-year-old and he shot in the mid-80s both rounds. My good friend, Pat Kielty, caddied for Evans that week. It was similar to the reception Arnold Palmer received at his final Masters with standing ovations on every hole on Friday afternoon as Chick played that final nine at Beverly. Yet while 1967 was Evans’ final appearance at a PGA Tour event, it wasn’t his final win of note. The following year he won the Illinois Open. The Illinois Open is not some everyday club pro tourney as the field that year included former U.S. Open champ Jack Fleck alongside tour pros Bill Ogden, Dick Hart and Rick Ten Broeck.
Evans passed away in November of 1979 at age 89. He was a talented lifetime amateur golfer who won the U.S. Open, the Western Open, a pair of U.S. Amateurs, played in the first three Walker Cup matches, played in 50 consecutive U.S. Amateurs, won the Bob Jones Award in 1960, and was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1975. He founded the Chick Evans Scholars Foundation and that organization continues to award full college scholarships to needy loopers from the caddie yard.
It was 100 years ago during the summer of 1916 that Chick Evans made golf history by winning both the U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur. Only Bobby Jones would repeat the feat in 1930 during his grand slam year. When all is said and done, Evans had one of those full lives wherein he not only made a positive impact on the golf course as one of the game’s original gentleman amateurs, but also provided opportunities for others well after his playing days, well after he passed on. Chick Evans will always be remembered as one of the game’s class acts.
