01:00 AM EDT on Tuesday, June 27, 2006

BY KEVIN McNAMARA
Journal Sports Writer

Competitive golf in the United States was born at Newport Country Club and continues with the start of the Women's Open this week.

Here's a look at the major competitions held at Newport C.C.

September 1894 With a nine-hole course that the club was pleased to showcase, the best amateur golfers in the country were invited to play an invitational tournament in Newport. The 36-hole event meant four trips around a primitive links layout divided by stone walls, dirt roads and livestock. Twenty players entered but only eight finished. Charles B. Macdonald, who had learned the game at St. Andrews in Scotland, was pegged as the favorite.

To the surprise, and delight, of the locals, the winner was William G. Lawrence of the then-Newport Golf Club. Lawrence toured the 36 holes in 188 strokes. Macdonald finished at 189 and was very upset when he lost two strokes after his ball became lodged in a stone wall. In a snit, Macdonald called for the formation of a governing body to run a universally recognized national championship and formulate the game's rules.

Later that month, a tournament for "professional" players was held at Newport. William Campbell of The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., won first prize. Willie Dunn placed second.

The informality of both tournaments spurred the five leading clubs of the day to form what was then called the Amateur Golf Association of the United States, the forefather of the United States Golf Association. On Dec. 22, 1894, charter members Newport Golf Club, Shinnecock Hills (N.Y.) Golf Club, The Country Club (Brookline, Mass.), St. Andrew's Golf Club (Yonkers, N.Y.), and Chicago Golf Club signed on to the fledgling organization.

Oct. 3, 1895 Originally scheduled for September, the USGA's first national Amateur championship was delayed because Newport was hosting the more prestigious America's Cup yachting races.

Thirty-two players competed in a match-play format, with Macdonald dominating from the start and rolling through a field that included some players who had barely taken up the game. One neophyte, Newporter Richard Peters, was defeated in the first round and caused a bit of a ruckus when he laid on some greens and used his putter as a pool cue. Held a day before the first U.S. Open, the Amateur is the oldest golf championship in America. The tourney champion is awarded the Havemeyer Cup, named after Newport Golf Club president Theodore Havemeyer.

Oct. 4, 1895 The first U.S. Open was played the very next day in a medal-play format with 11 contestants entered. The players toured the nine-hole course four times in a single day and the tournament was won by Horace Rawlins, an English professional who was the assistant to Newport pro Willie Davis. Rawlins shot 91-82 to edge Willie Dunn of Shinnecock by two strokes. Davis came in fifth. Rawlins, 21, was awarded $150 and a gold medal.

September 1980 The Senior Tour began an event at Newport that ran for about a decade and was always sparsely attended. Sam Snead won the first tournament and greats like Arnold Palmer, Julius Boros, Bob Toski, Billy Casper and other vintage stars of 1950s and '60s made the trip to Newport.

August 1995 One hundred years after the first official U.S. Amateur, the prestigious tournament returned to Newport. All of the initial publicity centered on the centennial, but a Stanford University undergraduate named Tiger Woods stole the show.

By the end of the gloriously successful tourney, the awesomely talented Woods, then 19, had won the second of his record three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles. But the journey was not an easy one. Woods, from Cypress, Calif., completed a triumphant march to the title by squeaking past Buddy Marucci, 2 up, in the 36-hole final. Marucci, 43, from Berwyn, Pa., led by as many as three holes in the morning 18, was still on top by one at the turn and was even with Woods as late as the 29th hole. But Woods shot a sizzling 4-under 66 in the afternoon round, including the most spectacular shots of the week. Marucci won the 35th hole to slice Woods' lead to one and push the match to another hole. With Marucci in good position for a tying birdie at Newport's uphill, 18th hole, Woods answered by firing an 8-iron over the top of the flag that spun back and kept rolling before stopping two feet from the hole.

Marucci missed his birdie putt and then conceded Woods his putt for the 2-up final. Afterwards, he gave the Journal some words of wisdom that the rest of the golfing world would soon appreciate.

"Tiger's got more shots than most people at this level, especially his short game," Marucci said. "Some of those wedge shots he hits, those little pitch and run shots. . . . For a guy who hits it 325 yards, he stands there 25 feet from the green and pitches it within a foot of the hole.

"He's got a tremendous game. There's no question if he stays healthy and, well, he's going to be very, very successful. Tiger is the best athlete that this range of golf has seen. He's lean. He's strong. His golf swing is marvelous."

The win was the fifth USGA title for Woods, to go along with three Junior championships. He became the ninth player in the event's 100-year history to win back-to-back titles, joining H.J. Whigham (1896-97), Walter J. Travis (1900-01), H. Chandler Egan (1904-05), Jerome D. Travers (1906-07), Bobby Jones (1924-25 and 1930-31), Lawson Little in (1934-35), Harvey Ward (1955-56) and Jay Sigel in (1982-83).

kmcnamar@projo.com / (401) 277-7340