Forgan begins it all

Sunday, July 28, 2013

In 1899, David Forgan defeated fellow Chicagoan Walter Egan 6 and 5 at Glen View Club in Golf, Ill., an aptly named suburb on the north side of Chicago, to win the first Western Amateur Championship. It was the crowning on-course achievement for a man born into the sport and best-known for one of golf’s most enduring works of prose.

Forgan was born in 1862 at the home of golf, St. Andrews, Scotland, where his family owned the Forgan Golf Club Company. A banker by trade, he moved to Canada as a teenager and to Minnesota in 1888. He was president of Chicago’s Union National Bank in 1907-1925.

Today, he is best remembered for being the author of The Golfer’s Creed, an eight-sentence essay given as part of a speech he delivered in 1899. It has inspired golfers for generations.

Forgan died Dec. 26, 1931, at his home in Evanston, Ill.

Sports, Pages 31 on 07/28/2013