TROON, Scotland — With the history of the Open championship dating back 145 years, along with the great number of Scottish golfing aficionados emigrating to the United States for opportunity, it would only be expected that there are a number of small world vignettes out there.  I discovered one recently.

The Scots, as we know, invented the game. They came over in large numbers to design and develop golf courses on the eastern seaboard and to teach the game. Bobby Jones, the Grand Slammer, was taught at East Lake by Stewart Maiden, who hailed from Carnoustie. To identify all the accomplished Scottish teachers from yesteryear would take longer than it took Ramses to build the temple at Abu Simbel. Playing all the courses designed by Donald Ross, the Dornoch native, would stress your calendar.   

It made sense that to develop courses and learn the rudiments of the game, you would want a Scot take up residence in your neighborhood. It was similar to the development of college football in the twenties.

Schools across the country clamored to bring in a Notre Dame disciple to put in the Irish offense—the Notre Dame box—then the rage of college football. That is why Georgia looked to Harry Mehre, the center who snapped the ball to the Four Horsemen, to lead the Bulldogs to a championship.

Several years ago, the late Cliff Brooks of Oglethorpe County told me about the Maxwell family who were descendants of the winner of a British Open. One day he asked, “You know Ralph Maxwell who publishes the Oglethorpe Echo, don’t you?” He immediately provided the answer: “His great grandfather was Willie Fernie.”

Willie Fernie won the British Open in 1883. The championship was played at Musselburg with Willie beating the favorite, Bob Ferguson, in an 18 hole playoff.  The total prize money was 20 pounds.  Willie was paid eight pounds for winning. Using today’s exchange rate, that comes out to about $11.  

With the rain heavy and threatening at Troon on Friday, another of Willie’s great grandsons, Douglas Buchanan, met me behind the 18th hole grandstand to talk about his famous ancestor. “I don’t know a lot other than my great grandmother was Willie’s second wife who treated his five boys as if they were his own,” he said. “Apparently she had enough of golf and didn’t talk about the game.”

Douglas, a retired architect, would like to write a book about Willie Fernie but wants it to be accurate and has experienced misgivings about some of the information on record. “I have seen so many things written that are not true,” he said. “But some of the information is hard to pin down.”

With this championship advancing to the halfway point of a second century of competition, those historical vignettes keep surfacing at the Open each year. If you appreciate history, especially in these times which have an accent on genealogy, it fascinates and resonates when you meet someone whose ancestors played with the gutta-percha ball and wore a tie in competition.

The Maxwells are linked to Willie’s first wife and Buchanan to the second. From the Maxwell side of the family, William Maxwell, Ralph’s brother, is the historian of the family.  William lives in Nashville, Tenn., where he works for the Tennessee Baptist Convention. He has visited Troon, where Willie lived out his life, and has researched Willie Fernie’s golf history.

William discovered that Willie played in his first Open in 1873 at the age of 16, finishing in a tie for ninth place. In 1879, Willie played at St. Andrews at age 22 which means he likely was friends with the legends of St. Andrews, Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris.  (Old Tom’s daughter and son-in-law were among the contingent, which settled in Darien, Ga.  His grandson, who died as an infant, was born in Darien. The grandson is buried at the cemetery at St. Andrews.)

“Willie played in the Open 29 times, and finished in the top 10, approximately two out of three times over the course of his lifetime,” William Maxwell said proudly. The record confirms that Willie Fernie was a very accomplished professional in his day.  

William’s due diligence reveals how Willie won the 1883 Open in a 36 hole playoff. Musselburgh was a nine hole course which meant the competitors had to play the nine hole layout four times.   When the tournament ended in tie which was followed by a 36 hole playoff.

Even with a 10 on the second hole of the tournament, Fernie got into the playoff but had a difficult challenge when he arrived at the final hole, one stroke behind.

However, he reached the green in two and two putted while Ferguson, who had won the Open three years in a row, struggled on the final green and missed his putt to tie. This gave Willie Fernie the Open title.

Willie’s son, William Scott Fernie, came to the U.S. in 1929 to build a course on the Rockefeller estate. Then the Depression hit and he never returned to his native Scotland. “I don’t think he ever built the course at the Rockefeller estate but did design several courses in New York before he died,” William Maxwell said.

When his parents wintered in Florida, his mother always “liked Georgia when they passed through,” which brought about her settling in Atlanta following his father’s death.

William has three of Willie Fernie’s golf clubs and is familiar with the fact that the first known golf film involved Willie Park Jr. and Willie Fernie.  A copy of that film can be found at the United States Golf Association headquarters in Far Hills, N.J.