This Day in Golf History: May 9

On this date in 1870, 10 years after the first Open Championship, the golf immortal Harry Vardon, the only six-time Open Championship winner, was born in Jersey, Channel Islands, UK. In a wonderful coincidence, he was born on a May day one day after Francis Ouimet was born in 1893, the golfer he would be connected with in the historic 1913 U.S. Open playoff at The Country Club. Vardon won the 1900 U.S. Open during a tour of America. He is also immortalized with the term Vardon grip, the label for the overlap method of gripping the club. Another World Golf Hall of Fame member born on this date is Betty Jameson, born in 1919 in Norman, Okla. She won the 1947 U.S. Women's Open and the 1939 and 1940 U.S. Women's Amateur.