Seymour Dunn

Seymour Dunn (March 11, 1882 - January 8, 1959) was a Scottish professional golfer, designer of golf courses and author.

Biography

He was born in North Berwick, Scotland, into a family long connected to the game of golf. His brother John Duncan Dunn was also an architect of golf courses. Their father Tom was a golf professional in London. Their mother, Isabella Gourley, was internationally known and a frequent winner of women's golf tournaments. Of their family, the most famous was William ("Willie") Dunn, who won the first United States Open in 1894. As a teenager, he began spending his summers in North America. When he was 15, he designed a nine-hole course at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. In the year 1906 he spent his first summer in Lake Placid, where he would soon return. By the age of 17, he was named pro at the Société de Golf de Paris.[1]

In 1907, he moved to New York and was hired by the Van Cortlandt Park Golf Club in the Bronx. Shortly after, he would take the position as Golf Professional and Golf Club Maker at the Wykagyl Golf Club in New Rochelle, NY. In 1909, he designed the Links Course at the Lake Placid Club. The same club gave him the position of Golf Architect and Professional.[2]

He was the golf pro at the Lake Placid Club from 1908 to 1929; despite the Great Depression he established the Dunn Golf School in that year, and it survived for four years. The school held its classes in Madison Square Garden and later in Rockefeller Center.[3]

He used his position in Lake Placid to start his career as a manufacturer of golf clubs. In 1910, Dunn had 10 employees working at the shop, some of them at an assembly-line, which produced clubs and sold them via mail order throughout the United States.[2]

He designed many golf courses. In Lake Placid, he designed the Craig Wood Course and the Lake Placid Club Links Course. In his long career, he was commissioned to design courses for King Leopold III of Belgium, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, and Philippe de Rothschild.[2]

Publications

In addition to many articles published in golf magazines, Dunn wrote the following books:

  • Lake Placid Club Golf Courses (Lake Placid, NY: Lake Placid Club, 1910).
  • Golf Fundamentals: Orthodoxy of Style [with illustrations] (Lake Placid, NY: Seymour Dunn [1922])
  • Standardized Golf Instruction (Long Island City, NY [1934]).
  • [with Al Ross] The Complete Golf Joke Book (New York: Stravon Publishers, 1953).

References
  1. "Seymour Dunn [death notice]". Lake Placid News (1959/01/16): 3. 16 January 1959. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  2. Eilo, Carla (13 September 2015). "Seymour Dunn Golf Club Shop". Lake Placid - North Elba Historical Society. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
  3. "Golfer Seymour Dunn Dies in Placid at 76". Adirondack Daily Enterprise (1959/01/09): 5. 9 January 1959. Retrieved 4 July 2019.
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