History

Ocean City Golf and Country Club

club · founded 1901

Ocean City's golf and country club, running a course and clubhouse on the island by 1902. Its second annual tournament was played 7–9 August 1902 over the Ocean City course, with three silver cups and entries from the Columbia, Chevy Chase and Dumbarton clubs of Washington, the Baltimore and Salisbury country clubs, the Exmoor Club of Chicago, the Flushing Country Club and the New York Athletic Club. Its secretary in 1902 was Thomas E. Waggaman; John F. Waggaman, Floyd P. Waggaman, Lawrence Burford and David Moore played for the home club. The clubhouse hosted the tournament dinner and, earlier in the season, entertainments at which Mrs. John F. Waggaman, Mrs. George M. Upshur and Mrs. W. Lee Carey received. The founding year is inferred from "second annual" in 1902 and is not directly documented.

In the record (3)

  1. 1901 · 1901-07-18

    Ocean City gets a golf course: the Ocean City Golf and Country Club is incorporated at the Atlantic Hotel in July 1901.

    "A meeting of the incorporators of the Ocean City Golf and Country Club was held at the Atlantic Hotel Thursday morning" - Thursday 18 July 1901. The articles were signed by six incorporators: H. A. Godfrey of Baltimore; Charles Webb of J., of Hagerstown; John F. Waggaman of Anne Arundel County; I. Edgar Ijams of Baltimore; George M. Upshur of Baltimore; and John P. Moore of Snow Hill. Godfrey took the chair, and the officers elected for the year were George M. Upshur president, Charles Webb of J. vice-president, and H. E. Waggaman secretary and treasurer, over a board of governors including Godfrey, F. H. Purnell, J. F. Waggaman, Showell Myers and Ijams. The course was "within twenty minutes of the most distant hotels" and "promises a fine sea bath at the end of the eighteen holes"; the Atlantic's management marked its formal opening with an entertainment on Saturday 27 July. This is the earliest golf course this campaign can document at Ocean City, and the men who chartered it are the men who owned the town.

    Atlantic HotelJohn F. WaggamanGeorge M. UpshurJohn P. MooreJ. Edgar Ijams

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

  2. 1901 · 1901-08-03

    The first open golf tournament at Ocean City is decided on the thirty-sixth hole before a gallery of over a hundred.

    The Ocean City Golf and Country Club's first open tournament ran 1-3 August 1901. In the qualifying round Thomas Slidell of New York - a Knickerbocker Club man entered from the Ocean City club - went round in 86, Dwight Mallory of the Baltimore Country Club in 88 and James P. McShane, also of Baltimore, in 90. In the semi-finals McShane beat Victor Wilson of the Ocean City club 2 up and 1 to play and was then beaten by Slidell 1 up, while Mallory beat John F. Waggaman of the Columbia Golf Club 7 up and 6 to play. The final, thirty-six holes at match play on Saturday 3 August, went to Slidell: three up after the morning eighteen, all square at the thirty-fifth, and the championship won at the thirty-sixth, with Mallory taking the runner-up trophy. H. E. Waggaman of Chevy Chase won the consolation cup from E. B. Showell Myers of Torresdale, Pennsylvania, 5 up and 3 to play. "A gallery of over a hundred" watched. Mixed foursomes followed the next week, twelve couples, the cup won by Mr. John Reynolds and Mrs. Barreda Turner of Baltimore.

    John F. WaggamanE. D. Showell Myers

    Source · checked 2026-08-11

  3. 1924 · 1924-10-29

    David L. Johnson sells ten tuberculin-tested milch cows 'at the Ocean City, Md., Golf Course.'

    A public-sale notice in the Milford Chronicle for 17 and 24 October 1924: '10 HEAD FINE Milch Cows, All Tuberculin Tested, Wednesday, Oct. 29, 1924. DAVID L. JOHNSON, Ocean City, Md., Golf Course.' In 1923 Johnson 'rearranged his farm on the Bay' and made arrangements with the Maryland Country Club to open golf links and tennis courts. A year later the links are advertised in Washington every week of the season — 'New Nine-Hole Course. New Tea Room attached' — and the farm is still selling its dairy herd off the same ground. In September and again in November Johnson also took out warrants from the Land Office of Maryland for vacant land in Isle of Wight Bay, three miles south-west of the Isle of Wight Life Saving Station and a quarter of a mile west of the beach north of Ocean City, 'surrounded by the waters of Isle of Wight Bay.'

    Maryland Country ClubDavid L. Johnson

    Source · checked 2026-08-06