Upset at Oakmont: How Dave Herron Beat Bobby Jones in the 1919 U.S. Amateur

In 1919, at Oakmont Country Club, seventeen-year-old Bobby Jones fought his way to the finals for a chance to make history as the youngest winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship. Standing in his way was twenty-one-year-old Dave Herron, a Pittsburgh native and former Oakmont caddie. Despite his relatively unknown status and to the shock of many, Dave beat Bobby with the most spectacular golf—under par at Oakmont––in U.S. Amateur history.

Upset at Oakmont is a dual biography of two gifted child athletes in early twentieth-century America. One, in the 1920s, would become as famous as Babe Ruth; the other would be quickly forgotten and his victory forever tarnished. Although both golfers were children of affluence, their pathways to the 1919 U.S. Amateur were starkly different because of their differing dispositions, their parents, the impact of place (“New South” Atlanta vs. Steel-City Pittsburgh), and the timing of World War I in shaping their adolescence.

Rigorously researched, Upset at Oakmont adds new dimension to understanding the revolution in American golf that started with Francis Ouimet’s victory at Brookline in 1913. Employing new statistical data to challenge previous narratives, this book re-creates the epic clash between Jones and Herron in exciting detail, while employing novel empirical methods to advance scholarship on the “Golden Era” of American amateur golf.

© 2025 University of Georgia Press (Ebook): 9780820373492

Release date

Ebook: May 15, 2025