Athletes - Fred McLeod

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	Athletes - Fred McLeod

Fred McLeod (born 25 April 1882 in Kirk Ports, North Berwick, East Lothian, Scotland; died 8 May 1976 in Maryland, United States) was a Scottish-American golfer who had a distinguished career in the United States, which included victory in the 1908 U.S. Open.

McLeod's mother was English and his father was a Scotsman from Skye, Highland, who was employed as the manager of a temperance book stall and also worked as a caddy. McLeod began his working life as a postman at the age of fourteen. At seventeen he joined the Bass Rock Golf Club in North Berwick, which was a club for artisans. It did not have its own course and the members played on a public links. McLeod soon had some success in local competitions, and in 1903 he left for the United States to try his luck as a golf professional there, a route followed by many other Scots around that time as the golf clubs which were springing up rapidly in the U.S. had no experienced local professionals on whom they could call. He quickly found employment at the Rockford Country Club in Illinois, and later worked at several other clubs.

Despite not having been a leading player in Scotland, McLeod soon made a name for himself as a first rate tournament player in the U.S. He entered his first U.S. Open within weeks of his arrival in America, and later that year he was fifth at the Western Open. He won the Riverside Open in 1905 and the Western PGA Championship in both 1905 and 1907. The principal achievement of his career was his victory in the 1908 U.S. Open at Midlothian Country Club in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. He was level with Willie Smith after four rounds, but won the playoff by 77 shots to 83. McLeod was five feet four inches tall, and at the end of the tournament he was weighed at 7 stone 10 pounds (108 pounds, 49 kilograms), making him the smallest man ever to take the title. He competed in the U.S. Open twenty-two times and had eight top ten finishes.

McLeod won several more professional tournaments: the 1909 North and South Open at Pinehurst, the 1912 Shawnee Open, the 1920 North and South Championship, the 1924 St Petersburg Open and the 1927 Maryland Open. In 1919 he was runner up to Jim Barnes in the PGA Championship. He took part in both the 1921 challenge match between teams of U.S based and British based professionals at Gleneagles, Perth and Kinross, Scotland, and in the follow up 1926 match which was the immediate precursor of the first Ryder Cup match in 1927. He also played in the first four editions of the Masters Tournament from 1934-37, and acted as an honorary starter at the Augusta event from 1963 to 1976. He was a member of the group of senior professionals which established the senor division of the PGA in 1937, and in 1938 he won the second staging of the Senior PGA Championship.

Fred McLeod died on May 8 1976 at the age of ninety-four. He was buried at the last club where he had worked as a professional, Columbia Country Club, in Chevy Chase, Maryland.

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