George Lyon (golfer)
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Personal information | |||||||||||||
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Full name | George Seymour Lyon[1] | ||||||||||||
Born | [1] Richmond, Canada West |
July 27, 1858||||||||||||
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Toronto, Ontario |
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Sport | |||||||||||||
Sport | Golf | ||||||||||||
Medal record
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George Seymour Lyon (July 27, 1858 – May 11, 1938) was a Canadian golfer, an Olympic gold medallist, an eight-time Canadian Amateur Championship winner, and a member of Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
Contents
Early life
Lyon was born in Richmond, Ontario, near Ottawa. His early sporting career was in cricket,[2] where, as a batsman he represented Canada eight times, averaging 14.07 and scoring 238 not out in a club game, at that time the highest score ever made in Canada.[3]
Golf career
Although he began playing golf at the age of 38, he won the gold medal in golf in the 1904 Summer Olympics in St. Louis, Missouri. He won the Canadian Amateur Championship a record eight times between 1898 and 1914, and won the Canadian Seniors' Golf Association Championship ten times between 1918 and 1930. Lyon lost in the finals of the 1906 U.S. Amateur Championship, and in the semi-finals of the 1908 British Amateur Championship, when in his 50th year.
He traveled to London in 1908 to defend his Olympic title, but plans to stage a golf tournament there were cancelled at the last minute, since representatives from England and Scotland were unable to agree on the format, and golf has not been held in the Olympics since.[4] Golf, however, is scheduled to return to the Olympics in 2016 at Rio de Janeiro.
Lyon often partnered with the future Canadian golf hall of famer George Cumming; as a pair they were a difficult team to beat in 4-ball matches.[5]
Death and legacy
Lyon died in Toronto, Ontario, in 1938 and was buried in Toronto's Mount Pleasant Cemetery. In 1955, Lyon was inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame. In 1971, he was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame.
Tournament wins
- 1898 Canadian Amateur
- 1900 Canadian Amateur
- 1903 Canadian Amateur
- 1905 Canadian Amateur
- 1906 Canadian Amateur
- 1907 Canadian Amateur
- 1912 Canadian Amateur
- 1914 Canadian Amateur
Major championships
Results timeline
Note: Lyon played in only the British. Open, U.S. Amateur, and the British Amateur.
Tournament | 1900 | 1901 | 1902 | 1903 | 1904 | 1905 | 1906 | 1907 | 1908 | 1909 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Open Championship | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | T80 | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP |
The Amateur Championship | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | R64 | DNP | DNP | R32 | DNP |
U.S. Amateur | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | R32 | 2 | R16 | DNP | DNP |
Tournament | 1910 | 1911 | 1912 | 1913 | 1914 | 1915 | 1916 | 1917 | 1918 | 1919 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
The Open Championship | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | NT | NT | NT | NT | NT |
The Amateur Championship | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | NT | NT | NT | NT | NT |
U.S. Amateur | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | DNP | R32 | DNP | NT | NT | DNP |
NT = No tournament
DNP = Did not play
"T" indicates a tie for a place
DNQ = Did not qualify for match play portion
R64, R32, R16, QF, SF = Round in which player lost in match play
Yellow background for top-10
Source for U.S. Open and U.S. Amateur: USGA Championship Database
Source for 1905 British Open: www.opengolf.com
Source for 1905 British Amateur: Golf, June, 1905, pg. 341.
Source for 1908 British Amateur: The Glasgow Herald, May 28, 1908, pg. 13.
References
Sources
- Adams, P. (2010) A history of Canadian cricket, lulu.com. ISBN 978-1-4466-9652-1.
External links
- Pages with broken file links
- Canadian male golfers
- Amateur golfers
- Olympic golfers of Canada
- Golfers at the 1904 Summer Olympics
- Olympic medalists in golf
- Olympic gold medalists for Canada
- Medalists at the 1904 Summer Olympics
- Canadian Olympic Hall of Fame inductees
- Golfing people from Ontario
- Canadian cricketers
- Cricketers from Ontario
- Canada's Sports Hall of Fame inductees
- Sportspeople from Ottawa
- 1858 births
- 1938 deaths