x
Skip to main content
Golf Logo
InsideGolf Join Now  / Log In
This story of a big-betting masked golfer is almost too good to believe
SHARE
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share by Email
Golf Logo
  • News
    • Latest
      • News
      • Features
      • Shows
      • PGA Tour Schedule
    • Series
      • Tour Confidential
      • Monday Finish
      • Hot Mic
      • Rogers Report
    • Shows
      • The Scoop
      • Subpar
      • Seen & Heard
  • Instruction
    • Game Improvement
      • Driving
      • Approach Shots
      • Bunker Shots
      • Short Game
      • Putting
      • Rules
      • Fitness
    • Series
      • Top 100 Teachers
      • Rules Guy
      • The Etiquetteist
      • Emergency 9
    • Shows
      • Warming Up
      • Play Smart
      • Short Game Chef
      • Pros Teaching Joes
  • Gear
    • Clubs
      • Drivers
      • Irons
      • Hybrids
      • Fairway Woods
      • Wedges
      • Putters
    • Other Gear
      • Balls
      • Shoes
      • Apparel
      • Golf Accessories
    • Series
      • ClubTest
      • Winner’s Bag
    • Shows
      • Fully Equipped
  • Travel & Lifestyle
    • Travel
      • Course Finder
      • Courses
      • Resorts
    • Lifestyle
      • Accessories
      • Celebrities
      • Food
      • Style
      • Betting Advice
    • Shows
      • Super Secrets
      • Destination Golf
  • Shop
    • Shop
      • Clubs
      • Shafts
      • Training Aids
      • Balls
      • Bags
      • Technology
      • Apparel
      • Accessories
      • Our Picks
      • Shop All
    • Collections
      • The GOLF Collection
      • The Birdie Juice Collection
      • The Fully Equipped Collection
      • Shop All
  • Newsletters
    • Sign Up for GOLF’s Newsletters
      • Hot Mic
      • Monday Finish
      • Play Smart
      • Our Picks
      • Top Stories
      • Sign Up for All
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Features
    • Shows
    • PGA Tour Schedule
  • Instruction
    • All Instruction
    • Driving
    • Approach Shots
    • Bunker Shots
    • Short Game
    • Putting
    • Rules
    • Fitness
  • Gear
    • All Gear
    • Drivers
    • Irons
    • Hybrids
    • Fairway Woods
    • Wedges
    • Putters
    • Balls
    • Shoes
    • Apparel
    • Golf Accessories
  • Travel & Lifestyle
    • All Travel
    • All Lifestyle
    • Course Finder
    • Courses
    • Resorts
    • Accessories
    • Celebrities
    • Food
    • Style
    • Betting Advice
  • Series
    • Tour Confidential
    • Monday Finish
    • Hot Mic
    • Rogers Report
    • Rules Guy
    • The Etiquetteist
    • Emergency 9
    • ClubTest
    • Winner’s Bag
  • Shows
    • The Scoop
    • Subpar
    • Seen & Heard
    • Warming Up
    • Play Smart
    • Short Game Chef
    • Pros Teaching Joes
    • Fully Equipped
    • Super Secrets
    • Destination Golf
  • Shop
    • Clubs
    • Shafts
    • Training Aids
    • Balls
    • Bags
    • Technology
    • Apparel
    • Accessories
    • The GOLF Collection
    • The Birdie Juice Collection
    • The Fully Equipped Collection
  • Newsletters
    • Hot Mic
    • Monday Finish
    • Play Smart
    • Top Stories
    • Our Picks
    • Sign Up for All
InsideGolf Join Now  / Log In
InsideGolf

Great for yourself...or your Dad

InsideGOLF
Travel

This story of a big-betting masked golfer is almost too good to believe

By: Dylan Dethier
  • Follow on Twitter
  • Follow on Instagram
September 29, 2020
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share by Email
masked golfer

This isn't the Black Masker; our photo library doesn't have much from 1912. Still, you get the idea.

Getty Images

They don’t quite make golf legends like they used to.

Proof? Check out this headline, from the October 30, 1912 edition of the New York Times:

MASKED GOLFER HERE TO BEAT CHAMPION: His Face Concealed and Name a Secret, He Startles the Links with His Drives

No wonder people used to buy newspapers.

What’s old is new again, and both “The U.S. Open” and “masks” are top of mind, which means that it’s time to wind back the clock about a century and marvel at the simple story of the Masked Golfer.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CFuyARKlgFA/

Two weeks ago, we covered Grover Cleveland Golf Course in this space, a muni in Buffalo that served as host to the 1912 U.S. Open. (It was Buffalo Country Club at the time, but is now the oldest muni to have hosted our national championship.) The winner that week, 20-year-old John McDermott, was a club pro from Atlantic City. He shot 74-75-74-71, becoming the first golfer to break par for 72 holes in the championship (par was 74). His first prize was $300.

Travel
Grover Cleveland
For $12, you can play this former U.S. Open course
By: Dylan Dethier

But later that year, on a different muni in the same state, a mysterious golfer showed up demanding a match with McDermott, the stakes of which would dwarf the U.S. Open purse.

The arrival of “The Black Masker”

The New York Times was all over the story. “Golfers and visitors to the golf links at Van Cortlandt Park were not a little surprised yesterday afternoon by the sight of a man wearing a black mask, black clothes and black plush cap playing on the course,” the article read.

“Many inquiries were made, but nothing was learned of the identity of the strange golfer except that he styled himself ‘the Black Masker.'” (Sidenote: the Times evidently had no problem with the passive voice in 1912.)

The Black Masker! What a name! His appearance — and his tee shots — apparently had quite the effect on the rest of Van Cortlandt’s players that day. This was Golf Zorro, here to set American fairways ablaze.

“Other golfers were astonished at the length of the stranger’s drives, and soon practically all of them quit their play to follow him over the course,” wrote the Times.

It is very literally impossible to imagine this sort of thing happening in 2020. A mysterious golfer arrives from England and holds court at, say, Bethpage Black, where he declares he’ll challenge Bryson DeChambeau in a million-dollar match? Actually, when you put it like that, I’m in…

Drive it longer with some Pro Shop items!

Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero Driver

Callaway Mavrik Sub Zero Driver

$499.99
View Product
Titleist TS4 Driver

Titleist TS4 Driver

$399.99
View Product
Ping G410 Plus Driver

Ping G410 Plus Driver

$399.99
View Product
Cobra KING Speedzone Driver

Cobra KING Speedzone Driver

$449.99
View Product
TaylorMade SIM Max Driver

TaylorMade SIM Max Driver

$499.99
View Product

“The world’s long driver”

According to the Times, the Black Masker had never won any previous titles but “only recently discovered the secret of delivering long drives, and has since become the world’s long driver.”

An onlooker insisted that the masked man had shot 71 the previous day at Van Cortlandt — quite the feat — and even bettered 300 yards with one of his booming tee shots. But a follow-up article the following day cast some doubt on the veracity of that score:

“After his drive, which is generally long, he makes an approach shot and sometimes takes a putt, but if the ball does not happen to run down he picks it up and proceeds to the next tee.”

Sounds like a tempting way to play! But perhaps not exactly in line with the Rules of Golf, nor with any official record-setting.

The stakes

One writer following the group, William Gavin, learned the reason for the Black Masker’s arrival in the U.S.: he was there to play for a great deal of money.

“The Black Masker has come to this country on a wager of $25,000 to break the records of the six best courses in the United States, and afterward, on a wager of $5,000, to beat the American Open champion in a match game.”

It’s not wholly clear whether or not Van Cortlandt fell under the description of “six best courses” but his reported 71 fell well short of a recent 66 that had been recently recorded at the course, anyway. As for the second bit of that wager? It was clarified days later, when the Black Masker challenged McDermott to play three 36-hole matches for at least $1,000 per side. The amount was actually reduced, the masked golfer’s spokesman C. Alston Tyrer told reporters, to make it clear that this wasn’t just a publicity stunt.

Travel
Interbay Golf Center
Why my new home course is a par-28 muni
By: Dylan Dethier

“The object is a purely sporting one,” one member of the Black Masker’s team told the Times, and went on to compliment McDermott’s game, perhaps trying to convince him to accept the stakes. We all watched Tiger vs. Phil last year, but who know the idea of a publicity stunt-style golf match was such an age-old tale? Not me.

The unmasking

On Nov. 8, 1912, another notable headline graced the pages of the New York Times:

“McDERMOTT SAYS HE’S HORNE”

Sounds a bit more Post or Daily News than Times, but such was the era, I guess. A special report from McDermott’s hometown of Atlantic City confirmed that he had identified the identity of the masked golfer and “stated positively that it was William Horne.”

Horne, an Englishman, was already a prime suspect; he was known for his long drives and even had “driven the longest ball ever known.” But the Times’ golf writer again threw some not-so-subtle shade: “The remainder of his game, however, is declared ordinary.”

While Horne was a solid golfer, he was not among the world’s very best; he was a well-traveled golf pro who had finished T20 at that year’s Open Championship. He had allegedly set a record by hitting a tee shot 388 yards at North Berwick in 1909, but that was his largest claim to fame; his only individual pro win came years later at the 1919 South African Open.

The Match

So what happened with the match, anyway? Masked man versus U.S. Open champ? It appears that it…never happened. It’s unclear whether negotiations broke down because of money, because of Horne’s revealed identity or some detail lost to time, but it appears that no match ever took place.

That’s not to say there was no gambling going on at the time. McDermott played his fair share of $1,000 matches, and was never one to back down from a challenge; after losing the 1910 U.S. Open, he told the winner, Alex Smith, “”I’ll get you next year, you big tramp.”

He was right; he won back-to-back titles in 1911 and 1912. But as far as we can tell, he never showed down against the Black Masker.

The Postscript

Horne bounced around in the years that followed, becoming golf pro at Durban Golf Club in South Africa for a time. But he settled back in New York at Rye Golf Club, where he took up pro duties in 1922, less than 20 miles from Van Cortlandt.

McDermott had a far more turbulent future. Always described as manic-depressive, he retired from golf in 1914 and was committed to Pennsylvania’s State Hospital for the Insane in 1916. An article from ESPN detailed the decades of his life post-Open win. While he spent most of his remaining years committed to the asylum, he was able to play golf in his waning years and even got to go to Merion in 1971 to see Lee Trevino take down Jack Nicklaus in the U.S. Open, 60 years after his win.

As for Van Cortlandt? It remains the oldest public golf course in the United States. If you go there this week, you’ll see plenty of golfers wearing masks. But it’s unlikely that any of them know the story of the Black Masker. Unless they read Muni Mondays, of course.

This is also part of our Muni Monday series, spotlighting stories from the world of city- and county-owned golf courses around the world. Got a muni story that needs telling? Send tips to Dylan Dethier or to munimondays@gmail.com and follow Muni Mondays on Instagram.

Latest In Travel

1 day ago

3 cities (and multiple resorts) for the best father/son golf getaways

2 days ago

Pittsburgh-area golf guide: 6 public-access alternatives to Oakmont

3 days ago

7 fun facts about Oakmont only members tend to know

4 days ago

The best Father's Day gift? Playing in a golf tournament with my dad

Dylan Dethier

Dylan Dethier

Golf.com Editor

Dylan Dethier is a senior writer for GOLF Magazine/GOLF.com. The Williamstown, Mass. native joined GOLF in 2017 after two years scuffling on the mini-tours. Dethier is a graduate of Williams College, where he majored in English, and he’s the author of 18 in America, which details the year he spent as an 18-year-old living from his car and playing a round of golf in every state.

  • Author Twitter Account
  • Author Instagram Account

Related Articles

News
diversey driving range

This municipal driving range is the best spot to people watch in Chicago

By: Sean Zak
Travel
keney park muni

This renovated Connecticut muni is a (dirt cheap!) Top 100 Course clone

By: James Colgan
Lifestyle
Harding Park Women’s Golf Club

Why this nearly century-old women’s golf club is enjoying a revival

By: Josh Sens
Travel
rock spring golf club

This five-star muni is such a good value its regulars want to keep it a secret

By: Alan Bastable
Instruction
Fred Couples

One of Fred Couples greatest lessons? It was learned by doing this.

By: Nick Piastowski
Courses
muni mondays

This top private course gave its public neighbor a spectacular lift

By: Josh Sens
Travel
torrey pines muni mondays

The best way to see Torrey Pines? Jump off a cliff

By: James Colgan
Courses
TPC Harding Park

Controversial California bill targets muni golf — and that's missing the point

By: Josh Sens
Travel
Bobby Jones Golf Club in Sarasota, Fla.

This historic Donald Ross muni could soon undergo a $12 million renovation

By: James Colgan
Sign up for GOLF's Newsletters
Get the latest news, the hottest instruction tips, new product releases, golf media insider reports and more delivered directly to your inbox. Choose your favorites now.
Sign Up
Categories
  • News
  • Instruction
  • Gear
  • Lifestyle
  • Travel
Services
  • Masthead
  • GOLF Media Kit
  • GOLF Magazine Customer Service
  • TERMS OF SERVICE
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • Opt-out of Ads/Sharing
  • Your Privacy Choices
Social
  • facebook
  • x
  • instagram
  • youtube
Membership
InsideGOLF Logo
More than $140 Value for JUST $39.99

INCLUDES 12 SRIXON Z-STAR XV GOLF BALLS, 1 YR OF GOLF MAGAZINE, $20 FAIRWAY JOCKEY CREDIT - AND MUCH MORE!

LEARN MORE

© 2025 EB Golf Media LLC. An 8AM Golf Affiliated Brand. All Rights Reserved. All of our market picks are independently selected and curated by the editorial team. If you buy a linked product, GOLF.COM may earn a fee. Pricing may vary.

Go to mobile version