Myopia Hunt Club

Myopia Hunt Club is a foxhunting and private country club in South Hamilton, Massachusetts, northeast of Boston. In the early years of the U.S. Open, the club hosted it four times: 1898, 1901, 1905, and 1908.

History
Myopia Hunt Club was founded in 1882 by J. Murray Forbes. The golf course was designed and built by Herbert C. Leeds in 1894 and he continued working at the Club for over 30 years. Leeds tied for seventh place in the 1898 U.S. Open held at Myopia Hunt Club. His familiarity with the course was no doubt a factor in his ability to finish so high on the leaderboard in the tournament.

The name "Myopia" is due to some of its founding members having come from the Myopia Club in Winchester, Massachusetts, which had been founded by four brothers with poor vision, or myopia. Today, the Myopia Hunt Club is a drag hunt, meaning that the hounds follow a laid scent rather than live fox.

When completed, Myopia Hunt Club measured 6,539 yards and Leeds made certain that golfers would encounter a multitude of challenging features, including tall mounds, deep bunkers, lightning-fast greens, blind shots requiring substantial carry, deep swales, punishing rough, plateaued greens, as well as a pond and paddock to avoid. So difficult was the course that in the 1901 U.S. Open not a single professional was able to break 80 in any round.

Golf
Myopia Hunt Club is the only course in the United States to have been listed by Golf Magazine as having two of the United States's top 100 signature holes, Myopia's fourth and ninth.

The U.S. Open was held at the Club in 1898, 1901, 1905, and 1908. The 72-hole winning score in 1901 by Willie Anderson, one of only four four-time champions, was 331, a record high that still stands today. He defeated Alex Smith in an 18-hole playoff, 85 to 86, his highest 18-hole score of the tournament. The first nine was completed in 1896, but the second nine was not finished until October, 1898...