Dr. George Franklin Grant a significant Massachusetts contributor to golf
No other sport embraces its history tighter in real time than golf.
One cleat is always planted in the past.
Golf’s greats are constantly chasing ghosts, real and spiritual.
Young Tom Morris followed Old Tom Morris.
Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen followed Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris. Ben Hogan and Sam Snead followed Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen.
Arnie, Jack, and Gary followed Ben Hogan and Sam Snead.
Tiger and Phil followed Arnie, Jack, and Gary.
Justin and Jordan followed Tiger and Phil.
And so on.
The return of the U.S. Open to The Country Club this week has opened a portal to golf’s past like few events outside St. Andrews.
It’s been 34 years since Curtis Strange won the 1988 national championship in Brookline in an 18-hole playoff over Nick Faldo. Francis Ouimet placed American golf on the sporting map with his 1913 Open victory at The Country Club in an 18-hole playoff over a pair of favored British foes.
More than a decade before Ouimet’s victory, another Bay State resident quietly impacted the game of golf in a way few others have before or since.
Dr. George Franklin Grant lived a contemporary 21st Century life in 19th Century Massachusetts.
He went to Harvard, became a dentist, and loved to play golf.
Dr. Grant’s legacy to the game manifests itself every time you put your wooden tee into the ground.
Born in 1846 as the son of escaped slaves, Dr. Grant worked for a dentist as a teen and moved to Boston from Oswego, New York, at age 21.
Living with a former abolitionist on Beacon Hill, Grant seamlessly fit in among thousands of former slaves and Black freemen from the South who sought the same opportunities in the
Bay State as everyone else. Dr. Grant was one of the first two Black students at Harvard Dental School. He graduated in
1870, and would be Harvard’s first African American faculty member.
While teaching at the School of Mechanical Dentistry, Dr. Grant’s focus turned to treating patients — mostly children — who were born with cleft palates. That is a condition where the tissue and bones in the roof of the mouth are not closed.
According to his official biography from the Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Dr. Grant connected with those patients in a way few others had.
“Acutely aware of the social implications for patients with a condition in which speaking and eating was difficult, Grant was widely known both nationally and internationally for his skill in treating this condition. He invented and patented a prosthetic device he called the oblate palate, worn by patients to help their palates move into proper physical alignment and allow them to speak and eat more normally.”
In the 19th century, golfers teed up balls by building a small cone of dirt just high enough to give the ball lift and just strong enough so the ball would not slip before the club made contact. There were no standards. And there were no Handi Wipes, either.
Dr. Grant knew there had to be a more efficient and sanitary way to begin play.
Dr. Grant played countless rounds of golf on a meadow course adjacent to what was his country home on Hillside Ave. in Arlington. Whenever he had time to escape from his Beacon Hill home or dental practice, Dr. Grant headed for what OG Arlington natives call “The Heights.”
Built in 1890, Dr. Grant’s Arlington home still stands. (It lists for $1.018 million on Zillow). The house contained a workshop where Grant labored on perfecting what would become the precursor to the wooden golf tee now used by millions of golfers around the world.
A golf tee patent (U.S. No. 638,920) was issued to Dr. Grant on Dec. 12, 1899. The tee invented by Dr. Grant had a wooden base with a sharp end inserted into the ground. It had a crown made of latex resin upon which the ball would sit in a small cup.
Dr. Grant’s tees were made in Arlington. He gave them to friends and fellow duffers. It was the second great “tee party” in Massachusetts lore. The tees were never sold on the mass market.
Grant died of liver disease in New Hampshire in 1910 at age 64.
Dr. William Lowell, another dentist, would invent and aggressively market the Reddy Tee a decade later. It most resembles the tees golfers use today. And it came along in the 1920s, just in time for golf’s first stratospheric boom.
The USGA formally recognized Dr. Grant for his contribution to golf in 1991.
While many will celebrate golf’s past this week, the game’s future has landed in the rough. The Saudi-backed LIV Golf series poses a $2 billion threat to the PGA Tour. Players are following the money — no matter how blood-soaked — to the eight-series event. PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan has booted 17 players already, including Dustin Johnson and Phil Mickelson, for joining the Rebel Alliance.
Bryson DeChambeau and Patrick Reed are expected to follow when the LIV Series invades the United States later this month.
The PGA Tour, meanwhile, has its own unholy union with the Chinese Communist Party, in addition to a stop and series in China.
One unifying aspect of the game remains the humble tee. Used by all.
And rooted firmly in Massachusetts.
Thank you, Dr. Grant.