Jerome “Jerry” Travers was a highly regarded amateur golfer in the early 1900s, capturing 10 tournament titles — including a win at the 1915 U.S. Open. Travers’ intensity enabled him to win four U.S. Amateurs (1907, 1908, 1912, 1913) and five Metropolitan Amateurs (1906, 1907, 1911-1913). In 1915 he won the U.S. Open by one stroke over Tom McNamara — becoming only the second of the five amateurs to win that event.
Some in the golf world for his battles best remembers Travers with Walter Travis, the most successful amateur golfer of that era. The contests, Hall of Fame professional golfer Francis Ouimet once said, formed Travers into “the best match player in the country.”
Although he lived to 63, Travers’ championship career came to an end at age 28. In the midst of his heyday, he twice didn’t bother to enter the Amateur. And he never entered the Open again after winning in 1915. He later taught the game to other hopefuls, but by that time had lost most of the passion and desire for the game that once made him a champion. Travers was enshrined in the World Golf Hall of Fame in 1976.
