Margaret Abbott

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Margaret Abbott (1900)

Margaret Ives Abbott (born June 15, 1876 in Calcutta , † June 10, 1955 in Greenwich , Connecticut ) became the first US American and second Olympic champion ever by winning the women's golf tournament at the 1900 Olympic Games .

Life

Abbott was the daughter of Mary Ives Abbott , a Chicago writer and literary critic who took her daughter in the Olympic golf tournament and finished seventh.

She began playing golf at Chicago Golf Club , the oldest 18-lane golf club in the United States, in 1897 , where she trained with some of the best golfers, including the first US Open winner, Charles B. Macdonald . In 1898 she reached a handicap of two and won several women's golf tournaments, she was considered perhaps the best player in the region in those years. In 1898 Margaret and her mother Mary traveled to Paris, on the one hand to experience the 1900 World's Fair and on the other hand to study the new art of the city. They studied with Degas and Rodin , but also regularly took part in golf competitions in Paris and the surrounding area.

So she registered for the Olympic golf tournament, although it is unknown whether she even knew that the tournament was part of the Olympic Games. It is believed that until her death she never found out that she was going to be an Olympic champion.

Abbott won the tournament, which only lasted 9 holes, two strokes ahead of the runner-up. The fact that all medals went to American women is also attributed to the fact that many French women appeared in high-heeled shoes and otherwise unsuitable clothing for golf.

After her Olympic victory, Abbott also won the French women's open golf championships before returning to the United States in 1902.

After her return to the USA, she married the New York satirist Finley Peter Dunne , whom she had met on the way to Paris, and moved to live with him in New York.

Her son Philip Dunne became a major screenwriter in Hollywood, nominated for one of the two screenwriting Oscars in 1942 and 1952 and known for his public opposition to the blacklist .

literature

  • Paula Welch: Search for Margaret Abbott, Olympic Review. 1982 December No. 182 pp. 752-754.

Web links
personal data
SURNAME Abbott, Margaret
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Abbott, Margaret Ives; Dunne, Margaret Ives
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American golfer
DATE OF BIRTH June 15, 1876
PLACE OF BIRTH Calcutta
DATE OF DEATH June 10, 1955
Place of death Greenwich , Connecticut