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Question about golfers' national representation

As most of you know, a lot of British-born professional golfers moved to America at the turn of the 20th Century. The national representation status of some of these golfers is ambiguous on Wikipedia. I think it would be good if we clarified their statuses. Below I have listed the nationality of certain golfers on the relevant major championship "winners" Wikipedia pages. (Only first and second place finishers are listed on these pages.) I have also provided information from the Open Championship "champions" page about the relevant golfers life history - this information seems pretty reliable.

Keep in mind, I have only included the most prominent examples here. There are, I think, dozens of other British-born golfers from this era who moved to America and have Wikipedia pages. I am not saying all - or even most - of these golfers have ambiguous statuses. However some may. There are also going to be some other tournament pages with ambiguity (e.g. Western Open).

Overall I hope the information I have provided gives a good sense of these inconsistencies.

Harry Vardon

Vardon was born and raised in Jersey but lived most of his adult life in England and represented England in international matches. The Open Championship classifies him as "English."

1896 Open Championship (England) - 1898 Open Championship (England) - 1899 Open Championship (England) - 1900 US Open (Jersey) - 1900 Open Championship (England) - 1901 Open Championship (England) - 1902 Open Championship (England) - 1903 Open Championship (England) - 1911 Open Championship (England) - 1912 Open Championship (England) - 1913 US Open (Jersey) - 1914 Open Championship (England) - 1920 US Open (Jersey)

Jock Hutchinson

He was born in Scotland but, by at least 1921, he was an American citizen.

1916 US Open (Scotland) - 1916 PGA Championship (Scotland/America) - 1920 US Open (America) - 1920 PGA Championship (Scotland/America) - 1921 Open Championship (America)

Ted Ray

Ray was born and raised in Jersey but lived most of his adult life in England and represented England in international matches. The Open Championship classifies him as "English."

1912 Open Championship (England) - 1913 US Open (Jersey) - 1913 Open Championship (England) - 1920 US Open (Jersey) - 1925 Open Championship (England)

Jim Barnes

Barnes was born in England but, by at least 1925, was an American citizen. The World Golf Hall of Fame's website states, however, though he moved to America in 1906 he never became an American citizen "remaining an intensely patriotic Cornishman."

1916 PGA Championship (England) - 1919 PGA Championship (England) - 1921 US Open (England) - 1921 PGA Championship (England) - 1922 Open Championship (America) - 1924 PGA Championship (England) - 1925 Open Championship (America)

Tommy Armour

Armour was born and raised in Scotland but was an American citizen by at least 1931.

1927 US Open (Scotland/America) - 1930 PGA Championship (Scotland/America) - 1931 Open Championship (America) - 1935 PGA Championship (Scotland/America)

Harry Cooper

There is no information about his national representation status on the Open Championship page as he never played in the event. However on his Wikipedia it states that he was born in England and then moved to America as a small child.

1927 US Open (Scotland/America) - 1936 Masters (England/America) - 1936 US Open (England/America) - 1938 Masters (England/America)

Given the international flavor of golf you'd think there'd be more problems like this in the modern era. I haven't noticed it though. Most very elite international golfers (e.g. Els, Poulter, Oosthuizen, Norman, McIlroy) have their permanent residences in the United States. However their national status is always the country they were born and raised in. Not once have I seen it deviate anywhere - on TV, the internet, Wikipedia, anywhere. There are, however, a few I'd like to mention.

- There are a few confusing situations in the mid-1900s era. Jim Ferrier was born and raised in Australia. He became an American citizen in 1944. The 1947 PGA Championship, 1950 Masters, and 1960 PGA Championship pages (he finished in first or second in all of them) lists him as Australian or, in the case of the last one, Australian/American. Meanwhile the 1964 Masters lists him exclusively as "American". Similarly, I have noticed some confusion re: Guy Wolstenholme: he was born in Britain but moved to Australia as an adult. The national rep statuses are not always consistent. Likewise with British-born Chris Williams who moved to South Africa.

- In very recent times there are some issues. South Africans Rory Sabbatini and Peter Karmis changed their status to qualify for the Olympics. There may be one of two more. We should make sure those are always up to date. Also, Mark McNulty picked up Irish citizenship in the past 15 years or so. That should always be clear.

Relatedly, I was thinking about creating a separate Wikipedia page to clarify those with ambiguous status.

Please let me know what you think about all of this.

Oogglywoogly (talk) 07:26, 6 December 2019 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

This is a topic that has come up a number of times over the years. One obvious solution, proposed by some purists, is to simply remove all the flags from all the articles. However, flags are very widely used in golf media and personally I wouldn't be keen on going down that route. I also wouldn't be keen on a Wikipedia article but we probably should have something in the WP:GOLF structure where we give advice on the topic. One point to note is that we're talking about their "sporting nationality" not their actual nationality; clearly there's no such nationality as English or Welsh but they are used widely in golf. For contemporary golfers the flag we should be using is the flag that is used on the main websites: PGA Tour, European Tour, OWGR, etc. There's no need for us to analyse why. Rory Sabbatini is now Slovakian or Peter Karmis is now Greek. Ian Woosnam chooses to have a Welsh flag against his name so he's Welsh. Stephen Ames is a good example to look at. See this comment by Tewapack: Talk:Stephen Ames#Country represented. OWGR changed his flag to CAN in 2005 but he still represented TTO in 2006. Generally I think we use TTO before 2005 and CAN after 2006 but when he won the 2006 Players Championship we generally have him as TTO but in The Players Championship we have CAN, showing that nothing is simple. Going back a bit further in time we have, for instance, Ken Brown (golfer) who was English until mid-1977 and Scottish after that. Brian Barnes (golfer) was English until 1971 and then Scottish. For Barnes we are incorrect in a few cases, eg we have a Scottish flag for the 1969 Ryder Cup and for the 1969 Agfa-Gevaert Tournament when he was actually English at that time. Going back earlier in time is even more problematic. Generally people were more lax about these things. "England" might be taken to include Jersey, or even Wales, simply because there was no Jersey or Welsh team. Tom Green (golfer) played for England in 1935 but when a Welsh team appeared he played for that in 1937. So I would put him down as Welsh even though he had played for England. Jim Barnes played for the United States in 1926 but was excluded from the American 1927 Ryder Cup team by the decision of the American PGA to only select US-born players. However, neither of these really tell you whether he was American or not. Not an easy topic. Nigej (talk) 09:03, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Yeah, I put together most of the clarification on the Open page. My thoughts were that if you are showing the official results of a tournament, then you should use the nationality as determined by that official body. My hope was that the clarification notes would provide enough for people to be happy to not challenge the nationalities on the page anymore (which comes up periodically, including by me when I first joined wiki!). Are you happy with how it is shown in the Open? Jopal22 (talk) 11:26, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Yes, it was an excellent idea to add the notes to The Open Championship#Champions. Hopefully by explaining the issues we'll avoid controversies in the future. Someone like Jim Barnes was perhaps considered an American by the Brits and as a Brit by the Americans. Nigej (talk) 12:37, 6 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you for your responses. Ok, so if we are going to add something to WP:GOLF what do we add? And will golf editors actually refer to it (rather than an independent Wikipedia page)?

Oogglywoogly (talk) 07:08, 7 December 2019 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

To Jopal22 and Nigej: So what do we think?

Oogglywoogly (talk) 03:56, 9 December 2019 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

One possibility is to write some sort of "essay" going through the issues. This wouldn't carry too much weight but could be referred to when there was a dispute. Another approach is to try and reach a consensus here about the approach to use. This would carry more weight. Information about a player's real nationalities, places they were born, lived and died are areas for the biographies. Discussions about a player's "sporting nationality" should be on their talk page. It seems to me that we're largely discussing what flag to put next to someone. Personally I can't get too excited about it but this topic of "sporting nationality" does come around repeatedly and probably it would probably be a good idea to having something written down to avoid repetition in talk pages like this. My feeling is that for those Brits who went to America (before WWII), there is no "correct" answer. If (say) the Open Championship website says Jim Barnes is American and an official American website says he's English, I'm not sure how we would proceed. Nigej (talk) 06:25, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

Worth noting there is already MOS:SPORTFLAG, which says "If these rules allow a player to represent two or more nations, then a reliable source should be used to show who the sportsperson has chosen to represent". The issue is that I don't think players were asked to "choose" a nationality in that era, so us deciding what they should have chosen would be WP:OR. That is why I favour showing the nationalities in line with whatever the Major championship used. This would mean Jim Barnes is American for The Open, and English for the U.S. Open. If we make it clear that we are showing the nationality as reported by the organising body (as per the Open page), that is my preference. Some majors will list winners by nationality, and if we force Jim Barnes (for example) to be one nationality across the board it would mean the wins by nationality in any particular major would not match those reported by the organising body. Jopal22 (talk) 10:06, 9 December 2019 (UTC)

You make some good points. So I guess we've determined that the first criterion of the golfer's "sporting nationality" is what they personally choose. If they do not choose then we defer to what the particular tournament determines. So some issues still remain...

Do we have any evidence that these turn of the century golfers made decisions regarding their nationality? I came across a website earlier in the month (I cannot find it now) that indisputably stated that Tommy Armour felt like an American by, I think, 1924. There may be direct evidence of other golfers from this era. Are we aware of any?

Meanwhile, do we have any direct evidence that more recent golfers like Jim Ferrier or Guy Wolstenholme or Chris Williams made overt decisions about their nationality? Or any other modern golfers? I think that would be easier to find.

For the tournaments, do we have information about their sporting nationality from the original source (i.e. US Open website or something)? And from other major championships?

Oogglywoogly (talk) 23:48, 19 December 2019 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

Although golfers can to a certain extent choose their own "sporting nationality" there still might be restrictions. In the Rory Sabbatini and Peter Karmis cases, presumably they have taken up the nationality of those countries, perhaps thinking that it might be a way of getting into the Olympics Games or World Cup. In the Brian Barnes (golfer) case he had to join the Scottish section of the PGA and so had to qualify to join that (he had Scottish parents) before he could get selected for Scotland in the international competition. So I think the rule might be that, where a player might qualify for two or more countries they can choose. If a player was not planning to play international competition there was generally little need to declare a sporting nationality. The Masters discussion below does provide an exception, since being an American did make a difference to getting into that. I seem to remember Chi-Chi Rodríguez complaining that he had to rely on the uncertainly of a foreign invitation, although later he moved into the American category, presumably after taking up US citizenship, even playing in the Ryder Cup eventually. Another for your list: Roberto De Vicenzo played for Mexico in the Canada Cup from 1956 to 1961 and when he played in the 1960 Open Championship for instance he was down as Mexican (see https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=U4RAAAAAIBAJ&sjid=qZsMAAAAIBAJ&pg=1881%2C1610622) but we have him as Argentina. Can of worms, I'm afraid. Nigej (talk) 10:42, 20 December 2019 (UTC)

Thank you. I think we have confirmed my suspicions that this is a confusing topic. The original question was... what to do about it? Do we create a separate Wikipedia page that clarifies things? Do we write an "essay" on WP:Golf? Do we do nothing at all?

Oogglywoogly (talk) 00:05, 21 December 2019 (UTC)Oogglywoogly

It's a general sporting nationality issue rather than a golf specific one & I can't see an article or essay offering any clarity at all since in many of these cases a players sporting nationality is just always going to be unclear (and changeable). Instances are best resolved on a case-by-case basis, notwithstanding the fact that sources will often be contradictory. 51.6.161.113 (talk) 12:22, 21 December 2019 (UTC)