Who won the first U.S. Open golf championship in 1895?

Horace Rawlins won the first U.S. Open golf championship in 1895.

The inaugural U.S. Open was played on October 4, 1895, at Newport Country Club in Newport, Rhode Island. It was a one-day, 36-hole competition on a nine-hole course, held immediately after the first U.S. Amateur championship. Ten professionals and one amateur took part.

Rawlins was a 21-year-old English professional who had arrived in the United States earlier that year to work at the host club. He began two strokes behind Willie Campbell, Willie Dunn, and James Foulis after the opening 18 holes, but shot 82 on the final two loops to finish at 173.

He defeated Willie Dunn by two strokes and received $150, a $50 gold medal, and the honor of becoming the championship’s first winner. The event’s total purse was only $335. Rawlins later finished runner-up in the 1896 U.S. Open, but never won another major. The championship soon grew from its small British-dominated beginning into one of golf’s defining international events.