George THORNE

So who is George Thorne? We wish we were more certain. Thorne played in the 1900 Olympic golf tournament, representing the Weston-super-Mare Club in Weston-super-Mare, England. At that club, he won four monthly medals between 1900-03, off handicaps starting around 13 and ending at a 9. He also played in several club matches against other clubs.

And there the definitive trail ends. We think he was an Australian who moved to England, but there are two possible George Thorne’s from that area that fit that description, and none of the biographical material on either one mentions golf. There was a third, more remote possibility, that he was George Robson Thorne of the Midlothian Club in Chicago, who was the President of the Western Golf Association in 1900. Although he was in Europe in the summer of 1900, he was back in Chicago by mid-September, and marshalled at the US Open in 1900 at Chicago Golf Club, so this golfer is not the Chicagoan George Thorne..