Who knows how many more Vardon might have won if, two weeks after his sixth, World War I had not been sparked by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. The Open would not be played again until 1920, when Vardon was 50.

Vardon won seven career professional majors, which was equaled by Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Gene Sarazen and Bobby Jones. But how many more might Vardon have won if he had played in more than three United States Opens? He won in 1900 at the Chicago Golf Club, was second to Ouimet in their memorable 1913 playoff at The Country Club outside Boston, and tied for second at age 50 in 1920 at Inverness in Toledo, Ohio. He never played in the P.G.A. Championship, which began in 1916, or the Masters, which began in 1934.

Vardon grew up as a caddie on the Isle of Jersey off the southern coast of England. He was to British golf at the turn of the last century what Bobby Jones would be to American golf in the Roaring Twenties. In the years after the first British Open in 1860 at Prestwick on Scotland’s western shore, Old Tom Morris and his son, Young Tom, from St. Andrews on the eastern shore, dominated the tournament, each winning four times. But in the 1890s, the handsome, trim Englishman named Vardon arrived.

After winning the British Open in 1896 at Muirfield (in a 36-hole playoff with Taylor), in 1898 at Prestwick (as the first with four rounds in the 70s) and 1899 at Royal St. George’s (first prize paid 90 pounds), he sailed to the United States as golf’s first international ambassador. During his 1900 tour of 65 exhibition matches (he won 50, lost 13 and halved 2), he won that year’s United States Open while promoting a Spalding gutta-percha golf ball known as the Vardon Flyer.

After returning to Britain, he won the British Open again in 1903 at Prestwick, becoming the only champion with two wire-to-wire victories. But late that year he contracted tuberculosis. Although he contended in several British Opens, the illness affected his putting for years. In 1911 at Royal St. George’s, he won his fifth Open in a playoff with the Frenchman Arnaud Massy.