Charles Cory

Charles Cory’s sole contribution to Olympic history was to shoot a 94 in the first qualifying round of the 1904 golf tournament; he did not start the second round. Cory played in the 1903 US Amateur tournament, winning one match and going out in the second round.

Born into a wealthy Bostonian family, Cory briefly attended both Harvard and Boston Law School but left both to continue travelling around the world. From a young age he had developed an interest in natural history which eventually led him to become one of America’s leading ornithologists. A founder member of the American Ornithologists’ Union, he set up one of the USA’s first bird sanctuaries on his thousand acre estate at Hyanis, Massachusetts. Cory published over a hundred books on the subject of birds and had seven species named after him including the sea birds, Cory’s Least Bittern and Cory’s Shearwater. The Latin name of the Florida Cougar (Felis coryi) is also a tribute to him.

His sporting career was not limited to golf; he was reputed to have been an excellent baseball pitcher in his younger days and was one of the finest pistol shooters in the whole of America. During his brief spell in college he took up billiards and won the state championships of Massachusetts, albeit under an assumed name to avoid the “attendant notoriety”. Cory took up golf in 1897 and within a few years had become one of the USA’s foremost amateur players. He won the North and South Amateur Championship in Pinehurst, North Carolina in 1902 and was runner-up in the same tournament two years later.

He donated his collection of 19,000 bird specimens to the Chicago Field Museum and was given an honorary title of Curator of Ornithology. However when his vast fortune was lost after a disastrous investment in 1906, he took a salaried position at the museum as Curator of Zoology. His son, Charles, later became a top hurdler, winning the 1913 AAU title in the 200 low hurdles.