Barry Forth, General Manager of Copetown Woods Golf Club in Copetown Ontario was in the Olympic spirit this past week and along with Canadian golf journalists helped celebrate the Olympics and our Canadian golf teams by showcasing the Olympic trophy awarded to Toronto’s George S. Lyon in 1904.
The Olympic trophy is in the midst of a historic and timely renaissance. Golf’s return to the Games this summer has ramped up interest in the beautiful sterling silver chalice to an unprecedented, never-before-seen level. For decades it remained cloaked in relative obscurity. No more.
Awarded to Toronto’s George S. Lyon in 1904, the Olympic trophy has never shined quite as brilliantly as it has of late. On permanent display at the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame & Museum on the grounds of Glen Abbey in Oakville, Ont., this uptick in attention has put it into the conversation among the game’s grandest trophies.
“During many Canadian Opens that I played at Glen Abbey, I had a chance to see the Olympic individual trophy George Lyon won several times,” said two-time Masters champion and noted golf historian, Ben Crenshaw. “Mr. Lyon was one of the great amateur golfers in Canadian history. I’ve also read he was a very fine player, with his crowning achievement being his Olympic win in that playoff with Chandler Egan in St. Louis in 1904. It’s a shame he didn’t get the chance to defend the trophy with golf cancelled out of the Olympics in 1908.”
Made of 26-point sterling silver, the trophy — along with all trophies and medals awarded for golf at the 1904 Games in St. Louis — was commissioned by host course Glen Echo Country Club. Local business J. Bolland Jeweller Co. designed and manufactured the trophy, which features the stately Glen Echo clubhouse on one side.
Fred Lyon, George S. Lyon’s son, donated the trophy along with the clubs his father used in the Olympic Games during his time as a Royal Canadian Golf Association (now Golf Canada) governor back in the late 1950s.
