
author
1855–1930
Best remembered as a gentleman sportsman of Boston’s Gilded Age, he moved easily between yachting, golf, and club life. His name is especially linked to the Myopia Hunt Club course and to the world of late-19th-century amateur sport.
by James Dwight, Herbert Corey Leeds
Herbert Corey Leeds (January 30, 1855 – September 29, 1930) was an American amateur golfer, yachtsman, and golf-course architect. He is most often remembered for designing the golf course at Myopia Hunt Club, one of the early landmarks in American golf.
He was also active as a competitive golfer and is recorded as tying for eighth place in the 1898 U.S. Open. Beyond golf, Leeds was known in elite sporting circles as a yachtsman, reflecting the club-centered sporting culture of his time.
Although he does not appear to be widely read today as a literary author, his surviving work is connected with recreation and club life, including titles such as The Laws of Euchre as Adopted by the Somerset Club of Boston and Log of the Columbia: Season of 1899. Those books fit neatly with the interests that shaped his public life: games, sailing, and organized amateur sport.