Pauline Mackay

Mackay began golfing at Oakley Country Club in Watertown, Massachusetts when it opened in 1898. "She played with the steadiness and good judgment of a professional," commented one observer in 1901.^[7] In 1904, she was a semi-finalist in the U.S. Women's Amateur.^[8] She won the national women's title in 1905, defeating fellow Bostonian Margaret Curtis.^{[9][10][11][12][13]} "I think golf must be a sixth sense with me," she told an interviewer after that victory, "I love it so, and it came to me so naturally; but I do thoroughly believe no woman can become a proficient player without taking excellent care of her health... and I think the spirit of competition a woman feels in playing with men is a great aid in strengthening her game."^[14]

In the 1906 tournament, she was beaten in the second round but won the low-score medal.^[15]

Pauline Mackay married golfer and businessman Bruce Donald Smith, in Boston, in 1909.^[16][17] They lived in Chicago and had three children together before they divorced in 1920. By 1922, both Smiths had remarried, and Bruce Smith objected to continued alimony payments of $15,000 per year. A judge ruled that their alimony agreement was a perpetual obligation, not eliminated by subsequent events.^[18][19] In 1920, she inherited the "Middle Brick", a historic house on Nantucket's main street, built by her great-grandfather, Joseph Starbuck.^[5]

Mackay's second husband was Herbert Linsley Johnson of New York. They married in 1921.^[20][21] She was widowed when Johnson died in 1927. She died in 1958, aged 80 years, on Nantucket.^[2]