As American golf popularity skyrocketed at the start of the 20th century, Scottish immigrant professionals like Willie Dunn found their career footing. Dunn was a combination superb player, golf instructor and owner of Shinnecock Hills Golf Club, built near the Shinnecock Indian reservation in Southampton, New York. One of Dunn’s best young students was John Matthew Shippen Jr., one of nine children of Eliza and John Shippen Sr., an African-American Presbyterian minister who had moved his family to the reservation in 1888 from Washington, D.C. At age 15, young Shippen was introduced to golf. A year later, he was employed...