2011 & 1888 Goodwin Champions – Golf and Tennis

When looking into, I was surprised that athletes of these two sports are both only in 1 set.  Tennis players were included in the 1888 set, but there were none in this year’s set.  On the flip side, the 2011 set has golfers, but there were none in the 19th century set.

First, I’ll start with the tennis, or “lawn tennis” as it’s depicted in the set.  There are four players, all shown below.  Two of them are Hall of Famers.  Richard Sears was the first great U.S. tennis player.  He won the inaugural U.S. tennis national championship, and in fact won the first 7.  He also won 6 doubles titles in a row.  5 of those were with James Dwight, who was known as the “Father of American Lawn Tennis” for bringing the sport from Europe back to the states, and ultimately serving as the first President of the U.S. National Lawn Tennis Association.

Golf in the 2011 set features the best female and male star of our generation, both of whom are in the argument for the greatest ever.  Additionally, there is a card of Harry Vardon, who won the U.S. Open (1900) once and the British Open 6 times (spanning 1896 to 1914).  He was the best player golf had seen since Young Tom Morris.  By the way, Tom Morris is in the set on a card with his dad.  It’s an SP card I don’t have yet and wasn’t able to pull a good picture of.