The Devil’s Own is the brainchild of four men, Harry Cooper, Percy Dorrington, George MacGregor and Martyn Abraham.
Harry, Percy, George and Martyn had played a four ball match over Dominion weekend in September 1931, and were sitting in the 19th at the Hokowhitu Golf Club. Percy said something like “How about next year we try and get a few more people together and have a little tournament?”
And so it was that in 1932, the first ever Devil’s Own Golf Tournament was held on Dominion Weekend, at the Manawatu Golf Club.
And with the exception of an inconvenient period of time between 1942 and 1944, oh, and of course the COVID interruption in 2021 (not 2020, the event went ahead just fine then), the tournament has been held each and every year since. Some say it’s the longest running privately organized golf tournament in the world…