T.I. Webb, Jr.

Thomas Isham Webb Jr., (1880–1975) was a Tennessee attorney who excelled at golf and won the 1913 Tennessee state amateur. He was one of Tennessee's earliest golfers at the cusp of the sport's popularity in the United States near the beginning of the twentieth century. While a student at Vanderbilt University in 1896, Webb constructed a rudimentary nine-hole golf course next to University campus and the group attracted like-minded golf enthusiasts. Prominent citizens became interested and eventually formed a golf club which still exists over a century later. In 1901, Webb was a charter member of the Nashville Golf and Country Club where Grantland Rice, Webb's Vanderbilt classmate, first became interested in golf. The club was later renamed "Belle Meade Country Club" and Webb was the club golf champion in 1913 and 1917. At the time of his death at age 95, Webb was celebrated as club's oldest living member. He endowed an annual trophy for the Belle Meade Junior Golf championship; a room named for him was dedicated by in 1976 by sportswriter Fred Russell.

Interest in golf

While a student at Vanderbilt in 1896, Webb and three other friends built a nine-hole golf course in a field adjacent to the Vanderbilt campus where University School now stands. Cattle grazed there and kept the grass low so the course didn't need mowing. The boys had gutta-percha balls and clubs with hickory shafts obtained by mail order; The Nashville streetcar came west out of downtown on what is now West End Avenue and ended at 29th Street; from there a mule-drawn wagon carried club members through a toll gate at Murphy Road to get to the clubhouse. to design a golf course rivaling the quality of those in Scotland. That year, he broke the Nashville Golf and Country Club course record on the back nine holes (35) but his record was broken three days later. In 1909, his former classmate Grantland Rice covered the Southern Amateur Golf Tournament at Webb's club, which, according to historian Robin Hardin, sparked the beginning of Rice's interest in golf. Webb was club champion in 1913 and 1917. The club later moved its clubhouse about west to Belle Meade to a new clubhouse and changed the name to Belle Meade Country Club. The design of Webb's state championship trophy was later used to create the Belle Meade letterhead and was used on blue blazers sold in the golf shop. Webb built a home at 4425 Warner Place within walking distance of the clubhouse in 1915, designed by Edward Dougherty an architect who also designed the Belle Meade Country Club and Nashville's War Memorial Auditorium.

At age 90, Webb was honored in 1970 with a birthday luncheon at Belle Meade attended by prominent citizens including sportswriter Waxo Green. At the 1976 annual meeting, sportswriter Fred Russell gave a testimonial speech honoring Webb as part of dedication of a room for Webb and his portrait at the clubhouse. He received his law degree in 1902. He married Alice R. Smith in New York City on October 8, 1914.

His father, T.I. Webb (1838–1911), was born in Wilson County near Lebanon, Tennessee. He was a physician who served in the Confederate Army as assistant surgeon. After the war he moved to Brownsville, Tennessee, and practiced medicine and owned a retail pharmacy there. He moved to Nashville in 1883 and established a wholesale drug business as one of the founders of Spurlock & Page Company. The junior Webb's mother was Elizabeth Williams from Haywood County, Tennessee. Mary E. Webb, unmarried; Thomas I. Webb Jr, and David Webb.