You find your soulmates in the most haphazard of ways, although when you study the sort of character of which Jon Williams and Willie Dunn are immersed, it was likely predestined that they were both at the same unique and flavorful golf celebration in July of 1999.

“Jon is someone I consider to be a brother from another mother, so to speak,” said Dunn, an Englishman, about Williams. The gentleman from Needham, Mass., seconds that sentiment, saying of Dunn: “He is quite a fellow and it was really remarkable how easily we hit it off.”

Ah, how golf works such magic, because when both Williams and Dunn accepted invitations to what was billed as “A Celebration of Musselburgh Golfing Greats” nearly 27 years ago, it was as if the stars were surely in line. Both the American and the Englishman had a passion for golf, but so did everyone in that cozy room at Musselburgh Golf Club in East Lothian, Scotland.

What connected them in a unique way was the pride they took in their family lineage.

Williams’ great-uncle was none other than Francis Ouimet, whose triumph at the 1913 U.S. Open is arguably the most significant win in American golf history.

Dunn’s great-great grandfather was Willie Dunn, Sr., who had epic golf matches against Old Tom Morris and was among the first to wear the title of “Keeper of the Green” at courses in Scotland and England. His great-grandfather is Willie Dunn, Jr., who often was cited as the first winner of the U.S. Open “although this is often forgotten as people only look at the USGA records and his victory predates its founding,” said the proud descendent.

“So, you’re telling me this is a simple story of two strangers who bumped into one another at a planned celebration and discovered that they each had ties to distinguished golf lineage?” Williams was asked.

He smiled, nodded his head and said, “That’s it. It’s that simple.”

It’s also that beautiful, that rich in flavor because the love they have of their ancestors is forever.

“For years we would pick Nana up on Sundays at the family home,” said Williams of the famed residence at 246 Clyde Street in Brookline, Mass., directly across the street from The Country Club. It is the home from which Francis Ouimet would walk to his caddie appointments and from which he meandered over to beat Harry Vardon and Ted Ray in an epic golf match 113 years ago.

His grandmother, Louise (Ouimet) Messitt, would regale her grandchildren with stories about the famed property across the street. “It’s not a golf course, she would say, and it’s not a country club. It’s The Country Club,” said Williams.

“I knew of his name, but I was only 12 when Francis died, and golf to us kids was a game for older people. But without question, as I got over and forged a love of golf I’d tell people that Francis Ouimet was my great-uncle and that would turn heads.”

For good reason. Few names in golf resonate quite like Francis Ouimet’s. The trail-blazing U.S. Open win, a pair of U.S. Amateurs, close ties to the Walker Cup . . . it’s all part of an incredible legacy. But the truest layer to Ouimet’s legend was the role he played as a gentleman ambassador for parts of five decades and for leaving us with the gift of the Francis Ouimet Scholarship Fund.

Since 1949 the charitable organization has awarded more than $57m to nearly 7,000 deserving recipients and Ouimet himself claimed the scholarship fund meant more to him than the 1913 U.S. Open win. It also means a lot to a long line of loyal supporters, prominent among them being Jon Williams, an avid volunteer at The Fund’s annual banquet.

He was there again Monday evening and it prompted memories of the time in 1999 when a table guest offered him the chance to go later in the summer to this celebration at Musselburgh. The memory is still vivid in Williams’ mind.

“Playing Musselburgh, which is cool links, was a lot of fun,” said Williams. “Especially in that setting – in knickers, using hickory.”

For years, Musselburgh was called the oldest golf course in the world, though that title has been reassigned to The Old Course in St. Andrews. Still, none of the aura has been removed from a day at Musselburgh and when Williams remembers 1999, Willie Dunn immediately comes to mind.

Touché, said Dunn, whose great-great grandfather was born in Mussleburgh in 1821 and died there in 1878.

“We had a fabulous time at Musselburgh and had a challenge match over at North Berwick, where the Dunns came out on top,” he said, via email. “The Ouimets got their revenge at The Country Club 10 years later.

“Fabulous memories.”

The program from that 1999 celebration at Musselburgh.

What’s truly fabulous is the scenario Dunn just painted – bump into a random golfer at a celebration, strike up a friendship, take it into a spirited competition on links, keep the flame alive via letter and emails, reunite years later across the pond for another match, this time on the golf course where Francis Ouimet made history. It speaks to why we love this game, why we are so anxious to share it, and why the dive into a rabbit’s hole to learn more of the Willie Dunn lineage was a passionate chase.

“Dunns are golfing royalty,” wrote Richard McDonough in a deep dive years ago for golfheritage.com.

To study the exploits of Old Willie is a joy. Playing with brother Jamie against Old Tom Morris and Allan Robertson in an 1849 contest that involved the unimaginable sum of 400 pounds, McDonough reported that the Dunns won at Musselburgh, lost at the Old Course, then squandered a lead and were defeated in the deciding match at North Berwick.

That same year, Robertson defeated Old Willie in a 20-round competition that was played over 10 days. “Allan is an artiste, Dunny is a genius,” is how one writer chronicled the match.

Old Willie was 45 when his wife gave birth to Young Willie; but the son was just a young teenager when his father died. Thus, Old Willie never saw the great contributions his son made to golf, especially in the U.S., but they are important.

The 1894 golf competition at St. Andrews Golf Club in Yonkers, for instance. “If you could avoid the awful 'unofficial' tag when referring to my great-grandfather, it would be appreciated,” wrote Willie Dunn.

The wish is granted because what the The New York Herald reported on Oct. 8, 1894 about the $150 purse and gold medal in the First of America Championship was this: “The winner is Willie Dunn, the Shinnecock Club’s expert.”

What’s more, the great-grandson discovered that in 1930 when Bobby Jones won the U.S. Open in his Grand Slam farewell year, “the New York Herald published two photographs – one of Bobby at the top of his backswing with a caption ‘our current champion,’ the other of Young Willie and the caption under him read ‘Our patriarch of champions.”

That is good enough for Willie Dunn, who knows USGA records start the U.S. Open in 1895 (Young Willie was second) and there’s plenty of fodder to side with him. There's also enough to remember Young Willie as a pioneer in architectural design (Shinnecock, Apawamis, Maidstone, Philadelphia CC among them) and so much more to savor with others on the Dunn family golf tree (Thomas Dunn, Old Willie's other son; Thomas' daughter Isabella May Gourlay Dunn; Thomas' sons, John Duncan Dunn and Semour Gourlay Dunn are all deserving of tributes) but we return.

No surprise that the man who uses 1894 in his email, as homage to that “first U.S. Open win,” also embraces a prized possession that was won by Young Willie’s son, Norman Willie Dunn. “My grandpa won the Yorkshire County Championship in 1926,” wrote Willie Dunn, who provides a remarkable twist to his uncanny love of this family legacy.

Norman Willie Dunn had two daughters, but no sons so it appeared as if the beautiful run of Willie Dunns would come to an end. Ah, but one of daughters gave birth to the man we write about now, and “I promised Grandpa I would change my name to hopefully keep the family alive.”

Sadly, “he died when I was 15 and I changed my name on turning 16 a year before Gran died,” said our hero, Jon Williams’ friend, and a man with whom many of us share a love of golf.

As for the continuation of Willie Dunns, our man is still playing the game with great passion, and so, too, is his son -- you guessed it, Willie Dunn.

“That is a little something for you, Jim, I hope you found it helpful,” he wrote before ending a long day of travel to a holiday locale.

It is more than a “little something,” my friend. It is further proof that golf works magic in so many ways and that there is great anticipation for that next match between the Ouimets and the Dunns.