Black started his golf career as an apprentice club-maker in Scotland and came to Canada just after the turn of the century, eventually settling in Vancouver. He was hired as a club pro at Vancouver’s old Shaughnessy Golf Club in 1920, a post he held until 1945. Black, often referred to as the “Wee Scot,” had a reputation for beautifully accurate putting, and was routinely invited to play exhibition matches with visiting pros. In 1935, in one such match, David Black and Duncan Sutherland beat the great Bobby Jones and BC amateur champion, Ken Black (Black’s son and fellow Hall of Famer). Black was inducted into the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame in 1972.
David Black was the Canadian Open runner-up in 1911 (missed by one stroke), and runner-up in the Southern California Open in 1917 and 1919. He won the Canadian Professional Championships (CPGA) four times: 1913, 1919, 1920 and 1921 and retained the Rivermead Trophy for his three year consecutive win. During the 1920 CPGA Championships, he broke the course record at the Royal Ottawa Golf Club by swinging a sixty-eight in the morning, and then breaking this record with a sixty-seven that same afternoon. He was the Pacific Northwest Open winner in 1920 and 1922 (runner up in 1926), and won the Washington State Open in 1924. He was a member of the 1927 Canadian team that played for the English Ryder Cup at Toronto and Montreal. Black placed second with a 296 point total in four rounds behind the 1923 British Open champion, Arthur Havers, and took the BC Open Championship title in 1928 and 1930.