She joined the Chicago Golf Club in Wheaton, Illinois, where she received coaching from Charles B. Macdonald and H. J. Whigham.

The following year, along with her mother, she signed up for a women's golf tournament without realizing that it was the second modern Olympics.

Her mother researched and wrote a travel guide A Woman's Paris: A Handbook of Every-day Living in the French Capital (1900); Margaret studied art alongside Auguste Rodin and Edgar Degas.

In 1900, however, women were allowed to compete in five sports: golf, tennis, sailing, rowing, and equestrianism.

[8] The events lacked proper equipment,[9] did not have an opening or closing ceremony, and included sports like tug of war, kite flying, hot air ballooning, and pigeon racing.

[2] According to Philip Dunne, his mother would later tell her family she won the tournament "because all the French girls apparently misunderstood the nature of the game scheduled that day and turned up to play in high heels and tight skirts".

[18] For her victory Abbott was awarded an old Saxon porcelain bowl mounted in chiseled gold.

[6] The winners of some events at the Paris games were awarded rectangular gold, silver, and bronze medals designed by French sculptor Frédéric Vernon.

[19] No medals were awarded for many other events, including golf, with prizes instead being cups, bowls, and other similar trophies.

According to the Chicago Tribune, although the wedding ceremony "was celebrated as quietly and with as little display as possible", they received telegrams from "dozens of [...] literary lights", including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[23] Abbott did not compete in many tournaments due to a knee injury caused by a childhood accident.

[18] Records of Abbott's ties to the Chicago Golf Club were destroyed in the 1912 clubhouse fire.

Welch spent a decade examining newspaper articles that mentioned Abbott's successes in various golfing competitions.

"[2] Writing for Golf Digest in 1984, Philip wrote: "It's not every day that you learn your mother was an Olympic champion, 80-odd years after the fact.