Kenny Robinson - Keeping the Past Alive

From Golf Styles - New Jersey Edition, April 2008, p. 15

Keeping the Past Alive

He's been at the club for almost 40 years and watched the evolution of a local shrine from its heyday as an elite private golf club to one now open to the public.

When Kenny Robinson arrived in 1969, Atlantic City Country Club was yet in its prime - hosting dignitaries, golf legends, celebrities and champions of industry. The 74 year old has been a fixture at the club longer than anyone, serving as caddie, pro shop manager, starter, ambassador and historian.

"Even though we are now open to the public, it's retained a private club atmosphere," Robinson said. "The clubhouse has changed little over the last 50 years or so. At the front door is the bell that rang for the last rolley returning hotel guests to Atlantic City."

Robinson recalls many tales of colorful characters and people he's known during his time at the club, mentioning such stars as Perry Combo, Joe Namath, Bob Hope, Bert Lancaster and many others who frequented the facility.

"It was the most sought after club to get a game and a most congenial place to visit. The service, help and food have always been excellent. the recipe for our famous crab cakes, still served today, came from Leo's wife Doris Fraser," added Robinson.

"Jolly" Jim Fraser bought the club in the early '40s. In 1944, his son Leo bought it from his brother Sonny. Leo went on to become PGA president from 1969 through 1971.

The Fraser family operated the facility as a private club. Leo's children - Jim, Doug, and Bonnie - carried on the time-honored traditions and gracious hospitality.

"In 1997 the club was sold to Bally-Hilton-Caesar's entertainment, who kept it private for high rollers. They merged with Harrah's/Showboat in 2006. The new owners opened the course to the public, and has worked to preserve the club's history," said Robinson.

www.harrahs.com/golf/atlantic-city-country-club

(609) 236-4400


There's also a good photo of Kenny on the back patio.

The one errata, is worth elaborating on.

"Jolly Jim" Fraser was an early golf professional. He never owned a golf course.

Born in Scotland, Jolly Jim was one of the first early wave of Scottish pros to find work in America.

Arriving in New York he worked at a number of early golf courses, including Winged Foot, before becoming the first or maybe the second golf professional at Seaview. There may have been one before him, who didn't work out with Clarance Geist, the gas industry barron from Baltimore who built Seaview in 1914 when he couldn't get a tee time at the Atlantic City Country Club.

Geist recruited Jolly Jim Fraser to be the Seaview golf professional, and he lived in a house on the first fairway of the Bay Course with his vivacious red haired wife Millie, and their two sons Leo and Sonny. There may have been other kids, but Leo and Sonny were players who would have a major impact on the game of golf.

Jolly Jim was also a hunter, and was good friends with other European golf professionals who visited Fraser at Seaview when they came to America. He was also good friends with Walter Hagen, and the two often went hunting in the back woods, what his now the Pine Course. Jolly Jim was also an animal lover, and there were always a lot of dogs running around.

Killed in a traffic accident with a Shore Road trolly while delivering some mail to the post office in Pleasantville or Absecon, Jolly Jim's wife Millie and sons stayed on at Seaview, with Millie marrying a bartender at the club and Geist adopting the Leo and Sonny and raising them as his own sons.

While Geist took a shine to Sonny, Leo went on barnstorming tours with Walter Hagen, selling clubs and playing tournaments across the country before settling in to a golf professional job in Michigan. When Leo finally returned home, he assumed the golf professional job at Seaview, while Sonny was groomed by Geist to take over his gas company and run Seaview and Boca Raton, the equally exclusive golf and country club Geist built in Florida.

Sonny was a terrific golfer, a dedicated amateur when the best players were amateurs.

During World War II, Leo Fraser enlisted in the Army and fought in Europe, while Sonny worked with Philadelphia bricklayer John Kelly, Hap Farley and others to buy the Atlantic City Country Club, which had fallen on hard times, and to build the Atlantic City Race Track and bring live Thoroughbread horse racing, and the first legal gambling to the area.

When Florida Sen. George Smathers heard about the plans, he began to raise trouble, not wanting more race tracks and gambling to compete with the Florida tracks and illegal Florida casinos. Smathers complained that the Atlantic City syndicate that was building the race track had illegal slot machines in the Atlantic City Country Club, but instead of removing the slots, they sold the club to Sonny's brother Leo, the returning war hero.

Although Sonny's syndicate gave his brother Leo good terms on the purchase of the ACCC, Leo still had to borrow a considerable amount, mainly obtained in a personal loan from Carroll Rosenbloom, the owner of the Baltimore Colts, who lived in Margate. With Leo Fraser as the owner, the slots stayed in the clubhouse for another decade, until they hosted a New Jersey State Police dinner.

Sonny Fraser was elected to the New Jersey state legislature and was the odds on favorite to run and win the governorship when he was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer. Even though he was sick Sonny Fraser could play golf, and Leo hosted an amateur golf tournament the Sonny Fraser Invitational, that Sonny won the first year (Dr. Cary Middlecoff won the second).

While Sonny died, his tournament lasted for decades, until the casinos purchased the Atlantic City Country Club. In its day, the Sonny Fraser tournament was as big if not more significant than the similar amateur Crump Cup invitational held at Pine Valley around the same time of year.

Now that the Atlantic City Country Club is open to the public, it might be time to consider restarting the Sonny Fraser Tournament, and invite some of the best amateur players from around the country to return to Atlantic City and compete in the Sonny Fraser, and begin a new era.

As for "Jolly Jim Fraser," he was one of the first Scottish golf professionals to work in America, one of the first golf pros at Seaview, and the father of two of the most important American golfers, Leo the consumerate pro, and Sonny the great amateur.

Bill Kelly

When Arnie Met Winnie

WHEN ARNIE MET WINNIE

Golf has never been the same – by William Kelly

Arnold Palmer recently dedicated a park to his late wife Winnie, granting her wish that the land remain undeveloped, and epitomizing a love story that continues to enamor the game of golf. (1)

When and where they met became an historic occasion, and their adventures together on the U.S. PGA golf tour, which attracted millions of new fans to the game, added an everlasting love story to the legacy of the game.

The time and place are set in stone – September 1952 – at Shawnee-on-the-Delaware, Fred Waring’s Pocono, Pennsylvania resort (2), but it was social circumstances and the state of the game of golf at the time that would create a situation that would change the nature of the game forever.

Three local players with strong ties to Jersey Shore were there at the time - Howard Everett, a great amateur, and Atlantic City / Mays Landing Country Club professionals Stan Dudas and Ron Ward, each giving a unique perspective to the situation.

Howard Everett worked at Shawnee as a publicist for Fred Waring, a big band leader whose popular radio show featured the orchestra playing live from his resort, Shawnee-on-the Delaware. Waring’s annual golf tournament was the social event of the season, and it was Everett’s job to make it a success, but nobody could have predicted what transpired.

Howard Everett is a throwback to another era when the best players were amateurs, and he knew Palmer from playing against him in match play during the 1948 Pennsylvania Amateur (Everett defeated Palmer, lost to Art Wall).

"I invited Palmer to Shawnee before he won the Amateur," Everett recalled in an interview shortly before he died. Palmer later acknowledged that he had previously declined invitations to Fred Waring’s tournament because he couldn’t afford to go, but after winning the national amateur championship, and having a steady job selling paint, he made Shawnee his first tournament as the new champion.

"And that’s when he met Winnie," said Everett, "and so I was in the thick of the beginning of that romance. But the story goes back much further than that. It all goes back to Atlantic City."

Everett was known for playing out of Manufacturers Hanover club in suburban Philadelphia, but he lived in a house next to the old practice fairway at the Atlantic City Country Club, and was close friends with club owner Leo Fraser.

In 1950 Bucky Worsham was the pro at Atlantic City, and Arnold Palmer was a seaman stationed at the Cape May Coast Guard base, not far away.

Palmer had been close friends with Bucky’s younger brother Buddy Worsham, who came from a family of fine golfers (Brother Lew won the 1947 U.S.Open). Arnie and Buddy Worsham both went to Wake Forest on golf scholarships and were roommates, but when Buddy died suddenly in a car accident, Palmer quit school and enlisted in the Coast Guard.

While stationed at Cape May, Palmer laid out his first course (3) and played at a number of Jersey Shore courses, including the Wildwood Country Club, Somers Point-Ocean City (now Greate Bay) and Atlantic City Country Club, where Bucky Worsham, the older brother of his late best friend, was the pro.

At Atlantic City Palmer played in the annual Sonny Fraser tournament, a popular mid-amateur event (won by Sonny Fraser, Dr. Cary Middlecoff, Julious Boros, et al.) that Everett had won a record six times.

As Howard Everett said, it all goes back to Atlantic City.

ATLANTIC CITY & SHAWNEE

There was always a strong affinity between the Atlantic City Country Club and Shawnee. The Shawnee amateurs played Atlantic City every year. They put up a memorial plaque and planted a tree out by the front door of the club next to the trolley bell. And at the end of the Tap Room, above the bay window that overlooks the course, there is an old, brown panoramic photo of the old Shawnee.

While Atlantic City was built in 1897, Shawnee was built a decade later in 1907, the first course designed by famed golf course architect A.W. Tillinghast, one of the players with the group that coined the term "birdie" at Atlantic City, and one of the most prolific and influential of the early American golf course designers.

Shawnee is a dramatic 27 hold course, with 24 of the holes on an island on the Delaware River. The Buckwood Inn was built a few years after the course was laid out, making it a popular resort, and in 1913 Shawnee was the host of one of the most popular golf tournaments in the country, which attracted most of the U.S. Open field.

Johnny McDermott, the two-time defending U.S. Open champion was the 20 year old Atlantic City Country Club pro, the first native born American and at 19, the youngest and still the youngest to have ever won the U.S. Open national golf championship. The tournament at Shawnee was held a week before the 1913 U.S. Open, which that year was at the Country Club at Brookline, Massachusetts.

McDermott and all the top golfers played in the Buckwood tournament, which McDermott won handily, defeating Harry Vardon and Ted Ray, arguably the two greatest golfers to ever play the game, by eight strokes. McDermott then gave a speech and promised that the U.S. Open trophy would not leave the country that year. That speech, which reporters wired around the world, put golf on the front page of every newspaper in the country and English speaking world, and set up the "Greatest Game Ever Played," won by local Brookline amateur Francis Ouimet. (4)

That game sparked a letter promoting the idea of creating a professional golf association. This letter was cited by Rodman Wanamaker in his remarks at the 1938 PGA Championship at Shawnee (won by local pro Paul Runyan over Sam Snead), (5) and for whom the PGA Champion Wanamaker Trophy is named after.

In 1943 longtime Shawnee owner C.C. Worthington sold the Buckwood Inn and the golf course to big band leader Fred Waring, who renamed it the Shawnee Inn. (6)

FRED WARING AND STAN DUDAS

That’s where Stan Dudas comes in. Dudas, another witness to when Arnie met Winnie, quit school in the ninth grade and left his Simpson, Pennsylvania coal mining hometown an aimless runaway, until he was picked up hitchhiking by Fred Warring.

Warring talked Dudas into going with him to Shawnee, where Dudas started out working as a bus boy in the dining room but quickly gravitated to the pro shop. There he earned tips for cleaning clubs and learned lessons in golf and life from Harry Obitz, the pro at the time, and his assistant Spec Hannon. Spec had been a caddy for Walter Hagen and Harry and Spec taught Dudas to play golf. After a few years Fred Warring thought he was good and sent young Dudas, then only seventeen, out on the winter pro tour, paying his way.

"I was young, the first time I was on my own," recalled Dudas, who passed away in March.(7)"I was with great guys – Jimmy Demaret, Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, the top players on the tour at the time. Demaret was a real colorful character and we got to be buddies right away."

Of course Jimmy Demaret was the last guy you wanted your seventeen year old to pal around with. As the first three-time Masters champion with 31 PGA tour wins, Demaret was also one of the most flamboyant players to ever play the game. Although he broke the scoring record at the 1948 US Open and still lost to fellow Texan Ben Hogan, Demaret was best known as a flashy dresser and the life of the tour party for over twenty years. (8) So it’s a matter of opinion on how much Jimmy Demaret helped or hurt Stan Dudas on the tour.

Returning to Shawnee to work every summer, Stan Dudas was a young, but major player in the golf game at Shawnee when Arnold Palmer arrived to play in this special tournament.

PALMER AT THE YOUNG MASTERS - "FRED WARING’S ANNUAL SHINDIG"

As Howard Everett recalled, "At the time I was working publicity for Fred Warring at Shawnee-on-the Delaware, as they called it, and I had invited Arnie ahead of time, to participate in this tournament that Warring called the Young Masters. I had invited him before he won the U.S. Amateur, and Fred Warring kidded me and said that since he won the championship he probably wouldn’t come to our tournament. I said not only would he come, but he was bringing his boss (Cleveland paint dealer Bill Wehnes) and his boss’ wife, and I told him who they were."

After winning the national amateur Palmer said he intended to stay an amateur, like Ouimet and Everett, and looked forward to playing in the next Walker Cup in England.

In his autobiography, A Golfer's Life (9) Palmer wrote that he hadn’t decided to turn pro, even after winning the U.S. Amateur. "I like selling paint," Palmer said, "I have no intention of turning professional. I am very happy and my new title automatically puts me on the Walker Cup team."

"At the moment I said this, I really meant it. With a six-month apprenticeship required by the PGA Tour, a period during which you could take no official prize money, I simply couldn’t imagine how I could make a living on the tour. So I pointed out that the Walker Cup would be contested in England the next spring and I couldn’t wait to go there. I also note that my next golfing goal was the British Amateur crown."

"They say lightning never strikes the same spot twice, but my tale is proof that it sometimes can strike you again when you least expect it to. In this case, lighting of a very different nature struck me within days of hoisting the Amateur trophy. My words – to say nothing of the direction of my life – abruptly changed."

"Mother hadn’t been back home in Latrobe for more than a few days when she got a phone call from Fred Waring, the celebrated bandleader of the Pennsylvanians, inviting me to play in his annual golf tournament, the Waite Memorial, at Shawnee-on-the-Delaware. Fred had invited me to his annual golf shindig before, but I could never afford to go. Now that I was the new National Amateur champion I was more anxious to go, but I’d been away from my job so much of the summer I felt bad asking Bill Wehnes for yet another week off."

"Bill solved the problem by telling me, ‘…we’ll all drive down there.’"

Besides publicists Howard Everett and Stan Dudas, Ron Ward was another young golf pro at Shawnee who would later become the pro at Atlantic City and Wildwood Country Clubs, and is now at Mays Landing Country Club.

Ward recalls, "… I got to Shawnee on June 2nd of 1952, and I left there about the middle of October, 1960, and then I became the pro at Atlantic City, April 1st, 1961," so Ward was new at Shawnee when Palmer arrived.

Ward recalled that, "Howard Everett was kind of a general manager. Fred Waring liked him. I always said that Howard Everett was one of the original Arnold Palmers, because as an amateur he was really good, and he was a good looking guy, and he could really wack the hell out of that ball."

As for how Arnie met Winnie, Ward says, "Here’s what happened. Arnold Palmer was working for a guy named Bill Wehnes, who was in the paint business. And Bill used to come to Shanwnee with his beautiful wife. Palmer worked for Bill as a paint seller. So Bill came to Shawnee, and Fred Waring had this big invitational tournament that always started the day after Labor Day. So Bill Wehnes wanted to bring Arnold to play and he had him entered in the tournament, but then Arnold won the U.S. Amateur at the Detroit Country Club on that Saturday, increasing interest in the tournament at Shawnee the following week."

"So anyway, Arnie wins the national amateur out of the blue," recalls Ward. "He wasn’t expected to win it, he wasn’t favored like Tiger Woods was, but he won the national championship and then comes to play this little tournament at Shawnee."

As Ward recalls the situation, "Fred Warning, who owned the place, had a daughter named Dixie, and Dixie’s buddy was Winnie Walzer. The Walzer family liked to hang around the club but they didn’t play golf. Mr. Walzer sold food, and him and Mr. Waring became friends. So that’s what Winnie was doing there. She used to hang around the pool a lot. I never did see her on the golf course, but she was a cute little girl."

At first Palmer drifted towards the other young players, including Stan Dudas and Ronnie Ward, but as Ward recalls, "There were these cute girls around – Fred’s daughter Dixie was a cuttie pie, and her friend Winnie was as cute as a bell," and it was Winnie Walzer who caught Palmer’s eye and got his attention.

Palmer remembers the moment quite clearly. "The tournament festivities began over Labor Day weekend. We arrived on Monday and checked into the Shawnee Inn, a beautiful rustic lodge abuzz with tournament activities. I immediately went out on the golf course to play a practice round, and as I was coming back into the inn I saw a couple of pretty girls coming down the stairway that led to the main lobby. One of them was Dixie Waring, Fred’s daughter. But it was the quieter, prettier, dark-haired one that really caught my eye. She had smoky good looks, and her demeanor had a clear sheen of class."

As Stan Dudas recalled it, they played some golf and then mingled around the club until at some point Palmer just blurted out, "Who is That girl?," obviously speaking about Winnie Walzer.

"When Arnie met Winnie, it was love at first sight," said Everett, but there still had to be formal introductions.

"Fred had a secretary, Cora Ballard, who was good at things like that," said Ward, "and she probably introduced them formally."

That’s how Palmer remembers it, describing Waring’s longtime secretary, Cora Ballard as "a whisky-voiced redhead," who "paused and introduced me to the two girls she was chaperoning for the week, the tournament’s official ‘hostesses,’ and I shook hands with Winifred Walzer."

"What I guess I failed to notice, smitten as I was with her, was that almost everybody around us save (her father) Shube Walzer (who was back home in Coopersburg, by the way) was shamelessly promoting the match – and all these years later it amuses me how many people claim they had the critical hand in bringing us together."

"If you don’t have anything to do," Palmer said to her, ‘why don’t you come out and watch the golf.’"

"Perhaps I will," she replied with a smile.

"I think I learned she and Dixie Waring were old chums from Shawnee, and I must have been thinking Winnie must be a rich girl from Philadelphia’s Main Line. She was so refined and polished. Little did I know she was really from the village of Coopersburg, just outside Bethlehem, and though her father, Shube, was successful enough in the canned foods business to afford a summer cottage at Shawnee, the Walzers were by no means wealthy in the sense of Philadelphia wealth. She only hobnobbed with girls from the Main Line. Winnie was nineteen, studying interior design at Brown University’s affiliated design school at Pembroke College, aiming to be an interior decorator. Unbeknownst to me she was a veteran of Shawnee’s social swirl and had even dated some of the most eligible bachelor golfers, including my old adversary Harvie Ward."

"I don’t think I saw her at the dinner that was held that evening, but I was pleased when I glanced over the next afternoon and saw her watching from the edge of the eleventh fairway. Years later I learned that was purely an accident – she was really en route to watch her ‘Uncle Fred’ Waring play golf. Fred, who was in the foursome directly behind mine, was deeply fond of Winnie and almost jealously protective of her. Anyway, I sauntered over and asked if she ‘planned to tag along’ and made small talk with her and wondered if she would be interesting in sitting with me at the dinner dance scheduled for later that evening. She said she would, and I went on about my business with a new spring in my step."

"Winnie, I began to learn that night, was unlike any girl I ever met, not just pretty and comfortable in almost any social situation, but also smart, well traveled (she’d just come home from a big European trip), engagingly independent minded, even something of a would-be social rebel. The only girl in a close-knit Moravian family that included two brothers and a host of boy cousins, she had a grandfather who was a minister and uncles who were college professors. She had grown up absorbing the blows from baseball games and kick-the-can with her male cousins, but also kept her father’s books from an early age. She had pluck and ambition, and she didn’t suffer vain or pretentious fools easily. Her mother, Mary, was something of a sweet social butterfly who may have entertained hopes that Winifred would become a proper debutante in due course, but feisty Winnie Walzer wanted none of that…..We became inseparable for the rest of the week,…"

The electricity between Arnie and Winnie didn’t go unnoticed and even played into the odds on the tournament.

"Arnie’s walking around holding Winnie’s hand, and I’m betting against him in the tournament," recalls Ward, "because my boss the golf Harry Obits always said, ‘Don’t mix girls and golf.’ So during the tournament I bet against Arnie. But he could hold Winnie’s hand and still beat everybody, and he won it."

"Nobody had to bring us together or promote the match," notes Palmer. "By Friday night my amateur partner, Tommy Sheehan, and I were leading the tournament, but more important, I was completely taken with Winnie Walzer and a plan was forming in my brain."

Palmer: "But that first evening at the dinner dance she got a taste of the unexpected impact sudden ‘fame’ can have on a young man’s life. I happened to be dancing with an older golf professional’s wife when she suddenly seized my shoulder and whispered damply into my ear, "Take me away from all this. Let’s me and you run away together!’"

"The poor women sounded desperate – and frighteningly serious. She had four children and a swell husband, and she scared the daylights out of me. So I slunk back to the table. After a while, I told Winnie what had happened, and she laughed. That was another thing I loved about Winnie Walzer, her robust and infectious laugh. She had a no-nonsense, down-to-earth way of placing everything in perspective, I was discovering, including alcohol-fueled dance floor confessions from older women. What I didn’t know then was that, despite our wonderful week of intimate conversation about family and golf and life in general, typically held after my rounds in the club bar where underage Winnie could sip her favorite Fitzgerald Old Fashions, come Friday night my beautiful escort was watching me go through the buffet line with more than casual interest…."

"At the dinner, I reached under the table and took her hand and said, ‘What would you think if I asked you to get married.?’"

"The question appeared to startle her, though only for a second or two. ‘Well, I don’t know. This is so sudden. Can I have a day to think about it?’ she replied."

"‘Not too long,’ I said to her. ‘I have places to go.’"

"I told her my grand plan: we would get married in the spring and use the Walker Cup tournament as our honeymoon. She assured me that her mother and aunts would love that romantic plan – as they did. She told me her father would probably grumble a lot but would eventually come around because he wanted his only daughter to be happy. For such a crack judge of character, she either overestimated her father’s capacity to appreciate romance or underestimated his contempt for unconventional suitors for his daughter. As it turned out, the last thing Shube Walzer wanted was his daughter marrying a golf bum, which is pretty much what he thought of all the tournament golfers in those days."

Winnie’s brother Marty Walzer recalls that Saturday in 1954 when he noticed his parents and 19 year old sister talking in their Coopersburg, Pennsylvania home. "I was 13," he said, "old enough to know that just from the way they were talking, it was serious. The previous Tuesday night, Arnold, who had just won the United States Amateur, had met Winnie at a party for a golf tournament at Shawnee-on-the-Delaware, and now she was telling my mother and father that on Friday night Arnold had proposed to her."

"I suppose it was no surprise that word quickly leaked out about the proposal." Palmer himself recalls. "Winnie quickly informed her mother, who was happy as expected, and her mother broke the news to her father – who wasn’t remotely happy to hear about it. Shube had heard such declared intentions from his headstrong daughter before and, I think, felt love would run its course in due time. At the final presentation dinner, Fred Waring startled everybody by announcing that I wasn’t only taking the tournament trophy home from Shawnee-on-the-Delawere, but a fiancée as well."

But it wasn’t that easy. Like all young love, there was a bit of uncertainty after Palmer left Shawnee for Florida, where his father accompanied him to the Miami Open.

In Florida with his father, Deacon Palmer later said Arnie couldn’t stop thinking about that girl. As Everett explained it, "In Florida, after working and living in a hotel room for a few days the Deak said, ‘Arnie, I think you got this sewed up, so why are you so downhearted and out of sorts?’"

"And I got this from the Deacon himself, he said, ‘Dad, I will never feel right until I go back to Shawnee and see whether I want to marry that girl.’"

Palmer remembers it a little bit differently, as he recalls, "…I asked Pap to accompany me to the first event, the Miami Open….I missed the cut and was boiling mad at myself, I returned to the motel only to find a message from my old girlfriend, the Cleveland model; she was in town working and wanted to get together for a few drinks. That seemed like just the remedy I needed, so I went out and returned sometime after midnight only to find Pap waiting up for me – and as mad at me as I’ve ever seen him. Through clenched teeth he asked me where the hell I’d been and I told him truthfully – out for some drinks and a few laughs with an old friend, nothing too serious, all pretty innocent."

"’You’re engaged and you’ve got an obligation to that girl back in Pennsylvania,’ he snarled at me."

" ‘Do you love her?’ he snapped,….Then you better go get her and get married and get on with your business and quit screwing around like a college boy. Do you understand me?’ I did indeed."

"I was there working when Arnie came back to Shawnee," said Everett, "and took a lot of pictures of everyone. Stan Dudas was there, and Ronnie Ward, both later became Atlantic City pros. We played a round with Fred Warring and Palmer, and of course Winnie was there and walked the whole 18 holes with us."

But things had changed in the meantime. For one, while Palmer won the money to buy Winnie an engagement ring by playing his boss and a few friends over three rounds at Pine Valley, he suddenly decided to turn pro.

While they were playing golf back at Shawnee, Stand Dudas suggested Palmer go to Bermuda and play in a tournament with him as an amateur, but Palmer said to Dudas, "No Stan, I’m going to turn pro." It was a startling announcement.

Palmer later explained that in order to earn enough money for an engagement ring for Winnie, he shot a remarkable 67, 69 and 68 in three rounds at Pine Valley, collecting enough money in bets from his boss and friends to buy a decent ring. But playing those three rounds at Pine Valley also gave him the confidence and the belief that he could make it on the pro tour, and the realization that he had to turn pro in order to support a family.

"It was while we were there in that ultimate golf terrarium (Pine Valley)," wrote Palmer, "that I had time to think about what Winnie and I were really up against. My salesman salary scarcely covered my own expenses, much less those of a married couple in need of a first house and possibly children in the near future…and as much as I liked the proposed scenario of a big church wedding in the spring and steaming off to England for the Walker Cup, in my heart I saw only one way for us to make it as man and wife. I would need to turn pro."

As Ron Ward points out, "Back in those days it was better to stay amateur because there wasn’t that much money in turning pro, so amateurs stayed amateurs, they didn’t turn pro."

But for a guy like Palmer, like Walter Hagan ahead of him, he could envision the ability to take his game to another level, and then take the game of golf to another level with him.

But how to break the news to Winnie? "…We met in the afternoon at the New Yorker Hotel," explains Palmer, " and – talk about a potentially bad omen – checked in just as some poor chap committed suicide by leaping from an upstairs window. A little later in the bar, still shaken, Winnie probably thought our plans were crashing too, when I informed her of my change in strategy – namely, that I’d decided to turn pro and that we should probably get married as soon as possible, certainly before the start of the new Tour season out west. England and the Walker Cup were out; the uncertain life of a Tour rookie’s bride was in."

"Her face fell, but she didn’t seem as upset as I thought she might be at this idea, though she needlessly pointed out that her father wasn’t going to like this news any better than the last."

''My mother was all for it,'' Marty Walzer said, ''but Dad had reservations. He came around eventually, but after Winnie and Arnold had their two daughters, Peggy and Amy, I remember Dad telling Arnold, 'You wait and see, you'll feel the same way I did.' ''

But at the time he was dead set against his only daughter getting married to a golf bum.

"My mother and Pap took an instant shine to Winnie when they met her the following week in Latrobe. Back in Coopersburg, the female family think tank already had big wedding plans well under way, but there was still no movement on the Shube Walzer front. Shube was tough customer, a successful businessman who loathed Roosevelt and the socially liberal policies of just about any other Democrat. Pap, on the other hand, was a strong Democrat and devoted Roosevelt man who thought the late president hung the moon. In some ways, the families hailed no just from different ends of Pennsylvania, but different ends of the planet."

So instead of getting married in a big church wedding with a reception with all their friends and family back at the country club, they eloped to Falls Church, Virginia, not far from the home of Arnold’s sister Cheech, where they were married.

As Palmer put it, "We spent our honeymoon night at a trucker’s motel off the Breezewood exit of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. It wasn’t terribly romantic, and in retrospect, it makes me realize what a true gem I had found in Winifred Walzer. Here was this classy, educated, beautiful girl who risked her father’s eternal wrath and gave up her girlhood wedding dreams and goodness knows what else to follow a guy who’d never made a plugged nickel as a professional golfer."

And so they set out, hitched to a trailer, at the same time television started to broadcast tournaments. They slowly picked up Arnie’s Army, took golf to prime time and brought millions of new amateur players into the game, taking golf to another level of popularity.

And things have never been quite the same.

William Kelly is the author of Birth of the Birdie – The First 100 Years of Golf at Atlantic City Country Club, and is currently writing The Flight of the Eagle on the growth of golf in America. He can be reached at Billykelly1@aol.com

Notes:

1) Winnie's nature preserve. http://www.arnoldpalmer.com/allarnie/wpNature.aspx

2) Shawnee Inn http://www.shawneeinn.com/default.aspx

3) Palmer’s First Course http://kellysgolfhistory.blogspot.com/2008/02/palmers-first-course-in-cape-may.html

4) The Greatest Game, not the Greatest Movie http://kellysgolfhistory.blogspot.com/2008/02/greatest-game-ever-played.html

5) Shawnee Today See: http://www.golfdigest.com/golfworld/2007/08/gw20070810stachura

6) Fred Waring bio http://www.parabrisas.com/d_waringf.php

7) Stan Dudas RIP http://kellysgolfhistory.blogspot.com/2008/02/stan-dudas-rip.html

8) Jimmy Demaret http://www.golfdigest.com/golfworld/special/masters/20000331billfields].

9) A Golfer’s Life (with James Dodson, Ballantine Books, NY, 1999)

A Conversation With Ronnie Ward

A phone conversation with Ron Ward (October, 2007)

BK: Hello Ron, its Bill Kelly.

RW: Hey Kell, what’s cookin’ buddy? Sorry I missed your earlier call, I was playing golf.

BK: You’re a lucky guy.

RW: I know I am. I’m trying to get to be a good player.

BK: I’m working on a story about how Arnie met Winnie and….

RW: I was there.

BK: I know you were there, that’s why I’m calling. I had previously talked with Howard Everett and he mentioned you were there, along with Stan Dudas.

RW: Tonight I was walking down the eighteenth hole at Wildwood in the dark. I played till' dark like a six fifteen with a cart and then they didn't want any more carts out and I didn't want to hold them up. So I walked. At Mays landing I can play with a cart after dark because I've got a key to te cart shed. Well, anyway, I was walking down the eighteenth hole just now in the dark and I was think, I went to Brookline when Curtis Strange won two Opens in a row. So I was walking down the eighteenth green at Brookline, and do you know who Herbert Warren Wind is?

^{BK: Great golf writer.}

RW: He went to school with a guy I worked with – he always called him "Herbie." So I finally met him and I said "Do you remember…John?"

So I’m walking down the 18th hole at Brookline and there’s Herbert Warren Wind and I’m walking down with him, and he says, see that house over there? That’s the house that Francis Ouimet lived in when he won the Open. That was a wonderful sight and I was just thinking about that tonight, so what is it you want to know?

BK: 1913 Open. Well here’s the connection to what you just told me. The 1913 U.S. Open was the greatest game ever played, not just because Ouimet, a 20 year old amateur won it, but because Johnny McDermott had won the two previous U.S. Opens. McDermott beat Vardon and Ray at Shawnee a week before the Open at Brookline and promised them they wouldn’t take the US championship trophy home with them. That threat put golf on the front pages of newspapers and made the 1913 Open a news story.

RW: I knew McDermott, because he hung out at Atlantic City when I was the pro there.

BK: He was the youngest ever to win the US Open, and still is at 19.

RW: And first American.

BK: There’s a book The Greatest Game.

RW: They made a movie of that too.

BK: Yea, and in the movie they have McDermott six foot two red head, when he wasn’t that tall or outlandish.

RW: He was near 70s when I knew him, a few years before he died because Leo Fraser took pretty good care of him.

BK: Yes, there’s a picture of them together in my book. Anyway, that tournament that caused all the commotion over the 1913 Open was at Shawnee, or what they called it before it became Shawnee. There was always some connections between Atlantic City and Shawnee going back to McDermott’s win there. The Shawnee amateur golfers planted a tree and put up a plaque by the front door near the trolley bell, and above the bay windows in the Taproom there’s an old, brown and white panoramic photo of Shawnee that’s there for a reason.

RW: Oh, no kidding, I never realized that.

BK: In any case, there’s a number of connections between Atlantic City and Shawnee, including you.

RW: Well, yea, I worked at Shawnee for nine years, and then I was starting to have lots of kids and I started looking into some pro jobs, one in Albany, New York, and another in Elizabeth Manor in Virginia Beach. Then Stan Dudas called me one night and said, "Come on, we’re going to Atlantic City Country Club and I’m going to get you a pro job. I’m friends with Leo Fraser." Because one year they had the local PGA at the Atlantic City Country Country Club, and we had a big flood up in the Poconos, so Stan happened to be down here so he stayed here for a week and that’s how he and Leo got to be good friends. So Stan hand-picked me for the job. And Leo was a vascilator, you know what vasilator means? Fluctuate, so he never did tell me he hired me. It was funny, when I left to go to Wildwood, which was a step up, they had a big party for me and I told that story that I was never told I got hired. I was there in Atlantic City for four years, and the proper thing was to move forward to a head pro job.

BK: What years where you at Shawnee?

RW: I got there June 2nd of 1952, and I left there, we closed about the middle of October, 1960, and then I became the pro at Atlantic City, April 1st, 1961. And I stayed until March, 1965.

BK: When was Palmer there?

RW: Here’s what happened. Arnold Palmer was working for a guy named Bill Wehnes, who was in the paint business. And Bill used to come to Shanwnee, he had a beautiful wife. Palmer worked for Bill as a paint seller. So Bill came to Shawnee, and Fred Waring had this big invitational tournament that always started the day after Labor Day. So Bill Wehnes wanted to bring Arnold to play and he had him entered.

And then Arnold won the U.S. Amateur at the Detrioit Country Club on that Saturday. So now on Tuesday he’s there at Shawnee for the tournament. And Fred Warning, who owned the place, had a daughter named Dixie, and Dixie’s buddy was Winnie Waltzer. The Walter family liked to hang around the club but they didn’t play golf. Mr. Waltzer sold food, and him and Mr. Waring became friends. So that’s what Winnie was doing there. She used to hand around the pool a lot. I never did see her on the golf course, but she was a cute little girl.

So anyway, Arnie wins the national amateur out of the blue. He wasn’t expected to win it, he wasn’t favored like Tiger Woods was. So anyway, now he comes and plays, he meets Winnie and he marries her four months later. He used to hang around Shawnee in his spare time. He liked the place, and it was great.

And I have to tell you this story. He had a book out, and in the book Arnie talks about how he used to fly with his buddy when he was about 17. My buddy, he said, was always flying so low he would run the wheel on the ground as he was flying. So one day I was out playing golf at Shawnee – which is an island on the Delaware River in the Pocono mountains. So it’s a flat golf course out on the river. I remember the first time I saw it is so beautiful. So anyway we were out playing and while we were playing in comes this airplane so low we almost had to duck. So at Shawnee the hotel front door was kind of right by where you pulled up with the carts after the round by the first tee and as we were standing there, up comes Arnie in a car saying, "Did you see me?"

And we could almost touch him. So I thought it was wonderful that he wrote about that in the story. But he was always a good guy. That was the fun of Arnold Palmer.

BK: Was he ever at Shawnee before that tournament?

RW: No he had never gone to Shawnee before.

BK: Howard Everett was working there too.

RW: Howard ended up becoming a kind of a general manager. Fred Waring liked him. I always said that Howard Everett was one of the original Arnold Palmers, because as an amateur he was really good, and he was a good looking guy, and he could really wack the hell out of that ball. But amateurs stayed amateurs in those days, they didn’t turn pro.

Harvey Ward and Ken Ventura worked for the guy who caddied for Francis Oiuemet (in the 1913 Open), Eddie Lowrey, he became a Cadillac dealer out in California. So Ken and Harvey were working for him, and the USGA put the heat on them because they weren’t working, just taking money from him, so they turned pro. But it was better, back in those days, to stay amateur. But after Arnie won the U.S. Amateur, Stand Dudas was going to take him to Bermuda and play in a tournament with him as an amateur, but he said to Stan, "No, I’m going to turn pro."

Because it was just starting to get money in the game, Palmer was the beginning of the big money.

He used to be out on the Green Terrace, an outdoor eating place by the 18th green, and I remember one day, Arnie was out there doing a commercial. It probably showed for about 30 seconds and it took about two hours to do it. But that was one of those things that made it so the great pros stopped being so great. Hogan was great, and then after him Palmer came along, and Nicolas, but the masses were always busy making money.

The grand slam was what everyone always wanted to win – and I used to go watch the Masters, the Open and the PGA, I never went to the British Open, but I always liked to watch the first round because it seemed like in the first round everybody could take the gas.

I saw Johnny Miller, he was at his peak, in the first round he shot a 75 at the Masters, and I used to go eves drop on the press conference and he used to say, "I was always between clubs, and that’s why I shot 75."

Hogan was at his peak. One time he was playing at Whitemarsh and he hit a three-wood 150 yards, and a guy asked him how come he used a three-wood and he said, "That’s what the shot required." That was the epitome of moving the ball with the club. He was never a great putter. That was his demise.

BK: What’s the story about you camping out on his lawn or something?

WR: I went there a few times. It is really funny. What happened to me Kel, after I got to Wildwood, I saw when you make money in this business you should try to be a good player. I was a fake golf pro. If somebody would ask me a tricky question I’d pretend I knew the answer, but I never worked on my game because I was busy chasing girls and being a big shot. And then when I got to Wildwood, I said let’s try to work on your game. And Hogan was the best, so I wanted to pick his brain.

So one day I called the Dallas-Fort Worth newspaper and the sports guy who answered said, "You know, I just took some pictures to Hogan’s house last week," and he gave me the address, in the suburb of Fort Worth. So I went down to his house, I remember the first time I went there it was a Sunday, I was coming back from trying to qualify for the tour one year, and we went down to Brownsville, Texas to play. And I was coming back from Brownsville, Texas on a Sunday morning and I stopped at Hogan’s house, I knocked on the door, and Hogan was the King, the King of Golf. When I knocked on the door, there was a peep hole in the door like they have in motel rooms, you know? So I’m laughing my ass off at that – he’s the King of Golf and he’s got to have a peep hole to hide from people.

Because Hogan didn’t like people that much. He had a little rancher house, but he didn’t have a spare bedroom, he didn’t want company. So his wife opened the door, and she looked like death warmed over, all that tension and all. And I’m laughing, and asked, "Could I speak to Mister Hogan?"

"Do you have an appointment?" she said.

I said, "No."

"Then you can’t speak to Mister Hogan."

So the next day I went to this factory in Fort Worth and there was a lady there, his secretary, a great gal, but she said, "He won’t talk to you unless you have an appointment. But he’ll come out to have lunch right outside there," and she showed me where he came out and where his car was, and she said, "You be standing there and you can talk to him."

So he came out and pulled out of his parking lot at the factory and I’m standing there. And he stopped. And I said, "Mister Hogan, could I play golf with you this afternoon?"

And he said, "No, I’m not going to play today."

So then I thought quick, and I’m going to tell you the question I asked him, and see what he said.

"Mister Hogan, do you think the players of today are as great as the player’s of your day?" – What was his answer?

"They’re pretty good."

When he was young, see, he used pop off all the time, so he learned to keep his mouth shut. So when I asked him that question, he knew his players were very creative. Now these guys, everybody thinks they’re the all time greatest because they hit the ball eight thousand miles. But they weren’t any more creative than his guys, his guys were more creative. So he said, "They’re pretty good." That was a great statement.

The next time I went to his house, I was coming across the country, they used to have this thing where you could fly, like from Philly to California, you could get off in Dallas and get back on again without any problem. After 9/11 that all changed.

So I go to his house and there’s a guy out in the yard working, the yard man, so I said, "I’d like to talk to Ben Hogan," and he said, "He’ll come out in the garage there, wait until he comes out."

So he comes out in the garage, kind of an overhanging thing next to his door, and it was dark in there. And he comes out and I said, "Mister Hogan," and he kind of jumped up in the air, not expecting to see anybody. And I had his hear again, and we were standing in his driveway, with a little slope and a field across the street. So I said, "If you were standing in this driveway and had to hit a shot to that tree over there, would you use your basic swing or would you be taking a trick off the basic swing to handle that lie?"

And just as he was getting ready to answer I said something else.

He said, "Whose answering this question, you or me?"

I said, "You are, I’ll see you later."

When he was coming up he didn’t want to share his information. I knew a guy who was 85, Ivan Gantz, playing a senior tournament, he said Hogan caddied for him in the Fort Worth Open and then five years later Hogan was playing in the Fort Worth Open. Hogan said to him when he was caddying for him, "If I was doing the putting for you, you would win this tournament by ten shots."

This guy Ivan Gantz was so wonderful. He lived in Baltimore and he said every year he had to come home and cut greens and give lessons to make ends meet. That’s how the money game was in those days. And that’s why Hogan didn’t want to talk.

BK: Back to Shawnee and how Arnie met Winnie.

RW: Fred Waring owned the place. It was a wonderful tournament he had. He had Ed Sullivan playing in it when he was at his peak, and a guy named Don Cherry, a great singer, and he always came. And Frank Leahy, the great Notre Dame football coach. Notre Dame got all the Catholic kids in those days and beat everybody. After Knute Rockie came Frank Leahy, and after Leahey retired, a man named Walker from South Bend brought Leahey to play. At Shawnee the first tee is right at the hotel, and Leahey was due on the tee in ten minutes. And my boss, the starter said go find Leahey, and I got his room and went and knocked on the door and Mrs. Leahey answered and I told her "Mister Leahey is due on the tee." And he came to the door and said, "Yesss?"

And I told him, "Mister Leahey you are due on the tee in ten minutes," and he said, "Tell him I’ll be down in a couple hours." That’s how those guys were, they could boss away."

RW: There was these cute girls around – Fred’s daughter Dixie was a cuttie pie, but she was always kind of a bad personality because Fred was such a prick his kids weren’t allowed to be abusive. And her friend Winnie was as cute as a bell and Arnie meets her and Arnie was a lady’s man, so that was it. He’s walking around holding her hand, and I’m betting against it because my boss the golf Harry Obits always said, "Don’t mix girls and golf." So during the tournament I bet against Arnie and he could hold Winnie’s hand and still beat everybody."

BK: Did he win that tournament?

WR: He won it. It was a partners tournament. I think his partner was from Arnominik, , a stocky, but good player. He probably won the club championship at Aronomick, a great course where Jay Segal took the game up. So Arnie and his partner won the tournament, the only time he ever played it. Then about three months later he turned pro.

Winnie’s parents didn’t want her to marry him because he was just a golf pro, and in those days that was not very financially productive. In the early days they used to travel in a trailer.

BK: Everett said that he went down to Florida and then returned to Shawnee a few weeks later.

WR: I never played with Palmer. Howard Everett did and Fred Waring. I went to the US Open, and Palmer was there, and lost to Billy Casper, and I was watching him, and he was taking a chip shot from near the ropes and he looked up and saw me and said, "What the hell are you doing here?"

And I said, "I’m here to watch you win the U.S. Open.

"Pretty good idea," he said.

At the Masters they have driving range, putting green, through the club house and to the first tee.

I’d be out there watching them hit balls and putting and I’m standing there talking to Winnie one day, as I knew Winnie before Arnie did, and I knew her well later when she got to be Mrs. Palmer, so I’m talking to Winnie when Arnie said, "Who is that?"

"That’s Ronnie from Shawnee."

BK: Do you know who introduced them?

RW: Stan says he introduced them, but you don’t know. There was a girl named Cora Boward, a secretary, who was great for things like that. Cora probably introduced them.

It was sad when she died. When he put that last book out I bought it, and wanted him and Winnie to autograph copies for Stan for Christmas, and I have a David Leadbetter teacher down in Florida who is just a great guy and smart teacher, and I wanted to give him a copy, and I wanted a copy for the Wildwood Country Club, because he played at Wildwood when he was in the Coast Guard. They named a room after him there. So I called Latrobe and they said his office is in Orlando, and when I called down there the girl said she would get them to sign them, but she just got cancer and she didn’t last too long. So I never got the autographs.

RW: So what’s the story Kel?

BK: Well, Palmer just dedicated a park to Winnie, and I’m using that as an introduction to a story about how Arnie met Winnie at Shawnee, and the significance of Shawnee and how you and Howard Everett and Stan Dudas were all there, and you’re all local guys. So I thought there is a good story there.

RW: Yea, it was 1954, the year he won the National Amateur. He won the Amateur and it was a fluke that he was entered in this tournament at Shawnee a two days later. And he came to play and met Winnie, and then he used to come and hang around in his spare time. He liked hanging around. My boss Harry Obitz was a gregarious guy, and Arnie liked Harry. He liked to drink, what the hell did they drink, Italian Stingers, I think that was it. Who knows what it was, I don’t drink at all. But Shawnee was great, Fred Waring used to have people up there, Bobby Jones was there.

I was there from 1952 to 1960, and we had a giant flood in 1954, and if you’ve ever been to Shawnee I could show you where the water line was.

BK: Maybe we’ll take a ride up there someday.

RW: Yea, that would be great. In the nine years I was there they had one major flood that was like unbelievable. Since then, in the last four years, they’ve had about three of them, and it’s amazing how the guy can keep it going. They have a local tournament the Shawnee Open, and I played in it a couple of years ago, and it was kinda fun talking to the man who owns it because he’s trying to keep it afloat.

BK: Let’s go up and meet him someday because the course is now 100 years old and was built by Tillingast in 1907, a few years before they built the hotel.

RW: Golf World had a great story on it a couple of years ago.

BK: Are you on line?

RW: No, other than at the golf shop.

BK: Well check out Twooverpar.com

RW: OK Kel, I love to see guys who are hot to trot about something. I’m the same way about golf. I played Cape May National this morning, then I finished about 1:30 and took a nap, and about 4:30 I went over to Wildwood and played ‘til dark. Tomorrow I’m playing at Northhills Country Club at 10 o’clock and I’m going to play at Bala Country Club at 1 o’clock.

BK: You’re a lucky guy.

RW: Yea, I know. Give me a call. See ya’.

Stan Dudas RIP

Stan Dudas RIP – Golf Pro

Played on Pro Tour as Teen - Was there when Arnie Met Winnie

Local golf pro Stan Dudas, of Egg Harbor Township, passed away last week, leaving a legacy of memories of the game of golf and the players he knew.

When he was 15 years old Stan Dudas ran away from his Simpson, Pennsylvania home, not knowing what he wanted to do other than he didn’t want to be a coal miner.

Fortunately for him, he was picked up hitch hiking by big band leader Fred Waring, who gave him a job at his Shawnee on the Delaware resort. Although he started out as a bus boy in the dining room, young Dudas quickly drifted to the pro shop where he cleaned clubs and was taught how to play by then pro Harry Obitz and his assistant Spec Hannon, a former caddie for Walter Hagen.

Within a few years Waring sponsored Dudas on the winter pro tour, and while he was still a teenager, Dudas was playing and learning a lot from the early pros like Sam Sneed Ben Hogan and especially Jimmy Demereat, who took the young Dudas under his wing. "Demereat taught me a lot," said Dudas. "He taught me about traveling with people, playing the game, who to stay with on the road, and who to stay away from, which is important, because I was a young boy, seventeen, and just didn’t know. You can go out there and get mixed up with the wrong guys."

After a stint in the army, Dudas said, "I started having trouble with my legs, and I just decided I better get out of playing. I wasn’t going to make it as a tour player because I just wasn’t that good of a player. I thought I was good, but I wasn’t good enough. I played good enough to qualify and play on the tour, but I never finished high enough to make a living at it."

But Dudas was good enough to win local events, qualify for major tournaments, run the golf shop and give lessons, all of which he did very well.

It was working at Shawnee, early in his career, when Dudas met Arnold Palmer, fresh off his US Amateur championship. The late, great amateur golfer Howard Everett, who lived on the Atlantic City course in Northfield, also worked at Shawnee at the time and knew Palmer from having been paired with him in the Pennsylvania Amateur.

As Howard Everett recalls, "At the time I was working publicity for Fred Waring at Shawnee-on-the Delaware, as they called it, and I had invited Arnie, to participate in this tournament that Waring called ‘the Young Masters.’ I had invited Palmer before he won the U.S. Amateur, and Fred Waring kidded me and said that since he won the championship he probably wouldn’t come to our tournament. I said not only would he come, but he was bringing his boss and his boss’ wife, and I told him who they were."

Stan Dudas recalls, "When Palmer came to Shawnee Dixie Waring and Winnie Waltzer were there entertaining the young guys who came in for the tournament, and Arnold Palmer was one of them." Dixie was the daughter of the club owner Fred Waring and Winnie was the daughter of a club member.

At a strange club where he didn’t know many people, Palmer drifted towards the other young players, including Stan Dudas and Ronnie Ward, but he had caught the eye of young Winnie Waltzer.

"When Arnie met Winnie it was love at first sight," said Everett, but there still had to be formal introductions.

Stan Dudas says that at some point Palmer just blurted out, "Who is That?," obviously speaking about Winnie Waltzer, who he then met more formally.

While they were together for much of the tournament, Palmer left to play in the Miami Open in Florida, but he couldn’t take his mind off that girl.

After talking to his father, Howard Everett said, "And I got this from the Deacon himself, Palmer said, ‘Dad, I will never feel right until I go back to Shawnee and see whether I want to marry that girl.’"

"I was there when Arnie came back," recalled Everett. "Stan Dudas was there, and Ronnie Ward, both later became Atlantic City pros. They played a round with Fred Warring and Palmer. And of course Winnie was there and walked the whole 18 holes with us. After that Arnie proposed and they were married shortly thereafter."

While Palmer and Winnie took to the pro tour, and with the advent of TV, took golf to another level, Stan Dudas returned to the pro shop, working at Shawnee, North Hills Country Club, Ramblewood and Princeton, where he helped build the course.

It was at Princeton where he met Leo Fraser, then the head of the PGA, who hired Dudas to work at the Atlantic City Country Club and Leo Fraser, Dudas and Palmer played in the 1960 British Open. "I like playing in Europe," Dudas said. "It’s different golf, it’s target golf. The courses are fair and you have to be a player, you have to be an engineer, you have to play the shots."

"They say St. Andrews is where golf began," Dudas said, "and I guess it did, but St.Andrews is not a course where the public can play because it’s unplayable. It’s great for great players because of the hazards and situations, but a three handicapper back home is 15 or 20 over there."

After five years at Atlantic City, Dudas moved over to the Mays Landing Country Club, built by Fraser as a public course for those who couldn’t afford the country clubs. "We always had the working man, the retired man in mind," Dudas said, reflecting Leo Fraser’s philosophy, "and we tried to make it reasonable and affordable to play golf."

Dudas operated the Mays Landing Country Club until 1998, when the Frasers sold the Atlantic City Country Club to Bally casino and decided to renovate and redevelop Mays Landing.

While his legs and his health often prevented Stan Dudas from playing the game he loved, he was always ready to comment on the game and the players.

"My memories," Dudas said, "are of the people I’ve met and the way we’ve operated. I was lucky when I started out to be around good players, shot makers," Dudas said. "Today, they’re not shot makers. They’re good players, they can make the shots they have to, but they bully the ball, they hit it, power golf. So it’s a different game today than when we played it. The equipment has come a long way. More than anything I think the scores they’re shooting reflects the turf technology, the ball, the shaft, metal head, everything’s longer, and there’s better conditions, better turf. We never played on turf like they’re playing on today. We never spun the ball. Players wanted the ball to run, today they want it to stop."

"And it’s more of a business today. We didn’t play for a lot of money. Today they play for millions of dollars. When we played $20,000 was the purse, and there were only 20 places, so if you got a check you were a good player. We just played golf and had fun."

President Ford at Pine Valley

PRESIDENTIAL GOLF – Gerald Ford at Pine Valley

Better known for playing football at Michigan and passing up an opportunity to play in the NFL to become a lawyer, politician and president, Gerald Ford also had a passion for golf and played the game well and often.

Much maligned for hitting spectators, Ford actually played a serious game and those who played with him had respect for his abilities.

When he retired as ex-president in 1976, Ford and his wife moved to Rancho Mirage, famous for its resident celebrities – Frank Sinatra, Walter Annenberg, the Marx Brothers and Bob Hope and world class golf course. And Ford played until he was physically unable to do so.

While President however, Gerald Ford’s golf game changed the way the government deals with golf and the way the golf clubs do business.

It was during the Watergate scandal, after the resignation of Richard Nixon when Ford became president and his golf game came under closer scrutiny. Eventually it became entwined in his politics and led to changes in the rules, of both the government and the golf clubs, especially at Pine Valley, one of the most exclusive golf clubs in the world.

When the current Congress passed the latest lobby laws that prevent corporations from paying for green fees and travel junkets for lawmakers, the origins of the law can be traced back to Ford’s golfing days at Pine Valley, when he played golf with the corporate vice presidents of Ford and US Steel.

Ford played often at Pine Valley, one of the most exclusive golf clubs in the world, sometimes as a guest of US Steel, one of the corporations that maintained a cabin on the course, used by company’s executives and their guests.

Ford’s Pine Valley foursome became a matter of public record at a press conference when reporters persistently kept asking Ford about playing golf with the corporate officers and whether they discussed government policy while doing so.

One such press conference went like this:

Q. Mr. President, in your golf outings or social occasions or other vacations with Rod Markley of Ford Motor Company or U.S. Steel, did you discuss Government business with them either when you were a Member of the House or Vice President or President?

THE PRESIDENT. Not to my best recollection.

Q. You never discussed business?

THE PESIDENT. No.

Q. Mr. President, your staff says they are having some trouble getting records of all these various golfing trips and what-not. Have you ever asked Mr. Whyte ^{(William G. Whyte, vice president of public affairs, US. Steel Corportation) if he has records?}

THE PRESIDENT. Well, it's my understanding that Mr. Whyte issued a two or three-page statement a week or 10 days ago which outlined the circumstances of the three trips up to Pine Valley and the two down to Disneyland. I understand he issued that.

Q. I mean records of what it cost and who paid and all that sort of thing.

THE PRESIDENT. Well, I have no access to their records, so they will have to answer that.

Q. Mr. President, a number of Pentagon military officers have received disciplinary reprimands for accepting freebies--free weekends, hunting expeditions. If you think there is nothing improper about a Congressman accepting free golfing weekends, what distinction is there?

THE PRESIDENT. Well, the House passed a resolution sometime in 1968, as I understand it, which says nothing of significance or substance should be received. I do not feel that there was any impropriety on my part or any violation of that regulation.

I am an avid golfer. Most of you know it. I enjoy the company of people while I am playing golf. Every person that's been involved in these allegations I have reciprocated with as far as they coming either to my golf club or coming to our home.

There has been, I would say, substantial reciprocity. And whatever the circumstances of our getting together, has been in a proper way and in no way a violation, in my judgment, of any rule or ethical standard. These are close personal friends and have been for many years. And I have never accepted - or I don't believe they have tendered - any such things on the basis of seeking any special privilege or anything that was improper.

Q. Mr. President, on June 15, before the Southern Baptist Convention, you condemned very strongly what you call "situation ethics," and I was wondering why this golfing vacation wasn't really "situation ethics." When at that time, you said the American people, particularly our young people, cannot be expected to take pride or even to participate in a system of government that is defiled and dishonored, whether in the White House or the halls of Congress. My question is, do you feel that in view of what the White House has admitted, you have lived up to your own standards here?

THE PRESIDENT. I have said that I don't consider these infrequent weekends a violation of either the rules of the House or any ethical standards. I explained that these were long-standing personal relationships, where there has been virtual reciprocity, and I wouldn't have accepted if there had been any thought in my mind that it was improper or the violation of any code of ethics.

Q. Isn't that "situation ethics" though?

THE PRESIDENT. I don't think so.

Q. Mr. President, is this long-standing personal relationship, personal and friendship though it may be - is nevertheless valuable to United States Steel and to the Ford Motor Company, much as the employers of other people who are friends of yours - for example, John Byrnes (U.S. Representative from Wisconsin 1945-73), who represents a great many interests in this town on tax reform, and - perhaps coincidentally, perhaps you believe this - your position is about like his on tax reform?

I asked you earlier whether you had discussed business with them during these social outings. Rod Markley said you and he discussed the Clean Air Act. I wonder, do you not see that it is to their benefit for you to have this personal relationship?

THE PRESIDENT. Let me modify what I said a moment ago. In a casual way, of course we might informally talk about certain matters, but I happen to feel that they were not asking me and I was not asking them. The times I've played with Rod have been at Burning Tree, where we are both members and both pay our own way. John Byrnes, I played golf with him because he is a friend of 28 plus years. I don't see anything improper at all.

Q. Do you think that you can separate……

THE PRESIDENT. Absolutely.

Q - ….their business as lobbyists and their representation of their corporations from your personal friendship?

THE PRESIDENT. As a matter of fact, some of their comments could be helpful in what the status is.

Q. Mr. President, yet that seems to be the issue that Carter is raising, though. He seems to be raising the old buddy system issue and saying, in fact, that you can't. Now what can you say to counter that? How can you?

THE PRESIDENT. Maybe he can't, but I can.

Q. Mr. President, may I ask you, you now are aware that some of these expenses were actually paid by the companies and not by your friends. But you were paying, when you had them to your home, you were paying yourself, the taxpayers were not taking care of this. So these companies in effect were financing some of this. What is your thinking about why they wanted to do this, why they were willing to entertain you on these weekends?

THE PRESIDENT. I think you would have to ask the people who offered the invitation. These are personal friends, and I don't ask in advance why you want to pay my green fees. I think that's a matter for them on the basis of their own integrity. ……

The final result was not only an end to corporations paying the President’s green fees, but a major change at the golf club as well, with Pine Valley making some major policy changes that effectively ended corporate memberships and corporate ownership of course cabins.

The policy changes at the club were not only the result of the mention of Pine Valley and its private membership at a Presidential news conference, but also because of the legal ramifications that prevented women from being members of the club. The unwanted publicity brought on by the President’s playing at the club, called further attention to the male-only policies that prevent women from playing there.

It was President Ford’s corporate green fees, persistent questioning by reporters and women’s complaints that they were being discriminated against that brought about changes in Pine Valley’s long established policies.

Not only were corporate memberships denied, but Pine Valley is now a golf club where business is not discussed, mainly to avoid a sexual rights civil suit. As the attorneys reasoned it, if business is discussed on the golf course or club house, and women are not admitted to play or join the club, then it could be discriminatory.

So between President Ford and the women at the gate, rather than let the girls in, they did away with the corporations and business, and now all bills must be paid by individual accounts or cash, and business cannot be discussed, thus changing the way not only the government does business, but how the golf clubs are run.

Xxxxxxyuyy

Atlantic City Country Club Open to the Public

PLAY A ROUND WITH HISTORY – By William Kelly

In a lifetime, every serious golfer would like to play a round at a few historic courses – St. Andrews, Pine Valley and Pebble Beach, and for the very serious golfer, Atlantic City Country Club is one of those courses.

But until now, unless you were a high roller, or in the old days a guest of a member, you couldn’t get on the course at any price. Since Harrah’s added Atlantic City to its portfolio of golf clubs in the acquisition of Bally/Caesars, they opened the club to the public, much like it was when it originally opened for the convenience of Boardwalk hotel guests in 1897.

Opening the course to the public is even an historic occasion for such a venerable club. Having seen little play by the casino high rollers after its makeover by Tom Doak, the true links course is in tremendous condition, and can be challenging when the wind comes in off the bay, where the Atlantic City skyline outlines the horizon off the back nine.

This six time USGA championship course has been played by every major golfer of the past century, and was home to Johnny McDermott, who at 19 became the youngest and first American to win the U.S. Open (1911-1912). The Northfield Links was also the scene of many other firsts – the first use of a gutta ball in tournament play, the first Japanese player, the first PGA Senior Tournament and the first “birdie” and “eagle,” as that’s where the terms were coined.

It’s also first in the ratings, as Golf Week Magazine recently named the Atlantic City Country Club the Number One public/daily fee course in the state.

Other than the upgrading of the course and opening to the public, little has changed over the years. Following such prestigious golf pros like McDermott, Wilfred Reid, Ed Dudley, Leo Fraser, Don Siok and Billy Ziobro, golf pro Steve Sullivan knows the routine and teats everyone like a member of the exclusive club it is.

“This is a world class club, a real escape for players looking to play the top public course in the state,” said Sullivan. “The people who have played the course since we went public obviously loved it. Everything here is the same as when the course was private. A player still gets the same premium service as in past years.”

If you go, you shouldn’t just play the course, but walk through the clubhouse, which reeks of golf history. There’s the classic locker room, where the first PGA Senior players argued over whether a Seniors Tour could be successful, the Tap Room, where the Babe (Zarahias) played piano and Sam Snead played trumpet, the ballroom where Billy Hyndman III gave five Frazer Cup victory speeches, the Sony Fraser and John McDermott rooms, and Leo Fraser library, where the walls and even the halls talk with their many photos, memorabilia and historic artifacts.

If you’re lucky, you might find Kenny Robinson, the club’s resident historian and witness to many of the events of the past few decades. Kenny can answer your questions with authority, and tell you a few stories about all the great players in the game, who he knows firsthand. But the stories aren’t enough; you really have to experience the place where golf history is made.

It costs between $100 and $200 to play, depending on time and day. Arrangements can be made by calling (609) 236-4400.

[William Kelly is the author of Birth of the Birdie – The First 100 Years of Golf at Atlantic City Country Club. He can be reached at Billykelly1@aol.com

Palmer's First Course in Cape May

IN SEARCH OF ARNOLD PALMER’S FIRST COURSE – ONLY HE REMEMBERS

In his recently published memoirs “Arnold Palmer : Memories, Stories, and Memorabilia : from a Life On and Off the Course” (New York : Stewart Tabori & Chang, 2004), Arnold Palmer not only writes about his life and career in golf, but includes replica memorabilia, copies of letters, scorecards and photos that are pasted together like a scrapbook.

Most golfers know the Palmer story, of how he went to college at Wake Forest in North Carolina on scholarship with his best friend Bud Worsham, who was from a famous family of golfers, the younger brother of Lew Worsham, the golf pro at Pittsburgh’s Oakmont who won the U.S. Open.

When young Bud died suddenly in a car accident, Palmer quit school and joined the Coast Guard, which brought him to the training base in Cape May, where he stayed after training and became known locally, though playing golf infrequently.

In his book Palmer recalls, “Growing up in Western Pennsylvania, I shoveled a lot of snow and endured a lot of long, cold winters as a youngster. But the coldest I’ve ever been in my life was the winter of 1951 in Cape May, New Jersey, where I attended basic training for the Coast Guard. The wind whipping off the Delaware Bay that winter cut through me like a sword…”

One bad winter wasn’t enough to send Palmer away however. Palmer writes that during the Korean War, “…I didn’t see any combat. In fact, I didn’t get any further east than Cape May. After basic training the fine officers at our base decided I should stick around New Jersey and train other recruits. I accepted the job because I figured Cape May was a lot better than Guadalcanal and that training recruits, given what I’d just been through, would be fairly straightforward. What I didn’t expect were the ‘added duties’ that came with this assignment.”

Among the “added duties,” Palmer recalls, was the laying out and construction of his first golf course, a none-hole affair on the base. “Golf was a big-time officer sport in the Coast Guard, as was in the other branches of the service after World War II,” write Palmer, “So when the base commander found out I had been the number-one golfer at Wake Forest, I was given a new charge: design and build a nine-hole course on a flat, brick-hard, overgrown vacant field between two airstrips at the base.”

Like his first love, Palmer says he was profoundly influenced by the construction of this nine-holer. “That was the first course I ever designed, and it gave me a profound appreciation for the art of golf course architecture. There’s a heck of a lot more to it than routing holes on a topographical map. My Cape May design was even more demanding because I had to build the darn thing single-handedly. That is a lesson I think a lot of other course architects could learn: It’s one thing to have a vision. It’s quite another to move the dirt and make it happen.”

“To date, I’ve designed over three hundred golf course around the world, but I’ve never forgotten the lessons I learned from that little nine-holer in Cape May….”

“By the time I received my discharge papers from the Coast Guard, my golf game was pretty rusty. In college I had played every day. In the service I was a yeoman first class, trained recruits, built and maintained a golf course, and spent several hours a week as a life-guard at a nearby beach. Golf fell to fourth or fifth on my priority list. Even though I still loved the game and played as often as I could, the demands of my job took precedence.”

While Palmer may have been profoundly influenced by his first course, others failed to notice or even remember the course that Arnie built. William Carson, the public information officer at the Cape May Coast Guard base, who has been there since the 1970s, doesn’t recall a golf course on the base. “I checked with the facilities engineer and while we’re still looking, and will ask the base historian, we can’t come up with anything that proves or even indicates there was a golf course here. We just can’t see it.”

Although Palmer’s description is pretty precise, “…a flat, brick-hard, overgrown vacant field between two airstrips at the base,…” Carson said that they checked old maps, and “while there was a runway there in the late 1940s, there’s no indication of a golf course here, though it’s possible it’s been built on and developed. We can’t come up with anything, but we’re still searching.”

Nor do the local golfers who knew Palmer and played with him here recall him building a nine-hole golf course, though it could have been restricted to officers and men at the Coast Guard base. Ron Ward, longtime Wildwood Country Club golf pro, now at Mays Landing, was with Palmer at the Shawnee Country Club when he first me this late wife Winnie. “I’ve known Arnie since right after he got out of the Coast Guard and won the U.S. Amateur, and that’s a long time, but I don’t recall any course he designed on the Cape May base.”

Jim and Jack Byrne, who played with Palmer back in the 50s, don’t recall him building a golf course, or inviting them to play there either. “I talked to my brother,” Jim Byrne said, trying to refresh their memories back a half-century, “and we can’t recall anything like a golf course on the base.” They speculate that maybe Palmer did design and layout a course at a Coast Guard base where he was stationed, but it was somewhere else.

If not on the Cape May base, where the runways were later replaced by helicopter landing pads, perhaps Palmer laid out his course at the Cape May County Airport, where the old Navy Air Station was located, and where there is two runways and a lot of hard, flat land between them. But local historian Joe Salvatore, at the Naval Air Station Museum there, said there’s no indication there was ever a golf course there either.

While Arnold Palmer still has fond memories of designing his first golf course at the Cape May Coast Guard base, locating it today is as illusive as finding a first and lost love fifty years later. If still there, would be like finding a lost civilization in an overgrown jungle, and if located and revived would make a unique tourist and golf history attraction, but alas, the “nine-hole course built on a flat, brick-hard, overgrown vacant field, between two runways,” is lost history, and now only a fleeting vision etched in Arnie’s memory.

Bill Kelly can be reached at (609) 425-6297 or billykelly1@aol.com