GOLF NEVER SPENT by experience. to write about in the personalities of $62,000 BETTER The coordination of turf research the golf professionals at private clubs This year the United States Golf nationally by the Green Section is one and some public courses. They have to Assn.'s budget will show a $62,000 of its most important business opera- have bright personalities generally, or deficit in the operation of its Green tions. If you don't know about that co- they couldn't hold their jobs. Many of Section. ordination, you'd better find out. It's these home pros left promising careers No other sum spent by any other one of the most impressive jobs of in competitive playing because tour- sports body comes close to the public meshing the gears of science and prac- nament play didn't allow them the lati- service value of this red ink the USGA tical application going on today. tude they desired as individuals not wisely allows. With all the concern The Green Section is the stepchild conforming to the routine of the tour- and confusion about environment, pol- genius of sports. Having been around nament careers. They preferred a lution and ecology, the Green Section, the golf game and business of sports phase of golf as a game and a business, more than any other sports organiza- for about 50 years, I have seen the which gives them close, entertaining tion, can help allay these problems for close relationship that exists between and rewarding associations with other the good of the country. the condition of a golf course and the free souls in sports." You might be reminded that the first amount of goods sold in the pro shop Cox added, "In these changing days big boost to a beautiful urban America and the amount of restaurant and bar of sports news coverage, the newspa- came when the good citizen vowed, "I business done in the clubhouse. per sports writers, who know how to want my lawn to be like a golf green." So, in a business of maybe a billion look, can find the colorful home pros The Green Section has lifted golf dollars a year, the Green Section costs sources of much copy to distinguish play to a more pleasant level at a time $62,000. Waiter, keep the change. the newspaper sports story handling when the unlimited laying of concrete from the herd treatment of television." has become a national pastime. HOME PROS RICH IN SPORTS The Green Section almost has to beg COLOR: COX FORGOTTEN FAMED ONES to sell its consulting service. In view Sports writers are lamenting the small John Derr, ex-writer now telecasting at of the high cost of maintenance and the and rapidly declining roster of colorful some tournaments, and Don Collett, small amount of insurance and help characters as subjects for sports sec- golf director of the Pinehurst courses, available, the cost of this service is tion prose. Veteran sports reporters are doing commendably in reviving in- low. The problem of selling the Green declare they would be hard-pressed to terest in the World Golf Hall of Fame Section's usefulness may indicate a name 10 figures in major sports today at Pinehurst. lack of sound golf course manage- who have the same sparkling personal- This Hall of Fame is to be housed in ment. ities, class and story material that a building now under construction at The Green Section has been a tre- abounded in the sports heroes prior to Pinehurst. The American Golf Hall of mendously powerful element in the World War II. Fame at Foxburg, Pa., also has a progress of the golf course superin- In these different times of big building expected to be completed tendent—from a mowing, watering money and little color, the sports jour- soon. The Ladies' PGA Hall of Fame and fertilizing man to an executive sci- nalists say the ones who seem to be is located in the clubhouse of the entifically managing an immense busi- having the most fun in professional Augusta, Ga., CC. The PGA Hall of ness. The old-timers know that. They sports are the managers, the lawyers Fame and the Otto Probst golf library, saw the pioneer work of the Green and the tax counselors of the highly- which the PGA is buying, are to be Section: turf management schools es- paid muscle tradesmen who glumly housed in the headquarters the PGA tablished at Amherst, Penn State, perform their chores. plans to acquire in a couple of years or Michigan State, Purdue University, Mark Cox, the Professional Golfers' less. Iowa, Kansas, California and Georgia. Assn. executive director, thinks writ- That should be enough halls of fame In recent years the Golf Course Su- ers may not be looking in the right for golf in the United States, especially perintendents Assn. of America has to places for colorful sports characters. with the addition of the historic collec- some extent lost the intimate associa- Cox was a sports writer and a good one tions and libraries of the USGA and tion they once had with the Green Sec- before he got into the advertising and the James River museum. tion, but that's one of those generation merchandising of sports equipment. In renewing interest and action in gap things that eventually is corrected He says, "There is a wealth of color the World Golf Hall of Fame, Derr and GRAFFIS continued Collett suggested that among the de- was C. C. Worthington, a distin- ceased entitled to enduring fame were guished engineer, head of a big pump Dr. William Lowell, the New Jersey and machinery manufacturing com- dentist who invented the Reddy wood- pany and owner of Buckwood Inn and en tee, and Fred W. Knight, the Gen- the vast estate surrounding it at eral Electric engineer who was among Shawnee-on-Delaware Water Gap. the early inventors of a steel golf shaft. Worthington was an avid golfer. Knight also invented the center- He designed a golf course tractor NATIONAL GOLF DAY ROUND OF shafted mallet-headed putter, called using the Model T engine as the power CHAMPIONS, Tanglewood CC, Cle- the Schenectady. That was the putter unit and gang mowers to be hauled by mens, N.C., June 3. Amateur play Walter Travis used in winning the the tractor. He also was a pioneer in from May 25 to June 16. 1904 British Amateur. Walter J. designing and building power-driven Travis stirred the Royal and Ancient to greens mowers. RHODE ISLAND TURFGRASS FIELD DAY, declare that type of putter illegal. This Joe Roseman, a professional- University of Rhode Island, Kingston, was the silliest decision ever made on greenkeeper, who came from Philadel- R.I., August 21. a club by a golf ruling body and was phia to the Chicago district where he soon rescinded. designed, built and owned several TURF AND LANDSCAPE DAY, Ohio Ag- Knight was by no means the inven- courses, devised push-type mower- ricultural Research and Development tor of the first steel shaft. The British tractor combination. This makes him a Center, Wooster, Ohio, September 10. beat him by years. Neither the earlier name to be considered for a niche in a British nor the Knight type of steel golf hall of fame. FLORIDA TURFGRASS ASSN. CONFER- shaft construction figured in the even- Few now have heard of E. J. Mar- ENCE AND SHOW, Riverside Hilton, tual adoption of the steel shaft; hence, shall, a Toledo attorney and golfer. He Curtis Hixon Convention Center, the ingenious and affable Fred came up with the idea that probably Tampa, Fla., September 16-19. Knight's occupancy of space in a brought to the nation its most valuable

World Golf Hall of Fame must be contribution, economically and aes- SOUTHERN ILLINOIS TURFGRASS FIELD validated by more authoritative exami- thetically. DAY, Southern Illinois University Ag- nation than that of Messrs. Derr and He had been chairman of the United ricultural Research Station, Belleville, Collett. States Golf Assn. National Open at In- 111., September 24. Derr and Collett in developing re- verness Club, Toledo, in 1920, and

spect for the World Golf Hall of Fame from that experience urged the USGA NORTHWEST TURFGRASS CONFERENCE, among those who know golf history to establish its Green Section. He got Sun River Lodge, Sun River, Ore., have brought attention to the debt the brothers Hugh and Alan Wilson of September 24-27. owed golf as a business by golf as a Philadelphia, executive committeemen

game. of the USGA, to put across the propos- MIDWEST TURF FIELD DAY, Purdue The old Scottish wood and iron club al, which has meant immeasurably University Agronomy Farm, West La- and ball makers gave a tremendous improved playing conditions and has fayette, Ind., September 30. boost to the game by supplying satis- contributed so strongly to the beau- fying equipment that encouraged the tification of the nation. SOUTHWEST TURFGRASS CONFERENCE, development of skill. They were C. V. Piper and R. A. Oakley of the New Mexico State University, Las famous long before the great players. United States Department of Agricul- Cruces, N.M., October 10-11. Who in the American business of ture were the first to combine the golf has made such significant contri- science of agronomy with the green CENTRAL PLAINS TURFGRASS CONFER- butions to the game that deserves rec- thumb work of the early greenkeepers. ENCE, K-State Union, Manhattan, ognition in any Golf Hall of Fame? They should be golf hall of fame can- Kan., October 23-25. Certainly, the first one is Coburn didates for establishing the golf course Haskell, inventor of the cored ball as the standard of all fine turf. WISCONSIN GOLF TURF SEMINAR, Pfi- wound with rubber thread and encased Fanny Fern Davis also merits con- ster Hotel, Milwaukee, Wis., October in a rubber cover. He revolutionized the sideration. She was the inventor of 2, 30-31. game. He probably had more effect on 4-D, the weed control chemical that world golf than any other American. changed the pattern of golf course and FIFTH ANNUAL GEORGIA GCSA/- Two others of whom you may never lawn maintenance. UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA TURF-GRASS have heard had an immense effect on Thinking about who really qualifies SHORT COURSE, Center for Continuing golf play. They were Sam Clapper and to become immortal in golf is a re- Education, University of Georgia, Ath- C. C. Worthington. Clapper had more sponsibility not to be taken lightly. ens, Ga., November 3-5. mowing machinery patents than any- I have been on three golf hall of one else for years. He was a founder of fame selection committees. But until TEXAS TURFGRASS CONFERENCE, Texas The Toro Company and got into the the Derr and Collett effort to salvage A & M University, College Station, job from the farm tractor business. His the World Golf Hall of Fame and make Tex., December 1-4. adaptation of the heavy farm tractor to it interesting and significant to golf course maintenance revolutionized history, I never was jolted into consid- OHIO TURFGRASS CONFERENCE AND golf course management. ering what truly makes one great in SHOW, Ohio State University, Colum- Also changing course management golf and to golf and golfers. • bus, Ohio, December 3-5.

8 GOLFDOM MAGAZINE 6/74