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DEL.ICIO.USWriter had ringside seat for Hogan
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Furman Bisher
Most Americans who can read know Dan Jenkins as a writer. Mainly a writer of golf and football. Of books with such titles as “Semi-Tough” and “Dead Solid Perfect” among others. Those two were made into movies with blushing dialogue. By that time he had surfaced in New York City, after his growing years in Fort Worth and Dallas, and weathered 30 years with Sports Illustrated. After all he could stomach there, he headed south and since has relocated in the old hometown, not too far from the campus of Texas Christian. He still contributes — that’s hardly the word — a regular column to Golf Digest, but on the side has become a football nut and official historian for the National College Football Foundation.
Enough of that. The past weekend Jenkins spent at Biltmore Forest, N.C., indulging in one of the choice missions of his life. The subject: Ben Hogan.
Biltmore Forest Country Club selects somebody of some degree of golfing notoriety to celebrate each Memorial Day weekend and holds a tournament named for Jess Sweetser, a great amateur contemporary of Bobby Jones. In 1940, still in search of winning an individual tournament, Hogan arrived at Pinehurst and won the North and South Open, then on to Greensboro, where he won, then to Biltmore Forest, where he won the Land o’ Sky Open. In three weeks, he swept the Tar Heel tour. Since Hogan is no longer available, Biltmore Forest chose to invite Jenkins to share memories of Hogan, and who better, as you shall see.
Jenkins was a pretty good player in his day. Captain of the Texas Christian golf team, whose home course was Colonial Country Club, also home to Hogan. It fell Jenkins’ good fortune to catch Hogan’s eye and to be invited to play with him several times. Many times, perhaps as many as 50. Jenkins had a smooth swing, and you can tell it to this day. If a fellow has a good golf swing, traces of its stays with him until his hair turns grey or gone.
“Sometimes we never played a full round, maybe just five or six holes,” Jenkins told members and guests at the Sweetser Memorial. “He never really coached me when we played, but you knew he was paying attention.”
Most of this time Jenkins was in school at TCU, but he also had a job at the afternoon newspaper. He was still a collegian when he was dispatched to cover the Masters in 1951. He was well grounded in the Hogan story, and spoke of the rivalry that festered between him and Byron Nelson when the two caddied at a club in Fort Worth.
“The members held an annual caddie tournament, usually played over nine holes. After nine, Hogan had the lead and thought he had won,” Jenkins said. “Then some of the members decided it should go 18 holes, and after the extra nine, Nelson had the lead and was presented the trophy. Ben resented it, and it stuck with him for years. People talk about what close friends they were, but Ben was closer to Sam Snead than he was to Nelson. He and Byron never were really close. It was a long-standing rivalry.”
You read of Nelson’s retirement from the tour because of a stomach condition. “Not so,” Jenkins said. “He quit because his wife didn’t like the tour life and made no bones about it. So he hung it up.”
Now, to the hour of decision for Jenkins. “Ben told me one day that if I’d give him four months, he could make me a tour golfer. I told him, ‘I appreciate that, but I want to be a sports writer.’ ”
Well, that life turned out pretty nicely for Jenkins, but, foolish lad, turning down a chance to become Hogan’s protege? “Don’t regret a day of it,” he said. “I’ve seen more golf than I ever would have seen playing, and I was sure of a check at the end of each week.”
No writer was ever closer to Hogan than Jenkins. He had a ringside seat to Hogan’s life in Fort Worth. “Ben was a very generous man. He made contributions of all sorts, but did it quietly. He and Valerie became prominent in everything from debutante balls to the symphony.”
That is not the picture one got of the Hogans at the time, but it came through clearly at Biltmore Forest from the writer who knew them best.
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By Matthew At The SLC
May 30, 2007 4:28 PM | Link to this
I’m lonely, will you be my friend?