Let us move forward, well aware that there are other matters more pressing than the fading glory of Tiger Woods, a subject heatedly addressed on the Golf Channel just a day ago. Brandel Chamblee, a former tour player not too shy to fire a volley, led the charge, and so it went, until he lumped Tiger in a category with Ty Cobb.
I knew Cobb well, enjoyed his friendship and saw him in some of his gross moments, which I deplored, but the flaws of the two fall into categories worlds apart. He had a working friendship with Bob Jones, and they golfed together, often at Augusta National. But, as personalities go, they were oceans apart.
That having been said, let me lead you on to the subject of the Wanamaker Trophy. That’s the prize the winner of the PGA Championship takes home each year, not to keep but to be returned. Rodman Wanamaker came of the Philadelphia family that created one of the original merchandising powers in the USA, and he was a devotee of sport. It was he who set up the original $2,500 fund that created this PGA Championship, now being played out this weekend at Atlanta Athletic Club.
There are more famous baubles — the Heisman, the Stanley Cup, the British Open claret jug, for instance — but rare is one that has survived some of the Wanamaker’s hazards. Walter Hagen took possession for three years, left it in a taxi after the third, with instructions to the driver to deliver it to his hotel.
When Hagen didn’t make it four straight, he was asked to return the trophy, whereupon he had no idea where it was. He’d lost it, and it wasn’t to be found at the hotel. Finally, however, it was located in some warehouse, and the lost-but-now-found trophy is the one that will be presented to the champion at Johns Creek on Sunday. And, I might add, it is an impressive hunk of priceless silver.
Also, I might add that during World War II, I happened to serve under Commander Rodman Wanamaker Jr., a rather stalwart commanding officer of a seaplane squadron at Pensacola Naval Air Station. It goes without saying that Commander Wanamaker and this lieutanant rarely traveled on the same social level.
The PGA of America has been sharing the good fortune of the PGA Championship that Rodman Wanamaker so generously created one evening at a dinner in Manhattan nearly a century ago. And at Atlanta Athletic Club we will be closing out a most stirring championship, the 93rd, Sunday afternoon. I shall say this, it’s one that Mr. Wanamaker would have been proud to file away in his memory chest, And so would Lt. Cmdr. Wanamaker Jr.
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