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Golf Circa 1920

Golf was still a fairly fresh export from Great Britain in 1910-1920, and while those out of America’s melting pot who were not of English or Scottish lineage and sought a place in the game were not entirely thwarted, they did have to weather a certain “attitude” toward them by the “ins”. The Black American’s experience in this regard was at least doubly difficult and of a different order.

Babe Ruth

The 1920’s was the decade of new consumption. World War I had primed American industry for the mass production of consumer goods. The Highway Act of 1921 spurred growth in interstate trucking, and facilitated the delivery of those goods. The electrification of factories and households stimulated a national spending spree. The big names of the times were, aviator Charles Lindberg; gangster Al Capone; boxer Jack Dempsey; scientist Albert Einstein; singer Al Jolson; motion picture star Charlie Chaplin and musician Duke Ellington. Bobby Jones was a celebrity to golf fans but there weren’t many of them. In contrast, Babe Ruth was the most famous athlete in the world. He reached a level of fame that redefined fame. He restored America’s faith in baseball after the 1919 Black Sox scandal, and played a huge role in making golf a spectator sport in America. Ruth made the game look like fun, and his passion for golf motivated millions of Americans, who never played the rich man’s sport, to pick up a club.

Babe Ruth was once America’s most famous golfer. Ruth was 20 when he first took up the game—in fact, received the news that he was being traded from the Red Sox to the Yankees while on the golf course. Alex Morrison, at the time golf guru to the stars—he pioneered swing sequence photos by hanging a lantern from a club swung in a dark room—taught the Babe to play. Ruth could arguably be the man who pioneered celebrity golf, playing in numerous matches with the most famous golfers & celebrities of the times. No question, he was the first famous left handed golfer and played a MAJOR role in popularizing the game in America. “A golfer could drain a flask of whiskey while playing and eat a hot dog (or three) between holes...what a game!” Why he’s not in the World Golf Hall of Fame is anybody’s guess. As Babe’s daughter, Dorothy, once said, “Baseball broke his heart but golf kept him going.”

Alex J. Morrison

Born in California in 1896, at age 12 he began caddying at The Los Angeles Country Club. By 1920 he had become a noted teacher and exhibition golfer traveling the vaudeville circuit. Alex Morrison had a thread that ran through the three best golfers of all time. Each of the three had signIficant teachers/mentors with definite ideas on what was important. Bobby Jones; East Lake Country Club’s head pro, Stewart Maiden, who instructed young Bobby, subscribed to much of what Morrison taught. Ben Hogan; most significantly, learned to weaken his grip from Henry Picard who spent 8 days with Morrison learning his fundamentals. Hogan dedicated his first book, Power Golf to Picard. Jack Nicklaus; Jack Grout, Nicklaus’s long time instructor, learned the basics first hand from from Henry Picard. Picard had his greatest success while changing from a Vardon grip to an interlocking grip.

Morrison believed in simplified instruction. “By simply giving their attention to one or two points I suggest they will automatically bring their shoulders, hips & legs into the proper action. These 2 points will help every player no matter what shot he is having difficulty with: standing erect as he can and keep his chin pointed to the back of the ball.”

Morrison also believed that there are 3 parts of the body that must be taken care of if there is to be anything like muscular coordination in the swing:

1. Upper section of the spinal column which affords freedom of action to the shoulders, arms, and hand. This source is kept open by the proper pointing of the chin.

2. Lower section of the spinal column which affords freedom of action with the legs and feet. This is kept open by the side motion of the hips.

3. Wrist joints. This source is kept free partly by having the hands on the club at the same angle.

Look after these three main points of freedom and you can always make your swing one continuous motion. The pointing of the chin is the connecting link, in a sense, between the body and the arms and hands.

Morrison also believed that weight shift is essential in a good golf swing, firmly rooted in good footwork, balance, and the proper rolling of the ankles. The left ankle rolling right on the backswing, the right ankle rolling left on the through swing. He stressed that you must picture the swing as a whole—or one continuous motion—not as a series of separate actions. He believed that golf was 90% mental, 8% physical and 2% mechanical.

“What Morrison was saying was this: The coordination of the arms & body as a unit, and how you get this organized is critical. And footwork, the rolling of the ankles. But in a nutshell—posture, balance, and the plane of the swing.” Henry Picard

“Jack Nicklaus’s lifelong teacher has been Jack Grout, who was an assistant to, and a very good friend of Henry Picard. Grout’s teaching was influenced by Picard, who is a very persuassive man and also had the playing record to support his views. Thus, what Alex Morrison was teaching in the 1920’s and 1930’s has touched Jack Nicklaus sixty years later.” Al Barkow

Golf was an almost exclusively upper-class sport in the 1920s. There were relatively few public courses and private clubs were too expensive for almost anyone but the rich to join. 3 golfers symbolized golf in the 1920s and they were so colorful that millions followed their exploits.

The Big Three: Robert Tyre “Bobby” Jones, who remained an amateur, the other two were professionals, Walter Hagen and Gene Sarazen

Jones was more typical of the nation’s golfers. He was from a wealthy Atlanta family and began playing golf at a very young age. He won a children’s tournament at age 6 and played in the top amateur tournaments from his early teen years. He also graduated from Georgia Tech University with a degree in mechanical engineering and later received a degree in English from Harvard. He read for the law, was admitted to the Georgia bar and practiced law while playing in the world’s best golf tournaments.

Beginning in 1923 at age 21, Jones was the dominant figure in golf for 7 years, winning the U.S. Open 4 times, the British Open 3 times, the U.S. Amateur 5 times, and the British Amateur once. He retired from competitive golf after winning the Grand Slam of the time in 1930. After retiring as a competitive golfer, Jones practiced law, designed golf clubs, and founded both the Augusta National Golf Club and its fabled tournament, the Masters. He continued to host the Masters tournament until his death in 1971.

Hagen was the son of a blacksmith in Rochester, New York, and he learned the rudiments of golf by practicing in a field while herding cows. He caddied at an exclusive country club where the professional taught him the finer points of the game. He also worked as a taxidermist. A great natural athlete, Hagen turned down a tryout with the Philadelphia Phillies at age 21, in order to play in the 1914 U.S. Open, which he won. Hagen won the U.S. Open again in 1919, and the British Open 4 times in the 1920s, as well as 5 PGA championships.

At that time there was a stark difference between amateurs and professionals in golf. At some private clubs, especially in England, professionals were allowed on the golf course, but not in the locker room, because they were not considered “gentlemen.” This class distinction was reflective of American society at that time, but Hagen’s success and insistence on better treatment of professionals was a large factor in breaking down some of the class barriers in golf. Hagen brought the golf professional out of the shop and into the clubhouse.

Sarazen (born Eugene Saraceni, and the son of a carpenter), from Harrison, New York. Sarazen is one of five players, (along with Ben Hogan, Gary Player, Jack Nicklaus, and Tiger Woods) to win each of the four majors at least once, now known as the Career Grand Slam: U.S. Open (1922, 1932), PGA Championship (1922, 1923, 1933), The Open Championship (1932), and Masters Tournament (1935). Sarazen became more Hagen’s rival in the 1930s and was too young to play much against Jones, but Sarazen was a popular player because of his outgoing nature and because he came from such a humble background. He garnered a huge following among “common people”, who had previously had no interest in golf. Sarazen played golf into his 80’s, was a golf commentator on Shell’s Wonderful World of Golf television show, and was a TV broadcaster at important events. He invented the modern sand wedge, and made golf seem like something for more than just the very rich.

At age 71, Sarazen made a hole-in-one at The Open Championship in 1973, at the “Postage Stamp” at Troon in Scotland. In 1992, he was voted the Bob Jones Award, the highest honor given by the United States Golf Association in recognition of distinguished sportsmanship in golf. Sarazen had what is still the longest-running endorsement contract in professional sports—with Wilson Sporting Goods from 1923 until his death, a total of 75 years.