A League of Their Own

By Tom Clavin

What seems like a wonderful idea is that beginning this month Montauk Downs State Park is offering men's, women's, and bar and restaurant golf leagues. If you're interested, more information can be had at thedowns@pga.com, and I hope to report on the leagues' events in this column as the spring progresses.

I'm using "spring" loosely, because it hasn't really arrived yet here in the Hamptons. I know of some golf-loving folks who have extended their stays in Florida and Arizona, or have embarked on special trips there. (I was in Phoenix and Tucson two weeks ago, but all I got were thunderstorms and a tornado for my trouble.) With the cold weather here, dreaming of Florida, and the Montauk golf leagues, my thoughts drifted to an attempt many years ago to create a golf league that would feature the best players and make everyone a lot of money. The main character is one of my golf favorites, Walter Hagen. Warning, shameless plug ahead: Later this month, a trade paperback edition of my biography, "Sir Walter: Walter Hagen and the Invention of Professional Golf," will be published in Great Britain.

Bobby Jones and Walter Hagen in the late 1920s.

More than ever, Florida was the place for a successful professional golfer to be in the middle of the Roaring Twenties. The Sunshine State was brimming with lucrative golf events and, even better, golf courses that would pay big bucks for representation by the best professionals. In the anything-goes boomtown atmosphere, the big names like Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, and Long Jim Barnes found themselves in great demand.

At first, it appeared that the opportunity consisted of more and more-lucrative exhibition matches for the moneyed Northeast and Midwest industrialists and stock-market entrepreneurs who were building estates (some with private courses) in the state. But the opportunity available was quite a bit wider. Courses were still being built at an unprecedented rate and the best-backed, most ambitious ones wanted the top pros to represent them. The pros' presence would attract tourists, boost membership, and plant the seeds of a long-term reputation.

Barnes, Sarazen, Tommy Armour, Jock Hutchison, and other first-rank players were much sought-after by the golf-course developers because of what they would mean for the golf in their little Florida fiefdoms and to the residential communities being built around them. The pros would help persuade people to buy second homes or to move down permanently. But no one headed south with more positive copy and allure than Walter Hagen.

The early part of 1925 -- with Mrs. Hagen enjoying what for her was a whole new experience of southern exposure -- Walter spent in Florida as golf royalty, and apparently enjoyed every minute of it. "The Florida boom fitted in perfectly with my design for living: sunshine, beautiful scenery, people with time on their hands for fun, and of course money," Hagen recalled.

He was offered contracts to represent emerging clubs and all he had to do was play exhibition matches there -- or elsewhere in Florida, representing the club -- and just by his presence be a magnet for moneyed people from the Northeast and Midwest looking for warm-weather havens.

Then things got quite serious. Hagen was the prize in a bidding war between two Florida golf course entrepreneurs, and he was nabbed by Jack Taylor, who was developing what was first called the Bear Creek Country Club and then the Pasadena on the Gulf Course. The contract Hagen signed was $30,000 a year for two years and an acre lot for a new home. It was because of getting the contract off to a good start that he decided not to make the time-consuming trip to defend his 1924 British Open championship.

"Hagen Signs Contract," announced The New York Times in its April 21, 1925 issue. It also reported that the Haig would have the title of president of the Pasadena Golf and Country Club. The course was completed, as was a new house for the Hagens. "Mrs. Hagen and I occupied a beautiful Spanish villa in the estates proper and were host to many wonderful parties for the people building homes in the Pasadena development," Hagen reported.

During the time when spring training was underway, Hagen was able to combine his love of baseball with golf -- he had carte blanche to attend any exhibition game he wanted, and in return he invited golf-loving ballplayers to his course. Sportswriters Grantland Rice and H.B. Martin joined him in playing with Mickey Cochrane, Jimmy Foxx, and Rube Marquard . . . and Babe Ruth.

Margaret Hagen and Walter Hagen Jr. in 1921.

Ruth had to sneak over to play with Hagen because Miller Huggins, manager of the Yankees, had banned golf as being too much of a distraction to getting ready for the 1925 baseball season. It didn't help Ruth get away with his sneaking off that Hagen also played with members of the Topping family, which owned the Yankees.

"Babe and I played many rounds together," Hagen remembered. "One thing I noticed peculiar to Babe's game, and to that of most ballplayers, was that for the length of time an average ballgame consumes Babe was a fine golfer. He could concentrate. After the hour and fifty minutes' duration, or about the eleventh hole as golf is played, the Babe began to slop his shots away."

Being president of the club didn't mean that Hagen had to pay attention to administrative details. He was given an office which contained vases of flowers and a young, blonde secretary. Among her talents was playing the ukulele, and with little else to do she composed a song called "Pasadena, Beautiful Pasadena." This actually came in handy because whenever a prospective club member was brought around, Hagen and his secretary would greet him with a lively rendition of the song.

Hagen helped form what is considered the first professional "golf league" in 1925. Bob Harlow, Hagen's manager, even touted it as the Professional Golfers League of Florida. Up to this point, exhibitions between individual golfers or two-on-two professionals were loosely coordinated, sometimes impromptu affairs. As more golf clubs were developed in Florida, however, it made sense that each could be like a ballclub, its players challenging other players for bragging rights and betting opportunities. As far as the pros were concerned, this was simply more fun and more money in the sun.

Hagen, representing the Pasadena club, grabbed Joe Kirkwood as his partner. Jim Barnes and Fred McLeod represented the Temple Terrace Club in Tampa. Gene Sarazen and Leo Diegel repped a club in Hollywood on Florida's east coast. Cyril Walker, Johnny Farrell, Tommy Armour, and others were also involved. In a way, it was like the feudal lords of booming Florida choosing their knights to represent and defend them in the jousting of golf.

The league lasted only the 1925 season, alas. The Sarazen-Diegel team won the league title, and the players enjoyed receiving 60% of the gate receipts at $2 a spectator per event. What happened to the league? Nothing, really. It just didn't start up again the following year because no one stepped forward to coordinate it. Another factor was the developing "southern swing" that included the Los Angeles Open and the Texas Open, and many of the pros wanted to participate in these tourneys and related exhibition matches in Texas and Southern California rather than play exclusively in Florida until the British Open was held.

It sure won't feel like Florida for teams in the Montauk Downs leagues unless the weather changes here, and fast. On a personal note, I'm anxious to get out on the links because my son, after a three-year hiatus, has announced that he wants to return to playing golf. I want to strike while the iron - if not the weather - is hot!

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Tom Clavin, who lives in Sag Harbor, writes about golf for The New York Times, The Met Golfer, Golf Magazine, and other publications. His recent book about golf is "Sir Walter: Walter Hagen and the Invention of Professional Golf." This column about everything in and around golf, especially with “links” to local courses, will appear every two weeks on Hamptons.com. Comments, questions, information about East End players and competitions, free golf apparel, and memberships hondo7@optonline.net.