Sam Snead and Ben Hogan were members of the Philadelphia PGA in the early 1940s!

“Did You Know”
Sam Snead and Ben Hogan were members of the Philadelphia PGA in the early 1940s!

For a few years in the early 1940s, two of the greatest golfers of all time, were members of the Philadelphia PGA.  In early 1940 Sam Snead signed with the Shawnee Inn and Ben Hogan began his employment with the Hershey Country Club in 1941. Born just three months apart in 1912, Snead was a natural golfer and Hogan was self-made. Though the same age, their arrivals in the Section were quite different.

Snead had begun his career as a caddy at the Homestead Hotel, near his home in western Virginia. After high school he began working in the golf shop at the hotel course. In the summer of 1930 Snead was put in charge of the hotel’s Cascades Course, a couple of miles away. It was the “Great Depression”. His compensation was a sandwich and a glass of milk for lunch along with $2 for any lessons he might give, and tips. Luckily, he was living with his parents. The biggest benefit was the golf course wasn’t busy so he could hit 100s of practice balls off a plot of turf not far from the golf shop. In September 1935 the hotel hosted a $2,500 Cascades Open where Snead finished third to 1931 US Open winner Billie Burke. Later that day a man who managed the golf at the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia, just an hour away, approached Snead. He offered Snead a job as a teaching and playing pro. He would be paid $45 a month plus one-half his lesson income, with free room and board in the hotel. When the Greenbrier golf pro unlocked the golf shop door the next morning Snead was standing there reporting for work.

After six years Snead was making progress. He could make some money and play more golf, especially tournament golf. A year later he won the 36-hole 1936 West Virginia Open by 16 strokes.

Snead didn’t have an automobile reliable enough to travel the 1937 PGA Winter Tour, which began on the West Coast. Then Johnny Bulla offered him the opportunity to travel with him. They would share expenses. Snead won the second tournament he entered, the Oakland Open. Even with his duties at the Greenbrier he won five times on the PGA Tour that year and was the second leading money winner. The next year Snead was runner-up in the PGA Championship, played at the Shawnee Inn in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains.

As 1939 was coming to an end Snead had not signed a new contract with the Greenbrier. Shawnee’s touring professional, Jimmy Thomson, the longest driver in professional golf and a bridesmaid in a US Open and a PGA Championship had resigned. He was going to be playing exhibitions for Spalding promoting their golf equipment. The owners of the Shawnee Inn signed Snead as their touring pro. Now he could play the full PGA Tour schedule.

Then World War II arrived. Two days after winning the 1942 PGA Championship at Seaview CC near Atlantic City, Snead joined the US Navy.

Hogan, on the other hand, at the age of 12 began caddying at the Glen Garden Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas. It wasn’t much of a course, 18 holes and 5,277 yards with greens that had just been converted to grass from sand. But, the money was good. Byron Nelson, the same age as Hogan, started there the same year. Hogan quit school his senior year, and entered the Texas Open as a professional at age 17, withdrawing after 36 holes. In 1932 he tried the Winter PGA Tour, went broke, and had to wire home for money to get home. He tried the Winter Tour a couple of more times with the same results. He was the pro at nine-hole golf courses and worked various odd jobs, like oil fields and gambling houses. He spent any money he had on shag boys to pick up his practice balls.   

With his wife along, Hogan played much of the 1937 PGA Tour and on to the West Coast in January 1938, winning barely enough to keep playing. Looking for a teaching pro, Century CC, near New York City, hired Hogan. His pay was $500 for the summer (May to September) along with his lesson money, and he could play some of the summer PGA tournaments. He was at Century CC for three years. In the spring of1940 Hogan broke through with his first individual victories; North and South Open, Greensboro and Asheville in succession. He was the leading money winner on the PGA Tour that year.

A winner of the Masters and the PGA, Henry Picard was the professional at the Hershey CC in Hershey, PA. With a family of four boys, his wife wanted him to spend more time at home. Also, at the age of 34 he was developing arthritis in his hands. Picard resigned as the professional at Hershey and bought a farm in Oklahoma. As one who always believed in Hogan, Picard recommended him for his position to Milton Hershey, whose Hershey Chocolate Company owned the club.  In March 1941 Hogan signed on.

By late 1941 the United States was at war. Snead had joined the Navy and Hogan had enlisted in the Army Air Corps. Nelson was 4-F because his blood was slow to clot.

With gas rationing there was no PGA Tour in 1943, but by 1945 the Tour was back with a nearly full schedule of 38 tournaments. Out of the Navy early with back problems, Snead was back competing, but he broke a bone in his wrist playing in a hometown softball game and missed eight weeks of the summer tournaments. Early and late, he won six times. Nelson went on a tear, winning 11 straight tournaments and 18 in all. After being discharged from military service in early September, Hogan won five times. In all Nelson, Snead and Hogan won 29 of the 38 tournaments.

At the end of 1945 Nelson, who had been the pro at the Reading CC from 1937 to 1939, agreed to one more year as the pro at the Inverness Club, Hogan was back on the Hershey payroll and Snead returned to the Greenbrier, now as the head professional.

It would have been interesting if Hogan, Nelson and Snead, in their prime years, could have been going head-to-head in what turned out to be war years instead.