Skee Riegel’s Walker Cup record was 4 wins and 0 losses!

“Did You Know”
Skee Riegel’s Walker Cup record was 4 wins and 0 losses!

Born in Pennsylvania in 1914, Robert Henry “Skee” Riegel did not play golf until he was 23 years old. He attended Lafayette College and West Point before graduating from Hobart College. At West Point he was on the football team, and at Lafayette College he captained the football and baseball teams.

In 1937 he married Edith who was a good golfer. Edith had taken golf lessons from great golfers like Craig Wood. While on their honeymoon in Reno, Nevada, Edith suggested that Skee should take a golf lesson. Once Skee began playing golf Edith stopped. Edith said that one golfer in the family was enough.

Skee and Edith moved to California where Skee took a shot at being a freelance movie writer. He played golf nearly every day and within six months he had broken 70. By 1940 he was playing in amateur and professional tournaments all over the United States. Edith seemed to have enough money to make all that possible. Three years after his first golf shot, he qualified for the 1940 US Amateur. He qualified as a member of the Oakmont Country Club in Glendale, California. Skee said the owner allowed him to enter from his club, but he never played the course.  

When the United States declared war on Japan and Germany, Skee and Edith moved to Miami. Skee enrolled in Emery Riddle University’s flight school. While in Florida, Skee won the 1942 Florida State Amateur Championship. During the war he taught flying for the US Army Air Corps in Arkadelphia, Arkansas.

When the war ended the US Amateur was resumed in 1946. Skee was the on-site medalist at Baltusrol GC with a record setting 136-a record that held for more than 30 years. He was selected for the 1947 Walker Cup Team for its biannual match against Great Britain and Ireland. The resumption of the matches should have been played in the states, but the British did not have the resources for the trip. The match was played on St. Andrews Links’ Old Course. 

Skee won his singles and foursome matches without ever reaching the 17th hole of the second 18. All matches were 36 holes. The US won 8-4. One-week later Skee won four matches at the British Amateur before losing one down in the fifth round.

On June 2, Skee and Edith, along with most of the Walker Cup Team, sailed for home on the Queen Elizabeth. One evening Skee and Edith were having dinner with the ship’s captain. There was some celebrating taking place. The Walker Cup was being passed around and everyone was drinking from the cup. Sometime during dinner Skee shimmied up a tall pillar that was supporting the deck above. Skee said that everyone thought it was funny except Edith, and the president of the USGA. After descending, he left the room. Fearing that Skee might jump overboard, there was a search for him. He was found asleep in a lifeboat.  

Later that year Skee won the 1947 US Amateur at the Pebble Beach Golf Links. The next year he won the Western Amateur and the Trans-Mississippi Amateur for a second time.

In 1949 Skee was selected for the Walker Cup Team again. Francis Quimet, winner of the 1913 US Open and two US Amateurs, was the team captain for the sixth consecutive meeting of the teams. Skee was always saying what a great person Quimet was. He would say, “I wish you could have met Francis.”

Winged Foot Golf Club hosted the matches on its West Course. Again, all matches were 36 holes.
Skee and Ted Bishop won their foursome match by the count of 9&7. Then Skee defeated Irishman James Bruen by 5&4. Skee said that Bruen, who had a backswing so upright it made Jim Furyk’s backswing look orthodox, was the best player he ever faced in a Walker Cup. Skee was the longest driver on the US Walker Cup Team and Bruen was by far the longest on the British team. The US won 10-2.

That fall, at the age of 35, Skee turned pro. He played in 16 US Opens, 11 consecutive Masters Tournaments, and 9 PGA Championships. At that time, one had to be a PGA member to play in the PGA Championship. With the five-year apprenticeship to become a PGA member, Skee was 40 when he became eligible for the tournament. As a professional he finished second in the 1951 Masters to Hogan and second in the 1952 Insurance City Open.

In 1954 Skee returned to Pennsylvania as the professional at the Radnor Valley Country Club on Philadelphia’s Main Line. In his early 50s he was still out playing the PGA Winter Tour. Skee was just a great athlete. He could walk on his hands as easily as he walked on his feet. One time at a PGA Tour tournament, with the urging of his fellow professionals and some free beer, Skee walked on his hands down the stairs from the locker-room and then down the first fairway, without breaking stride.  

13 years older than Skee, Edith walked every tournament golf hole with him until she was in her 70s. She was a great friend of the wives of the golf professionals, like Valerie Hogan. In retirement, Ben Hogan would always say to people from Philadelphia “Be sure to say hello to Skee and Edith for me”. In Edith’s later years she would still be in attendance at the Philadelphia tournaments. She would sit in their big Cadillac, with their dog, reading her Christian Science books. The golf professionals would stop by the car to say hello.