Trenham’s Treasure Trove

“DID YOU KNOW”

• It took thirteen days for Sam Snead to win the L.A. Open over Ben Hogan!
• How Walter Hagen found an exhibition partner!
• The PGA and the touring pros divorced at Whitemarsh Valley CC in 1968!
• Hogan, not Dudley, was the non-playing 1949 Ryder Cup captain!
• Playing captain Sam Snead was suspended from the 1961 Ryder Cup matches!
• Without an appointment, a Scottish professional arrived in the USA for employment!
• Professional golfers used to play without delay!
• Ben Hogan won a golf tournament on the Sunday before winning the 1950 US Open!
• Philadelphia was where televised golf found its future!
• Sam Snead is owed one more victory by the PGA Tour!
• Nearly all great Black golfers learned to play golf in the South!
• Why isn’t a back-to-back winner of the US Open not in the World Golf Hall of Fame!
• US golf pros played an international match 14 years before the first Ryder Cup!
• Politics may have influenced the results of the 1913 US Open!
• Only six golf professionals made expenses on the 1938 Winter Tour!
• Henry Picard changed his grip and won the 1938 Masters!
• The First Great Black Golfer was Bobby Jones’ Caddy Master!
• The 1923 US Open was a marathon!
• For three straight years the two-day Shawnee Open went 90 holes!
• The best golf shaft of the mid 1920s failed!
• In 1944 the Philadelphia Inquirer had money!
• The 1951 Ryder Cup took a day off for football!
• An amateur golfer saved the Ryder Cup!
• Ryder Cup eligibility is not a new quandary!
• Skee Riegel’s Walker Cup record was 4 wins and 0 losses!
• Sam Snead and Ben Hogan were members of the Philadelphia PGA in the early 1940s!
• For more than 100 years the golf ball has been a concern!
• The Philadelphia Inquirer paid Byron Nelson for a 1939 US Open interview!
• Byron Nelson made 2 eagle twos in the 1939 US Open!
• Bob Shave, Jr. taught Sam Snead how to putt croquet style!
• The United States Air Force saved Ben Hogan’s Life!
• A missing wedge at the Masters may have made Sarazen’s double-eagle a shot for the ages!
• Honesty and a 3-stroke penalty cost a future PGA president a championship!
• Full access to the PGA Tour for Black golfers was a 28-year odyssey!
• A golf professional with a bad hip was the father of the modern golf swing!
• While on PGA suspension in 1961 Tommy Bolt made out well on TV’s All Star Golf!
• Walter Hagen played golf with Johnny McDermott at his psychiatric hospital golf course!
• 300 players teed off in the first round of the 1973 Pennsylvania Open!
• Arnold Palmer never won the PA Open, even with help from the PA Golf Association!
• There was a time when the golf professionals went “all in” to promote the PGA Tour!
• Lew Worsham won the 1947 US Open with two putters in his bag!
• The modern version of the PGA Tour was formed at Whitemarsh Valley CC in 1968!
• At one time the golf professionals had to play with a marker in the U.S. Open!
• A bottle of red wine brought Bobby Locke to the 1947 Philadelphia Inquirer Invitation!
• Battles with prize money for the attention of professional golfers are nothing new!
• In August 1945 a golf tournament for the U.S. troops was played in France with one ball!
• The Philadelphia PGA and the Maxwell Award for football have a connection!
• The Philadelphia PGA was founded on December 2, 1921
• The 1963 Whitemarsh Open, richest yet, wasn’t even on the PGA schedule January 1!
• The 1929 US Ryder Cup Team had to go back to playing with their wooden shaft clubs!
• The 1949 Ryder Cup had great golf and controversies!
• While on the Wilson staff, Sam Snead played with an Izett driver for more than 30 years!
• George Fazio’s first foray into golf architecture was at Cobbs Creek Golf Club in 1955!
• Struck by lightning at the Philadelphia Open, Ed Dudley should have been the winner!
• A Philadelphia club professional won the British Open after losing the Ryder Cup!
• Sam Snead had to beat Jim Turnesa and the US Army to win the PGA Championship!
• A plan for the PGA’s first national golf club began in the Llanerch CC golf shop!
• John J. “Johnny” “Jack” McDermott attempted a comeback in 1924!
• Leo Fraser held a senior open at his Atlantic City CC 23 years before the USGA’s first one!
• At one time, big name golf professionals like Byron Nelson played in local tournaments!
• Instead of defending his Philadelphia PGA title, Gene Kunes won the 1936 Canadian Open!
• Golf’s leading touring professionals played in the Wood Memorial at Jeffersonville GC!
• A former Merion Golf Club locker room employee was RU in a major golf championship!
• Whitemarsh Valley CC hosted a substitute for the 1917 US Open, for charity only!
• With a unique plan, Torresdale-Frankford CC held a PGA Tour tournament!
• There was threat of a players strike at the 1939 PGA Championship!
• The final 4 spots on the 1931 Ryder Cup Team were decided by a 72-hole playoff!
• The 1959 Ryder Cup was awarded to Atlantic City CC, but it was moved to California!
• A Philadelphia PGA pro was the only person to play in a World Series and a Masters!
• 82 holes were needed to determine a winner at the two-day 1936 Wildwood Open!
• A little-known Philadelphia professional, helped stop Byron Nelson’s 1945 winning streak!
• The world’s greatest trick shot artist was a great golfer!
• More than 200 players teed off in the first round of the 1946 Orlando Open!
• A Philadelphia PGA pro won the 1952 Tucson Open and wasn’t invited to the Masters!
• Charlie Sifford was not the best black golfer at Philadelphia’s Cobbs Creek Golf Club!
• The Philadelphia PGA professionals taught the world’s greatest blind golfer how to play!
• Art Wall won the 1959 Crosby Pro-Am, while making only one par on the last nine!
• A Philadelphia golf pro called in the 1987 Craig Stadler rules infraction at San Diego!
• Al Besselink won the Tournament of Champions and donated half to charity!
• The Berks County PA golfers provided financial assistance for the 1953 US Ryder Cup Team!
• A Delaware Valley professional golfer was the military’s longest serving professional athlete!
• Jim Thomson’s honesty paid dividends!
• Ed Dudley saved golf during World War II!
• It took 55 holes of golf to decide the 1915 Pennsylvania Open!
• Leo Diegel played 90 holes in two days to win the 1924 Shawnee Open!
• A club professional was responsible for changing the PGA Championship to stroke play!
• Byron Nelson’s 1937 first place Master’s check was far from his largest that year!
• A Philadelphia golf professional was the father of the PGA Merchandise Show!
• A Philly man hit his first golf ball at age 23, won the US Am, and almost won the Masters!
• The graphite golf shaft was created in a golf ball factory at Plymouth Meeting, PA!
• Forty eight golf professionals came out of the East Falls Section of Philadelphia!
• Ben Hogan won his first PGA Tour event at the Hershey Country Club!
• A doctor of veterinary medicine changed the golf industry!
• Ed Dougherty delivered his own Vietnam draft notice and wound up on the PGA Tour!
• Ed “Porky” Oliver tied for first at the 1940 U.S. Open and was disqualified!
• The Philadelphia Electric Co.’s golf pro was struck by lightning qualifying for the US Open!
• A Philadelphia PGA club pro may have been the victim of an Augusta National ruling!
• The PGA Tour pros played with 16 clubs during World War II!

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• The definition of an amateur golfer in 1916!
• Seven Campbell brothers came out of Royal Troon GC as golf professionals!
• In 1914 Johnny McDermott had the greatest staff in the USA!
• For three straight years the Philadelphia PGA lost money in banks!
• A third alternate from the host PGA Section won the 1920 PGA Championship!
• Shawnee Inn & Country Club was the birthplace of the PGA of America!
• Three golf professionals made a “Big Swap” in 1916!
• 1910 Philadelphia Open had the smallest but strongest field!
• In 1913 the USA showed its golf was on a par with British golf!
• There were 7 U.S. Women’s Opens before the USGA recognized women’s professional golf!
• In 2021, the Philadelphia PGA’s Marty Lyons was inducted into the PGA Hall of Fame!
• President Warren G. Harding’s schedule changed the dates of the 1921 Philadelphia Open!
• Sam Snead played his first tournament on the PGA summer tour at the 1936 Hershey Open!
• George Fazio teed off first in the final round of the 1950 US Open and well might have won!
• Johnny McDermott won two straight US Opens and is not in the World Golf Hall of Fame!
• A young Ben Hogan finished second to Byron Nelson on and off the golf course!
• In 1930 the Philadelphia Cricket Club hosted a championship for senior PGA pros!
• Due to minority golfer issues, the PGA Championship was and was not at Aronimink GC!
• Aronimink GC’s pro in 1899 was the USA’s first African American golf professional!
• The PGA selected two wartime Ryder Cup teams!
• A Philadelphia PGA professional would have been host to the cancelled 1939 Ryder Cup!
• Three Philadelphia PGA members who were not eligible played in the 1931 PGA!
• When the PGA was founded in 1916 there were only seven PGA Sections for the entire USA!
• Gene Sarazen left Miami on an exhibition tour two days before the first Masters!
• Philadelphia hosted a long drive contest 3 days after Bobby Jones’ Grand Slam!
• The Philadelphia PGA was won twice by someone not a member of the Section.
• A Philadelphia golf club raised $3 million for WWII US War Bonds in one day!
• A man who would win 3 major golf titles was a patient at Valley Forge General Hospital!
• Before there was a PGA, there was an Eastern Professionals Golf Association!
• A Philadelphia PGA founder won the first Irish Pro Championship at Royal Portrush GC!
• An amateur could have, maybe should have, won the 1939 US Open!
• A golf Professional who left his mark on Eastern PA was the first president of the PGA!
• Wanamaker’s was instrumental in starting the PGA of America!
• The 1921 Philadelphia Open dates were changed because of President Warren G. Harding!
• Big money purses in 1915 could be a dilemma for the golf professionals!
• There was a black member of the PGA of America before Charlie Sifford!
• A Philadelphia golf pro motivated the USGA to keep the stymie rule for another 30 years!
• A Philadelphia golfer’s connection to the movie “Caddy Shack”!
• Once upon a time the USGA let the air out of the golf ball!
• The origin of the trophy for the first Philadelphia PGA Championship!
• Johnny McDermott gambled to double his US Open prize!
• The state of PA erected a historical marker for 2-time US Open winner Johnny McDermott!
• It may not be possible to be over golfed!
• A match between American and British golf professionals was played in 1921!
• What happened to Byron Nelson’s tee shot on the 70th hole at the Hershey Open?
• The PGA built a practice green for President Eisenhower!
• Babe Didrikson played in the 1937 True Temper Open at Whitemarsh!
• Dick Sleichter might have defeated Dow Finsterwald except for his honesty!
• Philadelphia Section professionals dominated the Canadian Open!

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