It was 1937 and the United States was still in the throes of the Great Depression. The rough-and-tumble professional golf tour of that time was a lot closer to a Harlem Globetrotters” barnstorming schedule than to anything approximating major league baseball or professional football. Tournaments were played on the West Coast and Arizona in January and February, the South in March and April, Texas in May, and the Midwest and the East during the summer and fall. There were often gaps in the schedule when touring pros returned to their club jobs at established private courses.
The leading entertainer of that day, singer and movie star Bing Crosby, was also a very avid golfer. A five-time club champion at Hollywood”s Lakeside Golf Club who also qualified for the U.S. Amateur and the British Amateur, Crosby had the game and the persona to mix with the top players of the era.
Crosby also was a member at Rancho Santa Fe Country Club just north of San Diego. The Los Angeles Open had just been completed and the pros had a couple of weeks off before they were due in Florida. A number of linksters from the L.A. Open field drove down to Rancho Santa Fe to join up with Bing”s Hollywood pals. The concept behind the original Crosby Clambake was to mix Bing”s tour friends with his entertainment industry buddies in a pro-amateur tourney. Crosby put up the entire $3,000 purse. Sam Snead won the pro division, shooting a 68 to beat George Von Elm by four shots. Snead received the winner”s check for $500 and promptly asked Bing if he could get the winnings in cash instead. Snead didn”t trust banks, but Bing declined, guaranteeing the colorful West Virginian that his check was good.
The news of the Crosby Pro-Am spread throughout the professional ranks. Not only was it a decent payday during tough economic times, but it also was a win-win tourney for all involved. The pros were star-struck by the greats of the silver screen and the Hollywood stars were enamored with the skill and talent of the golf greats. The golfers wanted to be more like movie stars and the Hollywood types wanted to be more like the professionals.
For the next five years, the Crosby Pro-Am was a 36-hole tournament. Snead repeated as champion in 1938, Dutch Harrison won in 1939, Ed Oliver took home the first-place purse in 1940, Snead won again in 1941, and amateur John Dawson prevailed in 1942. World War II forced cancellation of the tournament in 1943.
The tournament resumed in 1948. Crosby moved it some 300 miles north to the Monterey Peninsula. Crosby was a member of the Cypress Point Club and lined up the Pebble Beach Golf Links and Monterey Peninsula Country Club to serves as sites for his tournament. The move not only allowed Crosby to triple the size of the field, but he was also able to promote the tournament on the merits of playing three of the finest courses in America. Keep in mind that this was during a time when the L.A. Open was played at Griffith Park, the Texas Open was contested at Brackenridge Park, and the Tucson Open was played at El Rio Golf Course, all municipal courses. The prize money was great, hanging out with the stars was fun, and the high-quality golf courses made the Crosby a must-play tournament on the tour schedule.
From 1947 through 1949, the Crosby was a 54-hole event. In 1950 it expanded to its current format of 72 holes with the fourth and final round always played at the storied Pebble Beach Golf Links. The pros and the amateurs would play the first three rounds at each course. On Sunday, the low 60 pros and the low 25 pro-am teams would advance to the final round.
From its inception in 1937, when Sam Snead, arguably the best player of his generation, won the Crosby, up through the modern era, the tournament has always featured a who”s who of champions. Past winners include such historic names as Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Jimmy Demaret, Billy Casper, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Phil Mickelson, Vijay Singh, Payne Stewart and Tiger Woods.
Northern California champions have incl-uded Ken Venturi, Bob Rosburg, Tony Lema, George Archer and Johnny Miller. Mark O”Meara, who won the California State Amateur at Pebble Beach, parlayed his comfort with the Monterey courses by winning the Pro-Am a record five times. Langtry Farms Director of Golf Johnny Potts won the 1968 version of the Crosby, beating out Billy Casper and Bruce Devlin in a playoff.
Snead and Hogan, Nicklaus and Watson, Phil Harris and Jack Lemmon no longer walk the fairways at Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and Monterey Peninsula. Nor does anyone else. Spyglass Hill and Poppy Hills have replaced Cypress Point and MPCC as host sites. Nonetheless, top-echelon professionals and modern day stars continue to return to the Monterey Peninsula in an event nowadays known as the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
The final two rounds of the old Crosby Clambake play out this weekend. Past champions Vijay Singh and Phil Mickelson are in the field. British Open and PGA champion Padraig Harrington is entered, too. Ryder Cuppers Jim Furyk and Kenny Perry are there along with NorCal PGA section champion Jason Schmuhl, the head professional at Windsor Golf Club. Celebrities in this year”s field include Justin Timberlake, Bill Murray, Kenny G, ESPN”s Chris Berman, and Colts quarterback Payton Manning.
The old Crosby Pro-Am concludes this Sunday down the coast from us at Pebble Beach. Nowadays the total prize purse is $6 million. When everything shakes out Sunday afternoon, the winner will receive a giant promotional check for just more than $1 million. In keeping with tradition, the tournament officials will once again refuse to give the winner his prize money in cold cash, just as crooner Bing Crosby did when Sam Snead won the inaugural Pro-Am way back in 1937.
