The American PGA Tour has been around for a long time although it”s hard to pinpoint the exact beginning in the way you can ascertain the initial years of major league baseball, the NFL, the NBA, the NHL and the LPGA Tour. For quite a number of years, what passed as the tour was simply a collection of tournaments that were loosely associated with no central office or commissioner.
The United States Open was first contested in 1895. The Western Open, nowadays known as the BMW Championship, was first played in 1899. The Texas Open began in 1922 and the Los Angeles Open was front-page news during its inaugural season of 1926. The British Open began in Scotland in 1860, and the Masters, which was first played at Augusta National in 1934, is a mere youngsters compared to the PGA Championship that begun in 1916.
The original tour wasn”t yet under the umbrella of the PGA of America, or as it these days, as a separate entity known as the PGA Tour. It was merely a collection of open events and invitationals that had a chamber of commerce mentality supporting it. The professionals of the time would go to Seattle or Greensboro or Akron to play in the event that was sponsored by the regional business community. It wasn”t the Boeing Open or the Firestone Open because corporations didn”t yet see the need to advertise and promote through the world of golf. Instead it was just the Seattle Open or the Rubber City Open or, on a more local level, the Sacramento Open at Haggin Oaks or the Oakland City Open at Sequoyah Country Club.
In 1937, movie star and popular singer Bing Crosby put together a one-day tournament at Rancho Santa Fe. Crosby got all of his entertainment industry buddies to play alongside the top tour professionals of the day in a pro-am partnership format. The professionals, who caravanned across the country via automobile in those days, had just concluded their West Coast swing and had approximately two weeks to cross the country for the commencement of the Florida part of the tour schedule. The golf professionals and the entertainers turned out to be members of the same mutual admiration society and the Crosby Pro-Am was a big-time money grab in those days. Play 18 holes with Bob Hope or Oliver Hardy and maybe pocket the $1,000 first-place winner”s check.
The first Crosby Pro-Am, won by one of the game”s greats, Sam Snead, was the beginning of celebrity-oriented professional amateur events. The Crosby moved to the Monterey Peninsula, was played at some of the world”s finest golf courses, namely Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and Monterey Peninsula Country Club. It became a 72-hole event and grew into one of the top-tier tournaments, attracting Snead, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson and Jimmy Demaret, all early Crosby champions.
In 1960 Bob Hope began his Palm Springs version of the celebrity pro-am. His tourney was a five-day, 90-hole contest with rotating desert courses such as Bermuda Dunes, Indian Wells, Tamarask and Thunderbird, as well as rotating foursomes of amateur golfers.
In the 1970s, a handful of celebrities became affiliated with PGA Tour events. At one time it was the Glen Campbell Los Angeles Open, the Sammy Davis Jr. Greater Hartford Open, the Joe Garagiola Tuscon Open, the Andy Williams San Diego Open, and the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic to go along with the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am and the Bob Hope Desert Classic.
Of course, we”re now far removed from those heady days. Nowadays, tour events are called the Honda Classic, the Northern Trust Open, the Wells Fargo Championship, and the Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation. To the uninitiated, the Humana is the current version of the Bob Hope. It is played on newer, modern-era courses such as PGA West and LaQuinta. It has become a standard 72-hole tournament. Yet this year, specifically last weekend, it somewhat returned to its past when it named former President Bill Clinton as its tournament host. It was a role that Clinton took seriously and seemed to relish.
Working behind the scenes, Clinton convinced Phil Mickelson and Greg Norman to play in the Humana. He also got celebrities ranging from Alice Cooper to Julius “Dr. J” Erving to play in the pro-am format while five-time Bob Hope champion Arnold Palmer along with women”s golfing great Annika Sorenstam made day appearances. The professional field was stronger than it had been in more than 15 years. Clinton promoted the tournament the way Bob Hope used to, and the result was a more dynamic field as well as larger spectator interest this time around.
Of course, just because the field is stronger than it has been in previous years does not mean that the Humana will become as highly regarded as the Memorial or Bay Hill. This time around, the strength of the field failed to produce a well-known, major winning champ. Instead, journeyman Mark Wilson won the Humana Challenge in partnership with the Clinton Foundation by two strokes over fellow journeyman Johnson Wagner, John Mallinger and Robert Garrigus. Thinking further down the line, maybe journeyman is not a fair term to use in describing the career of Wilson. The North Carolina grad who grew up in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, has won five times on tour. During the past three years, Wilson has won at Hawaii, Phoenix and now in Palm Desert. Not a lot of other tour pros have that kind of golfing resume.
Next week the PGA Tour comes to Northern California for the playing of the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. It will be played at Pebble Beach, Monterey Peninsula and Spyglass Hill. Nowadays, it is a much more corporate event than a gathering of pros and movie stars like it was in the days of its inaugural host, Bing Crosby. Yet Bill Clinton has shown that a well-known figure can positively impact a long-time tournament that has been on life support for the last few years. Maybe it will keep growing and instead of being called the Humana, it will end up being called The Bubba by golfing fans in deference to its dynamic host, President Bill Clinton.
