The year was 1933 and our country was mired in the Great Depression. Money was tight, banks were failing, unemployment was rampant, and the working class was struggling to make ends meet. The low-income housing units of the day were called Hoovervilles after the former president, Herbert Hoover, who was in office when all of this started some four years earlier. On the other end of the spectrum, fortunes were lost, captains of industry were taking their lives, and certain aspects of upper-class life were faltering as well. Golf, a game of the moneyed rich at that time, saw multiple course closures as well.
The world of professional golf carried on as best as it could during these trying times. Cities such as Oakland and Sacramento hosted tour events with the organizational help and funding that came from local chambers of commerce. Such was the case in Phoenix where a local civic organization, the Thunderbirds, began what was initially known as the Arizona Open. Two years later the name was altered to the Phoenix Open. It remains one of the longest-running events on the PGA Tour nowadays.
The godfather of those earliest Phoenix Opens was Bob Goldwater, who would serve as the tournament’s director through 1951. Goldwater and the Thunderbirds ran a first-rate tournament that was mostly played at Phoenix Country Club and occasionally at Arizona Country Club. Whatever minimal tournament profits there were in those days went to local charities. The Phoenix Open was a part of the early season West Coast Swing and its litany of past champions showed the strength of the field during those earliest days. Ralph Guldahl won that first tourney back in 1933 and in the pre-war and post-war era, the Phoenix Open title was captured by such stars of the game as Byron Nelson, Ben Hogan and Jimmy Demaret. During golf’s golden era, the Phoenix Open’s perpetual trophy included Arnold Palmer’s name three times, Johnny Miller’s name twice, and other great golfers of note, including Jack Nicklaus and Billy Casper. Since then other multiple winners have included Mark Calcavvechia, Vijay Singh, Phil Mickelson, Brooks Koepka and Hideki Matsuyama.
In 1987 the Phoenix Open moved to the newly built TPC Scottsdale, a risk-reward course designed by the highly regarded team of Jay Morrish and Tom Weiskopf. It could be stretched out to 7,300 yards. As time went on the Thunderbirds needed corporate assistance to pull of the tournament. Initially banking house FBR sponsored the event and nowadays the garbage conglomerate Waste Management is the sponsoring host. The other thing that changed along the way had to do with the massive area that TPC Scottsdale encompassed. There was enough room to host concerts each evening of tournament week. The concert setting became known as the Bird’s Nest. As time moved along, the Phoenix Open added grandstand seating on three sides around the iconic 16th hole, a relatively short par-3 that could play as short as 125 yards and still be stretched out to 175 yards. With triple-tiered seating and luxury boxes on the 16th, it has been estimated that as many as 17,000 rowdy fans could be crammed into just one hole while combined weekly attendance was typically in the area of 500,000 customers.
Think about it. There was Ben Hogan walking the fairways at Phoenix Country Club in his grey slacks, white polo shirt and white driving cap. He chain-smoked throughout his round, barely acknowledged the adoring crowd, and took home the first place prize of $7,500 in 1947. In fact, Hogan was overjoyed with the size of his check, at that time one of the largest in professional golf. At that first tournament in Phoenix in 1933, Guldahl pocketed all of $600 for his win.
Nowadays the Waste Management Phoenix Open is called “The Greatest Show on Grass.” Gary McCord has called it the “wildest venue in golf.” This year’s tournament had a total purse of $8.2 million and the overtime winner, Scottie Scheffler, enhanced his bank account to the tune of $1.476 million. As three-time Ryder Cupper Johnny Pott once told me, “I just can’t wrap my head around all the prize money and endorsement money that is out there.” Pott was sixth on the money list in 1961 and earned $33,000 that year. While it is true that there is a whole lot more money out there, it is also very true that McCord is deadly accurate when he speaks of the wildness of the Phoenix Open.
Aside from the nightly concerts and the 100,000-plus fans in attendance daily, the par-3 16th hole doesn’t exactly remind one of the ambiance of the 16th hole at Augusta National during Masters week. The crowd is animated and as the day goes on, the Budweiser factor seems to kick in even more and more. A poor shot is met with a crescendo of boos. An excellent stroke, especially a birdie putt, is rewarded with grandstand-shaking cheers. Sometimes the golfers react as well. Several years back, James Hahn danced “Gangnam Style” after making a long birdie putt on 16. Hahn is from Alameda High School and UC Berkeley and his very colorful dance routine is still shown on PGA Tour media outlets every year.
This year things got much crazier over the weekend. On Saturday afternoon Sam Ryder made a hole-in-one on the 16th hole. It was the first ace in seven years on that hole. The well-lubricated fans in the grandstands suddenly started to shower the green with beer, then cups and then beer cans. It took the volunteers on that hole close to 15 minutes to clean things up. The following day Carlos Ortiz did the very same thing in front of another jam-packed gallery. The reaction was the same as beer, cups and cans littered the green. It got worse as Justin Thomas chipped in from the back of the green for a birdie and got a similar reaction. If indeed it became obvious that the crowd was ready to cheer for just about anything, Harry Higgs made a par putt, pulled up his shirt, playing partner Joel Dahman pulled off his shirt and waved it around, and that entire pairing was doused with beer, cups and cans. Is this organized chaos?
Professional golfers know that the craziness of it all only happens once per year at Phoenix. There is nothing else in the world of tournament golf that is like it. While I can’t see Ben Hogan embracing such behavior, it is a part of our new world order and the current pros know what they’re getting into. In the end it’s all about growing the game and involving spectators in the show that is the Phoenix Open. Just so long as it only happens one week each year …
