Although the second week of June, 1970, was well over 50 years ago, it remains firmly embedded in my memory bank. The long established Western Open would be returning to Beverly Country Club on Chicago’s south side for the fourth time in its history. Beverly was an established club for Chicago’s political elite as well as successful business community. It was designed by Donald Ross just after the turn of the century, and it had its own unique place in golf history due to past Western Open champions Chick Evans, Arnold Palmer, and Jack Nicklaus as well as 1931 U.S. Amateur titlist Francis Ouimet. I was just 17 years old, would be skipping my high school finals exams that week (I lost a grade per class but still survived), and I would find myself between the ropes as a caddie during the proceedings.
I had gotten promoted earlier that spring and I was no longer technically a caddie. Instead I was the assistant caddie master, giving caddie lessons to the new “bird” caddies, organizing basketball games and volleyball games for the dozens of caddies waiting around to get a bag each day, and running the caddie operation every third day when the caddie master, Eddie Barr (member of the Caddie Hall of Fame) went off to his 24 hour shift with the Chicago Fire Department. Mr. Charley Penna, a former tour pro in the 1930s, was our PGA professional and was the director of golf as well. Barr was my boss, but Penna was my big boss.
Penna came to me several weeks before the Western Open and had an offer I couldn’t refuse. He said he knew there would be little for me to do the week the tour came to town. He would still make sure I got my $60 per week salary but he would also let me caddie in the Western as well. He thought I was a little different from most of my caddie brethren in that I had my own golf course yardages and knew how deep every green was. I could also read putts fairly proficiently. Way back in 1970 very few tour pros relied on yardages and it was that way with most of the Beverly members. They simply looked at the shot they had and would guess seven iron. Jack Nicklaus was the first real pro to use yardages for club selection.
Mr. Penna wanted me to caddie for Bob Lunn. Lunn was a relatively new pro who was just 25 years old. He had won in Memphis and Atlanta in 1968, had come in first at Hartford in 1969, and had won for the fourth time on tour earlier that March at a tournament called the Florida Citrus Open. Nowadays it’s called the Arnold Palmer Invitational. Lunn was a bomber who had won in Atlanta over Lee Trevino, beat Dave Hill in a playoff in Hartford, and had won the Florida Citrus by one stroke over, of all people, Arnold Palmer. He had all aspects of the game and showed he didn’t blink when the competition was stiff. He was the 1963 U.S. Publinks champ.
Lunn attended Lincoln High School in San Francisco. He was part of a top notch high school golf team that included a brash kid by the name of Johnny Miller. After graduation from Lincoln, Lunn relocated to Sacramento where he was under the instructional umbrella of Tommy LoPresti, the PGA professional at the 36 hole Haggin Oaks Golf Complex. Penna and LoPresti were long time friends from their time playing professional golf some 30 years earlier and had maintained a very close friendship as Italian American golf professionals in the elite world of American golf. The top caddies at Beverly all wanted to carry for the likes of Palmer, Nicklaus, Tony Jacklin, Frank Beard, Lee Trevino, and Billy Casper, so there were no obvious objections from the super-loopers with me getting Bob Lunn’s bag that week.
The world of tournament golf wasn’t all that big in those days and the media and world of communication were simplistic. I knew that Lunn had come in top 10 the week before the Western while in Charlotte, so I didn’t expect to see him at Beverly for a practice round until Tuesday. He didn’t check in by Tuesday and it was only later that I found out that he had spent all day Monday at a 36 hole qualifier in Ohio for the 1970 U.S. Open that would be held the week after the Western at Hazeltine in the Minneapolis area. Lunn wouldn’t appear at Beverly until just before his tee time mid-morning on Wednesday for the Western’s pro-am.
That meant that I had a lot of dead time on my hands. Yet I did have one other major benefit for being on the staff at Beverly Country Club that week. So that I could gain access to all aspects of the facility, Mr. Penna gave me a money clip that said 1970 Western Open. On the bottom part of the money clip was engraved Official. I could go into the players’ locker room. I could go upstairs and eat at the players’ buffet. I ended up sitting in the pros’ waiting room and watching television with the likes of Gibby Gilbert and Pete Brown. I was a pretty green 17-year-old kid who walked the hallways of the club house and said hi to Jack Nicklaus and television commentator Chris Schenkel. It was pretty heady stuff for a kid who played high school golf and entered the biggest tournament he could, namely the Chicago Amateur at a muni course.
On one of my journeys I went to the upper ballroom of the clubhouse. It was the area where the players checked in, got their tournament info, and received goodie bags for their wives. I was a little bit surprised because there were two check-in areas. One table had a sign that said PGA of America. That made sense since the tour was run by the PGA, an organization that included touring pros like Arnold Palmer as well as club pros such as Charley Penna. Yet about 30 feet away was another big table that the golfers checked into as well. The sign on the table said Tournament Players Division. While hanging out in that area, I noticed that most of the contestants checked in at both tables. Both tables had three very official looking people sitting at them, wearing suit coasts and looking like this was the sort of thing they did every week.
I was perplexed. I knew what the PGA was, but what exactly was the TPD and why exactly did they have their own check-in table at the Western? Did they do the same at every tournament? I later returned to the cart barn area and the two apprentice pros, Whitey and Rex, were hanging out in the carts. I told them what I had seen and I asked them what the Tournament Players Division was? They simply shook their heads and said I wouldn’t understand. I told them that if I couldn’t get an answer from them then I’d go ask Mr. Penna about the TPD. They both looked alarmed and said I shouldn’t do that. They said the TPD was a group of rebel pros who were trying to leave the PGA of America. I never did ask Mr. Penna, but in a brief amount of time, I did some research and figured out what the TPD was all about.
Saturday’s column: Golf’s Civil War led by Palmer and Nicklaus and the Tournament Players Division.
