Game’s Past Is Housed in Hall of Fame

The name is the World Golf Hall of Fame, but in reality the 17-acre facility that sits in the sandhills of North Carolina, next to the famed No. 2 course at Pinehurst, is more a museum of golfing memorabilia, featuring everything from two clubs handcrafted in 1690 by Hendrie Milne--the oldest in existence--to the signed scorecard of Al Geiberger’s 59, golf’s greatest tournament round.

All 45 members of the Hall of Fame, from the original 13 that included Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan, Babe Zaharias, Bobby Jones, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Sam Snead, are enshrined with appropriate bronze plaques and portraits. They’re not all players, either. Bing Crosby and Bob Hope are there, and so are writer Herb Graffis, course architect Donald Ross and promoters Clifford Roberts and Fred Corcoran.

A 92-foot Golf History Wall shows the evolution of the game from crude clubs made from wooden sticks to the high-tech graphite-shafted metal woods of today. Another cabinet houses the world’s finest display of antique clubs, the 101-club Aucherlonie collection, which includes a 1690 wooden putter that looks more like a croquet mallet, the clubs used by Old Tom Morris to win four British Opens in the 1860s, and an assortment of 25 wooden putters, many of which date back to the 1700s.

Laurie Aucherlonie, 80, who donated the collection, is honorary professional at the Royal & Ancient Golf Club of St. Andrews and also honorary curator of the Hall of Fame. His father, Willie, was a famous clubmaker who won the British Open in 1893.

A special room houses the historic Ryder Cup trophy and pictures of all of the U.S. and British-European teams since the inception of the international matches in 1927. Another room will house the world’s four major golf championships trophies. Already on display are the Wanamaker Trophy from the PGA championship, the Masters trophy and a replica of the U.S. Open trophy. The British Open trophy has been promised on loan and is expected soon.

The Hall of Fame, which was dedicated Sept. 11, 1974, by then-President Gerald R. Ford, is a majestic, white marble-columned, $3.5-million, Romanesque building complex with more than 25,000 square feet of display space surrounded by fountains and reflecting pools in a wooded glen in the resort city of Pinehurst. It overlooks the fourth green and fifth tee of the Pinehurst No. 2 course.

Originally built in the early 1970s as a commercial venture by the Diamondhead Corp., then owners of the Pinehurst golf resort, the Hall of Fame soon fell on hard times and, in 1976, became a non-profit, tax-free foundation financed by public support. Support was waning when the Professional Golfers Assn. assumed management of the deteriorating facility on Nov. 1, 1983, and PGA executive director Lou King named Gene Whittle, a retired executive of the Amana Corp. and longtime member of the Lakeside Golf Club of Hollywood, to run the place. At no salary.

“They picked me because I lived here and I was cheap,” said Whittle, 58, who had taken an early retirement and moved to Pinehurst from California earlier in 1983. “The place was a financial disaster and the management had changed so often that the atmosphere was clouded when the PGA took over. The main reason I got the job was to cut expenses. I told Lou (King) I’d work at it for a year and we’d see what happened. Now we’ve got it in the black, things are pretty healthy again and it looks like I’ve got a job for life.

“One of the biggest problems was that the whole place is too big and too elaborate. The builders didn’t spare expenses, but they also made it difficult to maintain. It’s so big inside that it costs a fortune to heat, so I turned down the thermostat and gave the women in the office two sweaters apiece to keep warm when it got cold. We operate the whole place with a staff of six--and only three of them are paid.”

One of Whittle’s first actions was to find another volunteer, Ray Davis, 72, to be the museum curator. Davis, whose license plates read RD GOLF, is one of the country’s leading golf historians, but he lived in Arizona.

“Gene asked me to come back here and help out for a couple of months,” Davis said. “I stayed six months and finally went back home, packed up my things, and moved back to Pinehurst. Gene’s a pretty persuasive fellow.”

Whittle persuaded the state of North Carolina to declare the hall an official historical landmark and tourist attraction and give a grant of $150,000 for a maintenance fund.

Davis’ favorite display is an early 17th century bronze wall hanging, 2 1/2-feet by 6-feet, that weighs 600 pounds. The frieze, by G. Hillyard Swinstead, is called “All Square With One to Play,” and was found in a demolished clubhouse in Scotland.

“I have never seen anything that so perfectly reflects the period when golf was played only by royalty,” Davis said.

Members of the Hall of Fame are selected annually by the Golf Writers Assn. of America. None were named last year because of the hall’s financial problems, but one or two are expected to be voted in this summer.

“It costs between $8,000 and $12,000 to induct a new member between the cost of the plaques, the pictures and bringing them here for the ceremony,” explained Whittle. “The bronze plaque alone costs $5,000, and we give each inductee a replica that costs nearly $1,000.

The enshrinees:

1974--Patty Berg, Walter Hagen, Ben Hogan, Bobby Jones, Byron Nelson, Jack Nicklaus, Babe Zaharias, Francis Quimet, Arnold Palmer, Gary Player, Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Harry Vardon.

1975--Willie Anderson, Fred Corcoran, Joe Dey, Chick Evans, Tom Morris Jr., John Taylor, Glenna Collett Vare, Joyce Wethered.

1976--Tommy Armour, James Braid, Mickey Wright, Tom Morris Sr., Jerome Travers.

1977--John Ball Jr., Herb Graffis, Bobby Locke, Donald Ross.

1978--Billy Casper, Bing Crosby, Dorothy Campbell Hurd Howe, Harold Hilton, Clifford Roberts.

1979--Louise Suggs, Walter Travis.

1980--Henry Cotton, Lawson Little Jr.

1981--Ralph Guldahl, Lee Trevino.

1982--Julius Boros, Kathy Whitworth.

1983--Bob Hope, Jimmy Demaret.