The AT&T; Clambake? : Somehow, the Name Just Doesn’t Ring True; Without Bing, It’s, Uh, Phony

For the first time in 40 years, Bing Crosby’s name will not be on a golf tournament on the Monterey Peninsula this winter.

The flower of the PGA Tour has returned to the Del Monte forest this week, but the pros are here to play in what Crosby’s widow, Kathryn, has labeled “just another corporate sideshow,” the first AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

After a bitter dispute with the PGA last April, she yanked her husband’s name off the tournament that Bing started at Rancho Santa Fe in 1937 as a party for his Hollywood friends and a few professionals.

Mrs. Crosby has put her husband’s name on a celebrity-amateur tournament that will be played in June at the Bermuda Run Country Club in Winston-Salem, N. C., but at least one Crosby, her son Nathaniel, 24, expects to have it back on the pro-am here, probably next year.

“We’re still involved,” said Nathaniel, who replaced his famous father as tournament host in 1978 at the age of 16. Nathaniel and his brother, Harry, are, in fact, the co-hosts of the tournament this week. Nathaniel, a former U.S. Amateur champion who competed on the European professional circuit last summer, is also playing in the tournament.

The reason he and his brother are still involved, Nathaniel said recently in an interview at the Carmel Valley Country Club, is “to keep our foot in the door, in case Mom should change her mind. This would give her a way to get back into the tournament. And hopefully, she will change her mind. I hate to think of my dad’s name not being on the tournament.”

To keep the door open, Nathaniel said, he has stayed in touch often with the Monterey Peninsula Golf Foundation, which runs the tournament. “If she did change her mind, they would be willing to receive her with open arms,” he said. “The AT&T; people, I know, would love to have dad’s name affiliated with the tournament.”

Bing once had a television program called, “The Bing Crosby Christmas Show, by AT&T;,” Nathaniel said. “I had hoped, ideally, the tournament would be called the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, sponsored by AT&T.;”

Before that can happen, however, a lot of bitterness must be erased. Mrs. Crosby leveled some harsh criticism at the PGA and the Monterey Golf Foundation when she withdrew, saying that her decision was irrevocable.

“It’s up to mom,” Nathaniel said. “It will be hard for her to change her mind because her decision was so public. She’s very strong-minded.

“Mom has kind of got caught between two things. She has her tournament in North Carolina now, and she is going to try to say it is a continuation of the Crosby. I think that is kind of like celebrating Christmas in June. It is a different format. This tournament is dad’s idea. But I think there is room for two Crosbys.”

It is still hard for him to talk about his mother’s decision freely, Nathaniel said. Asked if he had talked to her recently, he said they exchanged letters last fall.

“I would admit to a temporary rift in the family,” he told the Monterey Peninsula Herald last month. But at Carmel Valley, he said, “I hope that when the dust settles, she will see the light. But she feels very strongly about it.”

Mrs. Crosby’s anger over the commercialization of the Crosby Clambake is not shared by her son. “The way purses have increased, it’s impossible not have a commercial sponsor today” he said. “AT&T; can market the tournament so much better than we can.”

Few tournaments have the tradition and nostalgia Bing’s show had. After staging six clambakes at Rancho Santa Fe, a course near his Del Mar race track, Crosby abandoned the tournament during World War II and brought it here in 1947 as the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am.

The attractiveness of the peninsula courses, especially Cypress Point and Pebble Beach, and the presence of some of Hollywood’s most famous names, made it one of the tour’s most popular tournaments. Often, it attracted more television viewers than such major tournaments as the Masters and the U.S. Open.

Until Crosby’s death in 1977, his pro-am was as much a party and social event as a golf tournament. All the fun, however, didn’t make it popular with many of the pros and the men who run the PGA Tour.

Apparently, the Monterey Peninsula Golf Foundation also became disenchanted. In its press brochure, the names Bing Crosby or Bing Crosby National Pro-Am do not appear even once.

Without ever saying what the old name was, the publicists said in one press release: “The tournament received its new name after the Monterey Peninsula Golf Foundation last year agreed to sign AT&T; as a corporate sponsor.”

The change to corporate sponsorship probably was inevitable. After Crosby’s death, the tournament became less a party and a bigger tournament. Tradition has little place on Deane Beman’s corporate tour today, and the pros have virtually no feeling for it. Andy North, U.S. Open champion, said maybe it could be called the ex-Crosby.

The typical response from the pros here Wednesday was, “It’s a shame Crosby’s name is no longer on the tournament, but I don’t think it will make any difference.”

While Crosby’s name is missing, nothing else has changed except the prize money, which was increased by $120,000 to $660,000. That’s a bonus the pros got from AT&T.;

The best pros and a flock of celebrities are here, as usual--among them, Jack Nicklaus, Tom Watson, Lee Trevino, Fuzzy Zoeller, Jack Lemmon, Clint Eastwood, Jim Garner, Telly Savalas and George C. Scott.

They will start playing today at Pebble Beach, Cypress Point and Spyglass Hill, the same courses the tournament has been played on since 1966, when Spyglass replaced the Monterey Peninsula Country Club. CBS again will televise the event on Saturday and Sunday.

The format, originated by Bing, remains the same--at least for this year. The amateurs who make the cut will play all 72 holes.

Bing’s tournament was notorious for what was known as Crosby weather. Few sports events, in fact, have been played so consistently in such dreadful conditions. If it rains, as it did here Wednesday, or snows, or the wind howls off the ocean this week, will it be known as “AT&T; weather?”

Nathaniel Crosby probably spoke for traditionalists among golf fans everywhere when he said: “It’s a shame to throw 45 years of tradition and nostalgia down the drain.”