The other day, I was updating our homeowners insurance policy for heirlooms scattered throughout the house and noticed I hadn’t included various family golf trophies.
Ok, that’s B.S., and my wife once said I have a PhD in B.S. It had nothing to do with the insurance policy. I just wanted to write the backstory on these trophies, which are quietly gathering dust on shelves.
The oldest trophy belongs to Mary Moore
The oldest family golf trophy belongs to my late mother, Mary Moore.
She won the D Flight Women’s Championship sometime in the mid-50s or so at Mill Creek Park GC in Youngstown, OH. Although family lore said she often brought me along when she played, sometimes even having me ride on her pull cart (don’t ask how), that day my father (Henry) caddied for her. The trophy is attractive, though somewhat on the small size, and the female atop has a nice form just like Mary Moore, known for her upright swing and high follow-through.
The next oldest trophy is mine. It dates to 1962, when I finished as runner-up to one of the biggest 13-year-olds in captivity at the Greater Cleveland Junior Championship at Seneca GC. Actually, I tied for runner-up with another junior, and the organizers drew lots for the second- and third-place trophies. The trophies both said “Winner,” so it didn’t make any difference.
Greater Cleveland Junior trophy
One more thing: the ride home after the tournament was abnormally quiet.
My older brother, the first-round leader in his age group, had a rough closing round and lost. As I recall, at one hole he inadvertently teed off beyond the marker; his playing companion noticed, and he was forced to hit another drive, which turned out poorly. Tough lesson.
A Father’s Day gift?
As for Henry Moore, I have only one trophy, and it dates to 1969. It may have been a novelty item for Father’s Day or Christmas, as it says: “Golfer of the Year, Henry Moore, 1969.” My dad was a devoted golfer with lots of golf instructional books on his shelf and loads of Golf Digest magazines around the house. He regularly took us to the driving range in the evenings and encouraged us to caddie and play. That was the essence then of “growing the game.”
Little Buick Open
The largest trophy is from 1985 when I was editor of Michigan Golfer and played in the Buick Open Media Day at Warwick Hills. In those days, the Buick Open was a huge deal, and everything about the tournament was first-class, including the treatment of the invited media, which numbered around 75 and included print (in its heyday), radio, and television. Anyway, I broke 80 that day and brought home the “Champion” hardware.
Actually, the most fun at those rounds at Warwick Hills, with their immaculate greens, were the impromptu “emergency nine holes” after the official media proceedings came to a close. Often, a few of us hardcore golfers stayed after at the request of a few Warwick and Tournament committee members and played an extra nine holes with a few bucks on the line. One time, I was paired with a longtime Warwick Hills member and a top Buick Open volunteer, and he made a hole-in-one on the third hole while playing with the new Buick Motors General Manager, his boss.
The GM jokingly asked, “Hey, how much golf are you playing?”
Now you know some Latvian
One of the weirdest trophies, and definitely one of its kind, is the one I received at the 1997 Estonia Air Open. That’s right, Estonia, the small northern European nation on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea.
I was part of a small media group organized by friend and fellow golf writer Jack Berry, Finnair, and Finland’s national golf association. Along with playing golf in Finland, including a course north of the Arctic Circle in Lapland, the planners also arranged a round of “tournament golf” in nearby Estonia. We flew from Helsinki to Tallinn, the capital, in a vintage DC-8, which was incredible in itself. (Incidentally, Finnair prides itself as the safest airline with zero fatal accidents for over 60 years.)
Paired with the captain of Estonia’s National Team, I won the closest of the pin contest at a long par-three. The little trophy doesn’t sport a golfer but rather an odd hanging medallion with the inscription at its base:
Estonia Air Open, “Lahim Lipuple,” which translates to “Nearest to the Pin.”
A wee trophy
The smallest trophy easily goes to one I received in 2001 when I won the Egypt Valley CC Match Play Tournament. More fitting for Tom Thumb or a Munchkin for the Wizard of Oz Invitational, this tiny memento still evokes memories of good friends and spirited competition at the Art Hills-designed 36-hole layout.
By the way, the only match I remember is my semi-final one, where I never led the entire match until I won on the first extra hole.
Come to think of it, that’s the best thing about a trophy: it’s a tangible and golden reminder of a pleasant and fleeting experience where for once you didn’t come up short.
