America Tees Off

True Tales of Golf's Rich History

David Sowell

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• eBook ISBN:
  9781496245939
• Year: 2025

In 1887 a linen salesman from New York City visited the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland, considered to be the oldest golf course in the world. While there, he visited the shop of golf legend Old Tom Morris. He purchased six clubs and some balls. Soon after his return home, this purchase triggered a golf explosion that would soon see America not only take up the game but also take it over. America Tees Off tracks golf’s impact on the country and the game since this historic purchase, with dozens of wide-ranging stories from when the game first took hold in the United States to the present day.

These stories cover both the great amateur and professional players, as well as the golf adventures of average players and the not-so-average, like U.S. presidents, athletes in other sports, Hollywood stars, and the mega-wealthy. You’ll read about what was thought to be a highly questionable land purchase in the Sandhills of North Carolina in 1895 that led to the golf mecca of Pinehurst, how Babe Didrikson Zaharias’s husband used his cigar to give her assistance during tournament play, and how the scientist who worked on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos helped President Eisenhower improve his game.

America Tees Off also covers the effect of American ingenuity on the game’s equipment and how the sport was televised. These lesser-known, behind-the-scenes true stories will entertain and inform the most serious golf enthusiasts as well as those just getting into the sport’s colorful history.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• The Father of American Golf
• The Most Flamboyant Player on Tour Outdoes Himself
• Young Tiger Overcomes a Rough Patch
• A Young Executive Goes Rogue
• Babe Ruth Agrees to Become a Yankee at the Eighteenth Green
• Arnold Palmer Resuscitates the British Open
• Golf Grabs Michael Jordan
• President Obama Cuts His Golf Short for Good Reason
• Golf Infects the United States’ Two Richest Men
• A Big Opening in Tinseltown
• Anchors Aweigh, Sam Snead
• A Picture-Perfect Tackle
• Bryson Does His Thing
• American Golf Goes Public
• A Surprising Defeat Leads to a Stellar Collaboration
• It Was Alice’s Idea
• It Was Do or Die
• The Seller Thought the Buyer Had More Money than Common Sense
• Golf Lessons in an Office Suite in the Heart of New York City
• Golf, Bitter Cold, and Pantyhose
• Scottie Records His First Professional Win
• USGA’s First Tournaments and USA Golf’s First Cinderella Story
• The Winning Eighteen-Hole Score Was 132
• The First Roar at the Masters
• Augusta National and Eisenhower, Part 1
• Augusta National and Eisenhower, Part 2
• “Anytime You’re Playing with Arnold That Happens”
• “Be the Right Club . . . Be the Right Club Today!”
• Keeping Your Golf Balls from Getting Too Hot
• Golf and Nuptials
• Burning Tree Club: A Male Bastion
• He Walked to the Beat of a Different Drummer
• It Would Have Been a Great Story
• Sunday Golf
• A Blessed Final Round?
• Bobby Jones Goes Hollywood
• A Member of the United States’ Atomic Team Aids President Eisenhower’s Game
• The Golden Bear and Inverrary
• Two Former Prodigies Battle It Out in a Playoff
• Golf Plays a Huge Role in the First Gigantic Corporate Deal
• Ben Is Back
• Mr. Icicle
• A Bad Look for Bubba
• The Schenectady Putter: Born in a Bonfire
• A Sand Trap in a Department Store
• A Big Change for the United States Open
• Arnie the Pilot
• Under Unusual Circumstances, a Player Makes Quite a Debut in a U.S. Open
• Baseball Almost Loses Out to Augusta National
• Ben Who?
• He Scoffs at a Huge Fine by the Government, Then Comes off the Course Twice to Help Save the United States from a Financial Meltdown
• It Looked Like an Ice Cream Scoop on a Stick
• Nixon’s Golf
• White House Helicopter Goes Out of Bounds
• Overrated?
• A President Overdoses on Golf
• A President Plays an Enormous Amount of Golf Without Any Criticism
• A Golf Game Ends a Bitter Hollywood Feud
• The State of the Union
• Detroit Loses Its Golf Soul
• The Country Club at Brookline Could Have Missed Out
• The Nation’s Top Sports Journalist Attempts to Qualify for the U.S. Open
• The Most Politically Significant Round of Golf Ever Played
• Gene Sarazen, Howard Hughes, and the Sand Wedge
• Bryson Had the Distance Twice
• A Former Champion Tries to Avoid the Heat but Ends Up Being Toast
• Walter Hagen Makes a Groundbreaking Decision
• From a Hospital Bed in Santa Monica
• Two Trailblazers Need Assistance with Finding a Place to Play
• A Triumphant Comeback
• Michelle Gets Her Major
• Twelve Golfers Play It Off for Eleven Spots
• Two Sad Passings
• Walter Hagen’s a Victim of a Crime
• A Marathon Stretch of Golf
• Golf and the Cold War, Part 1
• Golf and the Cold War, Part 2
• Tiger Puts On a Staggering Spectacle, and Nicklaus Bows Out
• Hollywood’s Hustler
• More Hollywood’s Hustler
• Even More Hollywood’s Hustler
• A Bag in One
• Some Golf on the Silver Screen
• The President’s Caddie
• John F. Kennedy: The Hit-and-Run Golfer
• One of the Game of Golf’s Most Staunch Traditionalists Makes the Switch
• A Caddie Named Shirley
• The Mighty Mo
• The United States’ First Olympic Golfers
• Will Rogers’s Disdain for Golf
• Sam Snead Takes a Couple of Swings at Wrigley Field
• A Former Artillery Officer Unleashes a Birdie Barrage
• A Record-Setting Final-Round Comeback
• President Trump Honors Babe
• Friday the Thirteenth
• An American Woman Plays with a British Royal and Stirs Up Golf Fashion
• Battle of the Sexes
• Ben and Terrible Tommy
• Highly Regarded CBS Golf Commentator Goes Out of Bounds
• Slow Play Results in a U.S. Senator Decking a Prominent DC Surgeon
• Walter’s Shenanigans
• Arnold Palmer’s Hearing Spurred Him to Two of His Masters Wins
• John Daly Wins for the First Time in a “Sober” Fashion
• It Was an Odd Finish to a Playoff
• Two American Standouts Have Problems in Great Britain
• Ticker Tapes and Toots
• A Special Friendship
• Spouses, Ex-Spouses, and Significant Others