The Greatest Course That Never Was

by J. Michael Veron

  Had I not been so busy at work keeping up with the mounting pile of collection files that threatened to take over my office, I might have had time to realize how crazy it was to chase the ghost of a golf course. But the days at work flew by, sometimes without my ever looking up from my desk. After a week without hearing from me, Moonlight must have feared that I was having second thoughts about our trip. One morning at work, I found another envelope addressed in his now-familiar handwriting in the mail. I opened it and found a scorecard with a note from Moonlight that said, “Don’t let your faith slide, Thomas. I ain’t making this up.”

  The scorecard was yellowed with age. Unlike modern score-cards, which are gaudy with all kinds of colors, this one had the style and elegance of the classic cards I had seen from grand old courses like Winged Foot. It was small enough for a player to fold and place in his pants pocket while he walked the course, unlike the larger cards nowadays that attach to a clipboard in the middle of the steering wheel of a golf cart.

  The front of the card read “Bragg’s Point Golf Links” and featured a modest but attractive crest showing a putter and driver crossed like an “X” over several golf balls. There was no address or other information that disclosed the club’s location.

  I opened the card. The course measured 6,767 yards—modest by today’s standards but plenty long for championship courses back in the days when steel had only recently replaced hickory as the material of choice for golf club shafts.

  The card was marked with the names and scores of a foursome. Only the players’ first names appeared: Bob, Ben, Jimmy, and Gray. The scores were quite impressive; all four players broke 70. Bob had 67, Ben and Gray shot 68, and Jimmy was one stroke back at 69. In the bottom corner of the card read the date: “3/22/46.”

  I noticed that the card wasn’t signed or attested. Still, it was tangible evidence of some kind. I picked up the telephone and called Moonlight.

  He answered after the second ring. When he heard my voice, he immediately knew why I was calling.

  “Ya’ got the scorecard, didn’t ya’?” His voice had an “I told you so” tone to it.

  “Yes, I did. May I assume that it’s from this magical place you’ve been telling me about?”

  “That’s the place, alright, lad. An’ that card shows ya’ what a special place it was, don’t it?”

  I looked again at the card. “Well, it shows that either the course played easy or some pretty good players were in this group.”

  He cackled over the line. “I’d say they were some pretty good players. Do ya’ have any idea who they were?”

  “Do you mean to tell me that the Bob on this card was Bob Jones?”

  “One an’ the same, lad. Who do ya’ think was in the rest a’ the group?”

  “Don’t tell me that Ben was Ben Hogan.”

  He laughed again. “You’re startin’ to catch on now. An’ just so ya’ know, Jimmy was Jimmy Demaret.”

  I whistled. “That was some group. Whoever this fella Gray was could play, too.”

  “He was just ’bout as good as the rest of ’em, lad. I saw the whole thing, ’cause I was on Mr. Hogan’s bag that day. His name was Gray Little, an’ he was from somewhere down in Louisiana. He was a friend a’ Mr. Hogan’s. I think they had come up together on the ol’ Texas tour.” There was a pause. “Mr. Jones didn’t know him well, but he let him play there on Mr. Hogan’s say-so. Mr. Jones thought a lotta Mr. Hogan.”

  I was staring at the card while we talked. I noticed some pluses and minuses across one column at the bottom of the card. “This must have been a four-ball match of some kind.”

  Moonlight let out a soft whistling sound. “Yeah, it was, an’ one a’ the best ever played. The sparks really flew that day. Mr. Hogan an’ Mr. Little skinned Mr. Jones an’ Mr. Demaret outta two hundred bucks. That was a lot a’ money back then.”

  Moonlight talked as if it were yesterday. I had to admit that I was a little moved by his reminiscence. “You still remember it well, don’t you?”

  “That I do. It was the best golf Mr. Jones’d played in a long time. An’ he never really played quite that well ag’in.” He suddenly sounded sad.

  “I take it you sent me this because you thought I didn’t believe you.”

  “I don’t mean to be sacrilegious, but ya’ kinda needed to see the nail holes in the hands, didn’t ya’?”

  I didn’t want to admit that he was right. At the same time, I wondered how he could otherwise expect me to believe the fantastic story he was telling me. There were so many gaps in it.

  All I really knew was that Jones needed privacy and that he built another course that remained a secret to this day. There were still a lot of missing pieces to this puzzle. Golf courses cost money to build and maintain. Who paid for all of this? And who got to play there? Beyond all of that, how on earth could the world’s most famous golfer keep an entire golf course a secret?

  There was only one person who could answer those questions. The card I was looking at told me he had the answers, but he preferred not to solve the puzzle for me. Perhaps this was the only way that Moonlight could be sure that I would believe him.

  I was determined to outfox Moonlight in some way. Maybe it was just ego, but I wanted to show him that I could figure some of this out on my own. At the very least, I wanted to discover where this course was located before he finally had to tell me.

  Someone at the office told me we had a road atlas in our law library. Since Moonlight had us flying into San Francisco, I figured that the almost-forgotten course was within a day’s drive of the airport there. I told myself that he wouldn’t expect us to drive more than 300 miles to get there, although it did occur to me that it would be just like him to pick a distant city as a diversion. For all I knew, the course might be located in Arizona. I hoped, however, that Moonlight believed me when I told him I didn’t have time to gallivant around the country by car.

  Ignoring Rand McNally’s copyright warning, I photocopied a map of the western states. I then drew a semicircle based on a 300-mile radius from San Francisco. To the north, it extended almost to the Oregon border, and it reached Santa Barbara to the south. Parts of Nevada, including Reno, Carson City, and Lake Tahoe, were also inside the radius. It was quite a bit of ground to cover.

  As I studied the map, I realized that there were an almost unlimited number of spectacular sites for a golf course in that part of the country. It would be difficult to narrow things down. I assumed that, to fulfill Jones’s desire for reclusive privacy, the course would be far off the beaten path.

  I was no expert on geography of the western United States. I knew that California was one of our most heavily populated states, but I also knew that it was a big state and that far less of it was developed 50 years ago when all of this was going on.

  There was no shortage of scenic terrain in that part of the country, either. Jones might have found any number of wonderful venues for his ultraprivate playground.

  As I scanned the map, I listed some possibilities. The Yosemite National Park was within a couple hundred miles of San Francisco, and the land surrounding it was supposed to be gorgeous. It would’ve made a great site for a golf course. So would the Lake Tahoe area (which in fact has now seen the construction of several great courses in recent years). Then, of course, there was the Napa Valley region, as well as perhaps dozens of other sites up and down the coast.

  I knew that Jones loved the Monterey Peninsula. Pebble Beach was one of his all-time favorites, and Alister MacKenzie’s beautiful design of Cypress Point compelled Jones to select him to design Augusta National.

  It was hard to imagine, though, that Jones might have been able to build a course anywhere around Carmel without attracting enormous attention. As much as he liked the area, he never would have had the privacy he craved. Besides, even back then, the cost of land there had to be prohibitively expensive for something as indulgent as the golf course Jones desired.

  I then began to scan the map in the
opposite direction, moving up the coast to the north of San Francisco. It showed Fort Bragg to be almost 200 miles away. Could Fort Bragg be related at all to the Bragg’s Point Golf Links? To the south of Fort Bragg was something called Point Arena. I wondered. Could Bragg’s Point be a combination of Fort Bragg and Point Arena?

  There was perhaps 50 miles of coastline between the two points on the map. I felt a sudden surge of hope that my search had narrowed. I just might have scooped Moonlight after all.

  Chapter 10

  AFTER I MANAGED to finish an appellate brief for one of Emile Guidry’s toxic tort cases that was due three days before we left, I got enough of a breather to spend some time thinking about our trip. As a result, I began to bombard Moonlight with questions. It seemed that the more I learned about this remarkable oasis created for Jones, the more I wanted to know about it. While I still wasn’t totally convinced of Moonlight’s story, by now I wanted to believe him.

  Moonlight never became irritated by these cross-examinations. In fact, he seemed to enjoy them.

  I didn’t ask Moonlight again about the exact location of the course. (He wouldn’t have told me anyway.) Nor did I let him know that I had some ideas of my own about where we might find it. Instead, I asked him all manner of questions about how Jones chose the location, acquired the property, designed and built the course, and paid for it.

  He spoke about those things late in the afternoon on the Sunday before we left. We were sitting on his front porch drinking beer and watching the sunlight fade into shades of orange and yellow.

  “Ya’ remember those movies Jones made?”

  I figured that he was referring to a series of instructional short subjects Jones made in Hollywood in the early 1930s after retiring from competitive golf. It was, technically, Jones’s formal forfeiture of amateur status, because he was paid a handsome sum to do the project. Although Jones was the leading character, each installment featured a cameo appearance by one of Hollywood’s leading stars. The black-and-white movies were reissued in the mid-1980s on video and, to everyone’s amazement (except, perhaps, the true Jones believers) the 50-something-year-old films became the biggest selling videos on golf instruction in the entire country. My friend Ken Cheatwood had the complete set, and I had watched them with him.

  “Yes, I know what you’re talking about,” I told him.

  “Ya’ remember that big fat funny man that was in ’em?”

  “You mean W.C. Fields?”

  “Yeah, that was his name.” He leaned back in his chair on the porch. “As I understand it, he loved to talk with Mr. Jones ’bout golf. He asked Mr. Jones ’bout his favorite places to play. Mr. Jones tol’ him he loved Pebble Beach an’ Cypress Point near Carmel.”

  Moonlight paused, as if trying to recall the precise details of the conversation. “The fat man supposedly tol’ Mr. Jones that there were other places in California that were just as beautiful as the Monterey area. The way I heard it, he was braggin’ ’bout how California had property like that all up an’ down the coast. Mr. Jones must’ve challenged him to show him a place as beautiful as Pebble Beach an’ Cypress Point. The fat man showed him a spot, an’ that’s where Mr. Jones eventually built the course.”

  I didn’t know whether Moonlight had intended to do so, but he had provided me with one more clue. Jones’s private sanctuary was on the coast. If true, it was certainly consistent with my hunch.

  “What would a comedian know about golf course locations?”

  Moonlight stroked the stubble on his chin. In the short time I had known him, he appeared to shave no more than once a week.

  “What can I tell ya’? Like a lot of us, he loved the game, even though he couldn’t play a lick. He also had a lotta money. Ya’ gotta remember, he was a big, big star. All those Hollywood types were tryin’ to outdo one another to see who could build the biggest mansion. I dunno whether he was lookin’ for a place to build a house overlookin’ the ocean or what, but he knew ’bout this place somehow.”

  “What made him think that Mr. Jones wanted to build another golf course? I’m surprised that Fields didn’t want in on the deal.”

  He opened another beer and took a pull from the bottle. “Don’t know that he didn’t. Wouldn’t’ve mattered anyway. Mr. Jones didn’t trust anyone he didn’t know real, real well. Besides, I don’t think he thought a whole helluva lot ’bout that Hollywood crowd.”

  “So…what happened next?”

  “Well, Mr. Jones went an’ scouted the area. Took Mr. Roberts with him. They found a wonderful place. Problem was, it was owned by the government. They got a lotta land out there, ya’ know.”

  He emptied his beer bottle and reached for another before he continued. “Mr. Roberts had some friends in New York who had plenty a’ stroke in Washington. In less than six months, the property was deeded over to these high-powered guys in New York. They then turned it over to Mr. Roberts.”

  “How was Jones going to keep this a secret with that many people involved?”

  “These people were already members at Augusta National. Ya’ gotta remember, most a’ the early membership came from New York. They loved Mr. Jones an’ feared Mr. Roberts. They wouldn’t do anythin’ to risk gettin’ tossed outta the club.”

  I wanted to keep him talking. “When did all of this take place?”

  Moonlight thought for a minute. “By the time Mr. Jones decided he needed another place away from the National, it must’ve been ’round 1935 or so.” He looked at the ceiling and then said, “Yeah, that would’ve been ’bout right. I know that he waited a year or two after that fat man tol’ him ’bout the property before he really did anythin’ with it.”

  “Did Alister MacKenzie design the new course, too?”

  “Nah, Mr. MacKenzie died right ’round the time they opened the course at Augusta. Heart attack, I think it was. I believe that Mr. Jones had talked to him ’bout the new place, though, before he passed on. Mr. MacKenzie may’ve even seen it. But he died before he did any work on it.”

  “Then who did design the course?”

  Moonlight seemed to enjoy my persistence.

  “When Mr. Jones was workin’ with Mr. MacKenzie on the National, there was a young Scotsman who was an associate a’ Mr. MacKenzie’s. He offered some thoughts a’ his own ’bout the design that apparently impressed Mr. Jones. Turned out to be a pretty fair architect in his own right. Name was Maxwell.”

  “Are you talking about Perry Maxwell?”

  “Yeah, that was him.”

  “So he designed the new course?”

  “Yep.”

  I thought about how active Jones had been in the design of Augusta National. “Why didn’t Jones design the new course himself?”

  Moonlight shrugged. “Oh, he’d a lot to do with it, just like he did at the National. But he wouldn’t go it alone. He wanted someone who did it for a livin’. Mr. Jones was great ’bout the golfin’ part—ya’ know, where he wanted shots to be played an’ that sorta thing—but he knew there was more to buildin’ a golf course than that. Besides,” he added after taking a swig, “he had a law practice, ya’ know.”

  Later on, I looked up details about MacKenzie and Maxwell. Moonlight’s memory was pretty good.

  Maxwell worked with MacKenzie during the early 1930s in the last years before MacKenzie died. During their brief time together, the two of them collaborated on the design of several outstanding courses, including the University of Michigan Golf Club.

  After MacKenzie’s death, Maxwell went on to design a number of impressive layouts on his own and then, in later years, with his son Press. His courses can be found in virtually every part of the country. Perhaps his best work was Prairie Dunes, a links course built in the plains of the Midwest that remains to this day one of the great courses in America. From what I read, Jones would have had good reason to be impressed enough with Maxwell to hire him for his special project.

  But were it not for a great amateur golfer from Nebraska named Johnny Goodm
an, Jones would probably never have known about either MacKenzie or Maxwell. Goodman is perhaps best known as the last amateur to win the U.S. Open, which he did in 1933. But his decisive victory over Bobby Jones in the first round of match play at the 1929 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach actually had much greater impact on golf history.

  Faced with time on his hands after his unexpectedly early exit from the championship (and with a hotel room already paid for), Jones accepted an invitation to play a new course just opening nearby known as the Cypress Point Golf Club. He was impressed by what he found. While there, Jones somehow also met the course’s architect, who happened to be Alister MacKenzie.

  MacKenzie was a physician-turned-golf architect. Although he advertised himself as Scottish, the truth was that he was raised in England. He did have a Scottish mother, however, so there was some truth to his boastful claim of a connection with golf’s birthplace.

  MacKenzie was an avid but not particularly talented golfer. Like most mediocre players, he had a rather healthy respect for those who possessed real talent at the game. No doubt, he revered a world-class player like Jones.

  Jones probably found much to admire in MacKenzie as well. For one thing, MacKenzie proudly proclaimed that he did not design courses so much as “find” them in the land. MacKenzie’s more subtle method of taking what nature gave him helped make certain that the new course at Cypress Point would accentuate the great natural beauty of the property.

  Although MacKenzie was certainly not as prolific as Donald Ross, the other great golf architect of the day, he did as much as Ross to make golf architecture a respected profession. As early as 1920, MacKenzie had published a book titled Golf Architecture. In it, he articulated what he considered to be fundamental design principles and described his philosophy of preserving the best natural features of each site.

  It probably didn’t hurt MacKenzie’s chances at being eventually selected by Jones for Augusta National that this approach was also the most economical way to build a golf course. By preserving the most attractive natural features of the land, MacKenzie moved less dirt, which meant less expense. When one considers that Augusta National was built in the throes of the Great Depression, the resulting economy could not be ignored.