JHC by Legendary Publishing & Media Group, LLC

THE STORY OF

JE FF SLIVERMAN

P U B L I S H ED BY

Jupiter Hills Club Copyright ÂŠ 2020 Jupiter Hills Club, Inc. ISBN: 000-0-000-00000-0 Written by Jeff Silverman Principal photography by Laurence C. Lambrecht, Jim Mandeville Printed in the United States of America. First Printing, 2020 All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher. P RO D U C E D BY

Legendary Publishing & Media Group Legendarypmg.com 561-309-0229 Managing Partner: William Caler President and Creative Director: Larry Hasak President, Business Development: William Green Art Director: Matt Ellis Editor: Debbie Falcone Business Manager: Melody Manolakis

THE STORY OF

J E F F S I LV E R M A N

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

T H I S

I S

D U M M Y

C O P Y

CONTENTS FOREWORD PROLOGUE

–x –x

CHAPTER FIVE

Let the Wild Rumpus Start – xxx CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER ONE

A Course of Their Own – xx

What’s in a Name? – xxx CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER TWO

Designing a Future – xx

Open Season – xxx CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER THREE

The Hills Are Alive – xx

Growth & Development – xxx CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER FOUR

Friends and Finances – xxx

A New Challenge – xxx CHAPTER TEN

Continued Developments – xxx

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Diesel Engine – xxx

A Clubhouse to call Home – xx

C H A P T E R T W E LV E

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Transitions – xxx CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Some Like It Hot – xxx

Dummy – xxx CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dummy – xx

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A New Day – xxx

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Dummy – xxx

A Fazio Comes Home – xxx

APPENDICES

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A Clubhouse to call Home – xxx

– xxx – xxx

PRESIDENT’S LETTER

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T H E

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T H I S

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INTRODUCTION

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CHAPTER ONE

A Course of Their Own ✧

ONSIDER FOR A MOMENT,

✧

the serendipity of fate and the stakes that can ride on the

single swipe of a golf ball. Of course, had either half of that equation so much as crept into the consciousness of George Jerome Fazio in the moment or two that he spent over his

final putt on the final hole of the first Crosby Clambake—officially the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, but who ever called it that?—at Pebble Beach, he might never have found the will to bring his club back. The consequences of the outcome on that second Sunday of the first month of 1947—far more life-changing than the trophy and check he was playing for—would take another twenty years to reveal itself. Fazio—the Fabulous Faz to golfing confreres, so anointed by his great friend, three-time Masters champion Jimmy Demaret—was then a few months past his thirty-fourth birthday, a seasoned journeyman with an impressive resume to accompany one of the sweetest swings in the game, one of the most unreliable putters, and an ever-present white cap every bit as jaunty as Ben Hogan’s. For Fazio, golf was an outlet—and an entrée, the enterprise in which he best expressed himself. “He kind of floated through life,” recalled Pete Trenham, a Philadelphia golf institution, both as the former head professional at

St. Davids Golf Club and as an eminent historian of the game. “He played like he was a dancer. He had an aura.” As a player, certainly, but as an artist, as well. And Fazio, in his way, was an artist.

OPPOSITE: Volorest, Busandes sinctotaes maione porporio. Sam, sequo dem ella nimus dolor solupti ABOVE: Orehendunt mi, ommolor rem dollita tquiate nobis aspe.

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The event we now know as the annual AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am began in 1937, when Bing Crosby invited 140 of his golf, business, and entertainment cronies for a weekend on the links just east of San Diego at the Rancho Santa Fe Country Club, followed by a clambake—hence the name that attached itself— at his home nearby. The format was a pro-am, and the $3,000 prize money came directly from Crosby’s pocket. Sam Snead won the inaugural while Crosby, a two handicap who played in both the U.S and British Amateurs, joined Fred Astaire as amateur headliners. Fittingly, rain postponed the first round. George Fazio’s Clambake debut came in 1941, the last year Crosby hosted at Rancho Santa Fe. At the midpoint, he was tied with Ben Hogan and Byron Nelson, three strokes off the pace, then fell back on the second 18 to finish five strokes behind the winner, Snead. After a wartime hiatus, Crosby moved the pro-am to the Monterey Peninsula in 1947 and instituted the format of revolving courses still used today. The Crosby name held on until 1986 when AT&T became the title sponsor.

That’s the word another golfing lifer, Bob Toski,

in his swing. You could see it in the way he built golf

one of the game’s premier instructors, recently plucked

courses. He would be walking and talking and waving

from the air to describe his old friend. “When he talked,”

his hands around and relating Mother Nature to golf.

remembered Toski, “I thought I was listening to Michel-

He had artistry in his mind. You’d think he was painting

angelo. He had rhythm. He had grace. You could see it

a picture.”

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PICTURE, THEN,

✧

a Philadelphian by birth and temperament

from the Italian precincts of Norristown, six miles from the city limits. That’s where George grew up, on the small George Fazio

Sam Snead

Byron Nelson

Ben Hogan

patch of land farmed by his parents, immigrants from the

George Fazio, Sam Snead, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan

Old World. That he would one day turn to golf shouldn’t

may not exactly have been the Four Musketeers, but

same golfingly magical year as Hogan, Byron Nelson, and

their lives continued to intersect on and off the golf

Sam Snead. Like them, he was introduced to the game

course through their playing careers and beyond.

early, and, like them, that introduction came through the

“George was one of my favorite people, one of the most enthusiastic men I ever met,” Nelson once volunteered. Snead was always grateful for George’s encourage-

be that surprising; he was born, after all, in 1912, the

caddie yard. [He was just seven when his big brother Sal, ]a caddie at nearby Plymouth Country Club, took him along one day. There weren’t many healthy ways then for

ment early in his career. “He never put on the dog,

a seven-year-old to bring home a few dollars each week

or pretended he was somebody else,” said the Slammer.

but toting a golf bag over eighteen holes was one of them,

“He was funny, easy to talk to, and always wore a big grin.”

and if you happened to be a frail, sickly kid like George

Hogan’s testimonial may have been the sweetest of

was, this was work that multi-tasked; it filled a change

all to George. When Ben felt the need for an eye on his

purse, kept him out in the fresh air, built stamina, and

swing, Faz’s eye was the one he sought.

added muscle.

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George had many dear friends throughout his life, but only two qualified as mentors. The first was his older brother Sal. “My father understood my uncle better than anyone,” recalls Tom Fazio. “George looked up to him. He would listen to him. He was the only person George would listen to.” Until he met John Arthur Brown. If Sal was George’s first role model, Brown, who wielded the orb and scepter over Pine Valley as its chairman for fifty years, greatly added to George’s sense of his own worth. “Pine Valley gave such credibility to George’s position in golf,” says his nephew. “Representing Pine Valley became so instrumental in making later contacts.” But Brown and Pine Valley gave George something else, just as important: a role model and vision for his future. “John Arthur Brown was George’s ideal,” Tom continued. “Yes, he was a dictator, but he ran Pine Valley the way George figured a great club should be run—with one-person control. That’s the way George ran Jupiter Hills from the start.”

It also introduced him to his calling.

Corner.” “George was a natural teacher who could

Walking the fairways, George learned about life,

quickly spot the key weakness in a golfer’s swing and, in

and he learned about golf. The more exposed to the game

no time at all, get him hitting the ball rather impressively.

he was, the more obsessed by the game he became. “I

When George played with the members of Pine Valley,

was one of those wacky kids,” he’d later say, “that, when

his good company added to the occasion. A perceptive

he likes something, he can’t get enough

man with a nice sense of humor, he had

of it.” That go-go spirit lifted him from

the priceless gift of always being himself.”

the runt of the yard to caddie master

Those last qualities certainly served

at sixteen and one of the best amateurs

George well. As a tournament player, he

in the purlieus by age twenty. At twen-

was a fan favorite win or lose. Part of his

ty-one, he turned pro, learning his pro-

popularity came from his compact size.

fession inside and out as he climbed the

And part, especially from his peers, came

ladder at several area clubs. By his early

from the way he approached his calling.

thirties, he’d hit pay dirt: John Arthur

He was anything but methodical. “George

Brown, the potentate of Pine Valley, one

would rather hit shots with imagination

of golf’s pinnacles, brought in George as

than score,” is how Vic Ghezzi, the 1941

the club’s playing professional in 1943.

PGA champion, saw it. “I think he liked

He gave lessons. He played with mem-

to watch all those haloes float down.”

bers. He represented the club on the

Demaret saw something more, a restless

tournament circuit.

search for something unattainable—a

“It was an inspired choice,” recognized The New

golfing ideal: “George would stand in the middle of the

Yorker’s Herbert Warren Wind, inimitable bard of Amer-

fairway, which is where his drives usually landed, and

ican golf and coiner of the treasured toponym “Amen

think up six different ways to hit a simple iron shot.”

ABOVE: Goege Fazio at the Bing Crosby Pro-Am, Pebble Beach, 1947

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GEORGE AND PHILADELPHIA WERE MADE FOR EACH OTHER; EACH LEFT DISTINCT FINGERPRINTS ON THE OTHER. As a player, George dominated the region’s most prestigious event, the Philadelphia Open. Between 1949 and 1959, he won a still-record five championships, finishing second twice. Earlier in his career, when the papers still referred to him as “The Norristown Stringbean,” Fazio claimed a pair of Northeast Opens, the section’s PGA title, and a host of less significant crowns. “In Philadelphia,” Pete Trenham, who knew George well and played with him often, had no issue asserting, “he was the man. As a player, he made it look pretty simple. He stood up square to the ball, took the club back, hit, and every ball went straight with the same flight.” So straight, in fact, that when George told Charley Raudenbush, Pine Valley’s head pro from 1982–2005, that he’d once spent an entire season at the club—playing three to four times a week—without missing a single fairway, Raudenbush never blinked. Given its exclusivity, its reputation, its history, and its knee-knocking 75.2 course rating and 155 slope—all of which have gelled to instill Pine Valley as the No. 1 golf course in the solar system—George’s appreciation of the place was understandable and his respect for it unchallenged. In an informal match before joining the Navy in 1944, Pine Valley lore has it that George stood on the final tee needing only a par for a 62 that would shatter—shatter—the course record of 68 set in 1938 by Ryder Cupper Ed Dudley, then the head pro at Augusta. George picked up his ball and walked in. “No one,” he said, “should score 62 at Pine Valley.” But, then, no one was quite like George. “He had such a soft touch,” Trenham continued, “that he always looked like he was walking on eggs. Everybody wanted to swing like him.” Whatever mark George and his swing may have left on Philadelphia’s courses, those courses left more lasting marks on him. Given that he came of age in an extended neighborhood abloom with classic designs by Hugh Wilson (Merion), William Flynn (Huntingdon Valley and Philadelphia Country Club), Donald Ross (Jeffersonville, where Faz was both caddie master and an assistant pro between 1934 and 1939, and Aronimink), and A. W. Tillinghast (Philadelphia Cricket Club and the original Cedarbrook, where George served as the head pro for two seasons), Dummy caption here

how could it not have? All of it leeched into his design perspective and toolbox—as did Pine Valley.

By 1960, George was operating two area clubs, both daily fee courses. The first, the nine-hole Flourtown Country Club, had a remarkable pedigree as half of Sunnybrook Golf Club, the first golf course Ross designed in Philadelphia. (When Pennsylvania opted to run a road through the other half, Sunnybrook packed up and moved elsewhere.) The second, Langhorne Country Club, north of Philadelphia in Bucks County, arrived with an equally impressive pedigree; peripatetic Scotsman Alexander Findlay, as prolific as anyone in the field in the first two decades of the twentieth century, laid out the first nine in 1913, and completed the job three years later. Each became a vital laboratory for Fazio to study what had been there and test his nascent architectural chops. He tweaked several holes on each—and added a swimming pool at Flourtown. As an architect, Fazio pulled nine courses from the landscape in and around Philadelphia, all before he began Jupiter Hills. The most notable, Waynesborough Country Club, in Chester County, hosted a PGA Tour stop for several years and contributed an integral piece to Jupiter Hills’s founding puzzle.

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And, so, here he was, in anything

having three-putted. Still, his 75

but normal golf conditions, on

left him looking safe in the club-

this miserable Sunday at Pebble

house. No one was within three

Beach, the wind whipping and

strokes. With darkness descending,

the rain pouring down—“Crosby Weather” it would come to be called—standing over the putt for bogey that would mark his future. He’d won once before on the tour, at the Canadian Open a year earlier, when he came from behind to take control on the final hole of an eighteen-hole playoff. But this was different. He was struggling down the stretch, not charging. The Faz had begun the fiftyfour-hole event superbly, with a 68 at Cypress Point—ten better than

George always exhibited this over-

riding quest for golfing perfection, and it wasn’t limited to the perfect shot.

Though his confreres on tour and in the Philadelphia section thought his swing

was as close to ideal as possible, he was

the unheralded Ed Furgol had closed the deficit to two with three holes remaining. Fighting the elements, the future U.S. Open champion stood on the 16th fairway, a

constantly tinkering with it in search of

5-iron’s flight from the flagstick.

ment— especially putters. By the mid-

And a share of the lead. A pair of

that something extra. Same with equip-

He holed his shot. For an eagle.

1950s, he had nearly 100 stashed safely

pars coming in secured the tie.

at home. “I think I concentrate better

when I change putters,” he suspected,

“so whenever I’m not scoring well, I get out a different one.” When he moved

into the realm of design, he took that

The weather dampened any thoughts of a playoff, Fazio and Furgol shared the title, splitting the $3,250 winners’ check evenly.

attitude with him.

Still, a victory is a victory, even a

lowed by a 70 at Monterey Peninsula Country Club to

way Faz wanted to win it. He left Pebble Beach with the

leave him atop the leader board alone, two clear of his

sense he’d let one get away, that something that should

closest chasers, with eighteen holes to go. Then came the

have been his had somehow slipped from his grasp.

Hogan; eight better than Snead; four better than Demaret—fol-

divided one, even if this wasn’t the

weather—and maybe the doubts. He’d opted to play safe

And that was that.

to protect his position, but tentativeness was never his

Until it led to something much more than that.

strength, and no golfer wants to limp off the final green

But how could he know that then?

The Faz and the Slammer went as far back together as the first practice round of Snead’s first event on tour, the 1936 Hershey Open in Pennsylvania, won by the resort’s head pro, Henry Picard. Snead, the greenhorn from the Virginia hills, asked Fazio, whom he’d never met, if he could join his threesome. George welcomed him. Snead promptly drove his first ball out of bounds and repeated the crime with his second. While Fazio’s partners snickered, grousing about the ineptness of the display, Fazio tried settling the rookie’s nerves with a few words of encouragement. They worked. Snead’s next swing launched a boomer down the middle, and the Slammer’s legend was off and running. He tied for sixth place that week, the first step on his long march toward the pantheon. Despite his good deed, George, playing out of Jeffersonville Golf Club, the muni he served as assistant from 1934–1939, missed the cut by four strokes.

IN 1960,

FAZIO LENT GARY PLAYER A SYMPATHETIC EAR—AND THEN

SOME—WHEN THEY WERE PAIRED AT THE ANNUAL GREENBRIER OPEN in May. Despite hoisting the Claret Jug at Muirfield in 1959, the future World Golf Hall of Famer—and collector of nine majors— was dejectedly mulling a return to South Africa. Since his Open triumph, he’d barely held his own. George listened, then gave Player a pep talk—and a stake. “I wanted to help him,” George later recalled, “just as some people in the Norristown area helped me when I started out.” “I had very little money and big dreams,” remembers Player of those days, and if anyone could empathize with a dreamer, it was George Fazio. “He asked me how I was doing financially, and I told him my father was a very poor man and I had enough to keep me going for awhile, but if I didn’t start playing well, I’d have to go home.” George proposed what was essentially a two-year endorsement deal. “He said when you get on the first tee or speak to anybody about golf courses, just say ‘I represent Langhorne Country Club.’ In exchange, George promised him $3,500 a year for two years, $7,000 total. “That” recalls Player, “was pretty good back then.” So was his next year. By March of 1961, Player had overtaken Arnold Palmer as the Tour’s leading money winner, then in April, he caught Palmer on the final hole to win the Masters and his first Green Jacket… as the de facto ambassador from Fazioland. Despite more than a year left on their arrangement, George released Player from their agreement. He knew that more lucrative opportunities awaited Player, and he didn’t want to stand in his way. Player’s never forgotten. “George was such a dear man,” assures Players. “Such a dear, dear man—one of the warmest individuals I could have ever wished to meet. I’ve always been very, very grateful for what he did.” But what George did didn’t stop there. He’d grown quite fond of Player and took real interest in his game. “He had a very big influence on a lot of golfers, including me,” says Player. “We played a good bit together. I liked to play practice rounds with him because he had this very smooth, elegant swing with great balance. Watching him helped me.” Nor did it stop there. “We’d often talk about the golf swing,” says Player, adding that he would pepper George with questions whenever he could. “His answer were very sensible. He believed in one thing at a time. He was very much against paralysis by analysis.” A decade later, George again took part behind-the-scenes in Player’s assault on the majors. It was 1972, and Player hadn’t claimed one of the Big Four since the Open at Carnoustie four years earlier. He asked George to take a look at him and his swing. “George was a great believer in balance in the golf swing,” Player explains, “and I didn’t have the greatest balance because I used a walking golf swing. He preached balance and tempo with me—small changes, nothing dramatic—and emphasized that I should practice the short game.” After a few sessions with George at Jupiter Hills, Player took off for Oakland Hills with new confidence. He left clutching the second of his two Wanamaker trophies, a decade removed from winning his first.

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goes unrecorded, but it’s clear ✧

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where they cemented what evolved

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into an enduring and fruitful friendTHOUGH FAZIO

never won again on

tour, he competed off and on into his mid-forties and was a perennial at Pebble Beach. Through 1951, he hammed and egged his way around the Peninsula with the same pro-am partner he played with in 1947, an auctioneer and high-stakes money player named

Milt

Wershow

whom

Fazio met during his brief stint at the tail of World War II as the head professional of Los Angeles’s Hollywood-heavy Hillcrest Country Club. In 1953, though, Faz arrived with a new partner: a twenty-seven-year-old automobile

ship. In May of 1952, they were The ideas that poured from George’s

imagination so entertained his friends

teamed together at the Greenbrier Open in Sam Snead’s backyard at

Jackie Burke and Jimmy Demaret as they

the famed resort in West Virginia.

ret’s Cadillac that Demaret turned them

Fazio and Ford’s best-ball total

drove to tournaments together in Dema-

Snead won the marquee event, but

into a running gag. As Burke recalled:

of 122 earned top honors in the

“George would have a scheme a week,

some brainstorm to make a fortune. He’d

go on for hours, and when we reached the next town, Demaret would drive straight to the nearest bank and park. ‘Why are

pro-am portion—officially $1,000 for Faz and a silver tray for Ford. Unofficially, the two drove out of White Sulphur Springs—in a Ford,

you stopping here?’ George would ask,

no doubt—laden with the lion’s

face, ‘Hell, George, I can’t drive around

Ford was so thrilled, he blessed

and Demaret would answer with a straight

share of a $16,000 Calcutta pool.

with all that cash. I want to deposit all that

his partner with a car dealership

money you just made for us before you spend it.’ ”

in Norristown that Fazio operated for almost a decade.

executive with a degree from Yale and a very famous last

Enduring friendships have flourished on much less.

name—William Clay Ford.

Together, the two soldiered on at Pebble Beach

Exactly when Bill Ford and George Fazio first met

through 1962, when Fazio, about to turn 50, surrendered

Dummy copy for a caption

Ben Hogan, George Fazio and Lloyd Mangrum prior to the playoff to determine the 1950 U.S. Open Champion.

GEORGE’S U.S. OPEN RECORD IS PARTICULARLY MEMORABLE FOR the storied 1950 playoff at Merion captured by Ben Hogan on gimpy legs a year and a half after a head-on collision with a bus almost killed him. But Hogan’s presence had already loomed large over Fazio at the Open—and would again. When Hogan won his fourth U.S. Open—in 1953, at Oakmont—Fazio posted his third top-five finish. Yet, it was at Riviera in 1948— where Hogan won his first—that Fazio truly experienced what separated Hogan from his contemporaries. Today, we call it hyper-focus. Back then, there were no words. George, Hogan, and Lloyd Mangrum—the same trio that would reconvene for the Merion playoff—went off together in the third round when George holed his 4-iron for a deuce on the par-4 second hole. The roar was so loud the surf churned in Malibu. But Hogan was deep into his own game; he heard nothing and saw nothing. When the round was over, George noted that the Hawk, who was keeping his score, had converted his eagle to a birdie. When George tried to correct him, Hogan wouldn’t budge. “You SOB,” George seethed, “I hit my career shot and you don’t even remember it.” It took an intervention by USGA Executive Director Joe Dey and Hogan’s wife Valerie to convince Hogan to give Faz his due, which Hogan would do again and again over time. Over a post-round libation in the locker room at Seminole several years later, Hogan conceded to former Jupiter Hills member Nathaniel Reed—son of the founding family of the Jupiter Island Club—that he had gotten away with some truly poor play—at least by his own impossible standards—in the playoff at Merion. “The finest striker of the ball that day was George Fazio,” Hogan insisted. “George Fazio hit the ball that day as crisply and as long and as straight as any man I’d ever played against.” What kept him from winning? Adrenaline, Hogan stressed. For George, after all, this was for the Open on his home turf at the time. “He’d never been under such extraordinary pressure. His adrenaline began to climb and he hit his ball over greens into unplayable lies. He lost because of that.”

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Philadelphia. “He’s become perhaps the country’s newest

When George first began harboring his

and top name among golf architects,” enthused one Flor-

own dream of golfing tsardom has no official date, but

ida columnist. Princess Grace and Prince Rainier tried

the nerve required was a characteristic that came in

luring his talents to Monaco.

no short supply for him. When John Arthur Brown first

But that still wasn’t enough for George.

hired him at Pine Valley, George put forth one condition

In the late ’50s, he’d begun operating—and rede-

that Brown would have to agree on; at a time when pros

signing—the 9-holer in Flourtown, northwest of Philadel-

were not fully welcome anywhere in the clubhouse beyond the pro shop, George insisted on that right—with the caveat that if he ever abused it, he would leave. “I told him,” George recalled in a lengthy interview years

phia, under a lease agreement. He then took on a second, farther north in Langhorne, in Bucks County, which he bought in 1960. What if he could do better? What if he

later, “my mother and father taught me as good social

could hold sway over a first-class golfing universe the

manners as anyone in the club, all the English with their

way he’d seen John Arthur Brown, his great benefactor

manners—the English think they’re the only ones with

and mentor, do at Pine Valley? Quixotic as Faz’s fantasies

manners. He said, ‘Those are big words, but can you

may have seemed, that’s where he placed his focus. The

handle all that?’ I said sure. It took some guts to say all

name George Fazio virtually disappeared from competi-

that. Brown was a tough guy. But if you stood up to him, he liked you.” George never forgot that. For better—and for worse—he displayed that demeanor for the rest of his life.

tion—just a senior event here and a benefit there. Pebble Beach? The Masters? The Open—where he famously lost a playoff to Hogan at Merion in 1950 before posting topfive finishes in 1952 and 1953? They would just have to proceed without the Fabulous Faz.

to time and family, and settled into other orbits of the

Until Bing Crosby made an offer that George was

game. “What are you going to do,” he reasoned, “hit golf

genetically incapable of refusing: Come back again to

balls for the rest of your life?”

Pebble Beach and see your name etched into history with

By then, George had much bigger things in mind anyway, and playing golf for a living wasn’t enough for

the greatest golfers of your generation. How could anyone say no to that?

him. “I’m not saying it’s wrong,” he’d explain, “but for me it was boring. You should do six or eight or twenty

✧

things in a lifetime.” Two were already teasing his dreams and firing his imagination.

IN NOVEMBER OF 1967,

Der Bingle announced an addition

tohis annual Clambake coming up in January: the dedica-

The first—the idea of the golf course itself—had fas-

tion of the Bing Crosby Hall of Fame. On January 13th,

cinated him from his earliest golfing steps. The artist in

he would unveil a pair of impressive bronze plaques on

Fazio was captivated by the aesthetics; the golfer in him

a wall at the Del Monte Lodge near the entrance to the

was drawn to the strategic questions it posed. And he was

golf course. One would preserve the names of the win-

always drawn by the thrall of nature. He found he could

ning professionals, the other would salute each victorious

weave those strands by designing golf courses; by the mid-

team. Crosby invited all living past champions to the cer-

’60s, he’d already coaxed an impressive portfolio from

emony, and the roster was stellar. Hogan. Snead. Dema-

the landscape, including the host course for the 1967 U.S.

ret. Nelson. Jackie Burke Jr. Cary Middlecoff. Lloyd

Women’s Open, Moselem Springs, 75 miles northwest of

Mangrum. Billy Casper. Ken Venturi. Jack Nicklaus, the

C O U R S E

O F

reigning defender. And, naturally, the first of them all to

T H E I R

O W N

Ford. No George, no Clambake.

be crowned at Pebble Beach—George Fazio. ]Nothing

Before their drinks had been downed, they were

could keep George away, but he wanted something more

reliving the miseries they’d all suffered through the years

than seeing his name on a wall. If he was going back, he

battling nature’s whims on the Pacific rim, and the way

was going back to play in the event one last time. And if

Ford resurrected the conversation years later, all agreed:

George was going to play, Bill Ford was coming to play

Why play in these kinds of conditions when there are fair-

with him.

weather alternatives from coast to coast?

The veterans comported themselves equitably on

That was the opening Faz—his crazy dream perco-

the golf course. Fazio rebounded from a pair of mediocre

lating for so long—had been waiting for. “We ought to

rounds to card a sterling 72 on Saturday to barely miss

build our own course someplace sunny and warm,” he

the cut—at 54 years of age and counting—in the marquee

suggested.

endeavor. Together, though, Fazio and Ford played them-

Ford bit. OK, where?

selves into the final round of the Pro-Am, finishing just

Each stuck a pin in an imaginary map: San Diego, Texas, Arizona, the Midwest

outside the top ten. But that’s not the story. This

maybe, even the East Coast. To

is—and its repercussions resonate

insure all corners of the country

still.

had been checked, Florida was called front and center, too.

This was the rare Clambake where Crosby weather was bless-

Ford demurred. “Florida’s

edly absent from the four days of

been done,” he said. “Semi-

play, but the rains were so hella-

nole’s been in existence for many

cious early in the week they stirred

years”—like Coleman, Ford was

memories of golf not as a game

a member—“and we aren’t going

but as an ordeal, and George, as

to top that.” And that was that, at least

he later recalled, “decided that

in Ford’s mind. “It was a pleas-

going out in the cold, forty-mileper-hour wind and shivering and

Dummy copy for a caption

having long underwear” was no longer for him, and

ant dinner conversation,” he

remembered, “but I didn’t take it seriously.”

made that clear to a choice group of the event’s war-

George did.

horses—longtime friends all—over dinner together. Ford

The seed that would blossom into Jupiter Hills had

was at the table. So was the colorful Demaret, who didn’t

been planted.

play that week. Burke, another Green Jacket winner, was

So, consider, again, the serendipity of it all. What if

there, too, beside his pro-am partner George Coleman,

George had stayed home as a kid instead of shouldering

a great confidante of both Crosby’s and Hogan’s and

a golf bag? What if he hadn’t taken to the game? What

the future president of Seminole. “I’m not coming out

if he had missed that bogey putt on the final hole of the

again,” George told the assembled. “I’m giving you my

Clambake? What if there were no Calcutta at the Green-

swansong,” and suggested that Ford, who was thirteen

brier? What if Crosby hadn’t built his wall? And what if

years younger, should find himself “a young buck pro

Faz had no Ford in his past, his present and his future?

who can stand this weather.” Not a chance, countered

Then, again, perhaps it was just meant to be.

CHAPTER TWO

Designing a Future ✧

IKE ALL SERIOUS GOLFERS,

✧

George Fazio had his opinions about the golf courses he played—what

he liked, what he didn’t, what challenged him, what made him suffer, the tracks he loved playing, and the ones he avoided like double bogeys. And like serious golfers of his time, what he did with those opinions was share them with his golfing fraternity, but otherwise, he kept his preferences

and prejudices to himself. Players weren’t designing courses then. Still, the evidence of his thinking is there for the finding. Coming out of Philadelphia as he did, George had a splendid set of benchmarks to guide him and certain clear standards to help form his ideals: Pine Valley, Merion, Aronimink, Philadelphia Country Club, Philadelphia Cricket Club, Whitemarsh Valley, Huntingdon Valley—and that’s just for starters. The Philadelphia area is rich with architectural bloodlines; there’s no finer concentration of creations whittled by the masters of golf design’s acknowledged Golden Age. Donald Ross, Hugh Wilson, A. W. Tillinghast, William Flynn, George Crump, and George Thomas; George was surrounded by them. Three of the five formative clubs—Plymouth Meeting, Jeffersonville, and Cedarbrook—that launched his career as a professional before he settled in at Pine Valley bore the bylines of Ross and Flynn. ABOVE: William Flynn, Byron Nelson and Ben Hogan. OPPOSITE: Pine Valley No. 10 photo

D E SI G N I N G

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Could he have come under the influence of a more

F U T U R E

all the time. He had to create something. I think normal golf just bored him.”

distinguished faculty? The cream of the courses that George grew up play-

Just as anything but the exquisite designs he grew

ing fit the land beautifully and encouraged his aesthetic.

up on bored him. And as the courses he grew up on

"Trust the land and the course to find each other," he liked

inspired and fostered George’s approach to the game, his

to say; it became his architectural mantra. Those courses

approach to the game, in turn, inspired and fostered his

encouraged something else from George; they encouraged

own approach to coaxing the game’s playing fields from

him to develop the game that he did. A game

the landscape.

of strategy. And thought. And options.

The perfectionist. The artist. The

It was a game that could be played on the

visionary and dreamer. They were all in

ground as well as through the air, a game

place when opportunity knocked. By then, after all, he was who he

that rewarded smart risks, but extracted less than a pound of flesh for an error.

was.

It’s no surprise that he played well at

Though George began tinkering in

Pebble Beach and Merion, and that four

design in his forties, he didn’t fully step

of his five Philadelphia Open victories

into the parade until he was about to turn

came on layouts imagined by Wilson,

fifty. In that era, designing golf courses

Ross, and Flynn. The way they interpreted

wasn’t part of a tour player’s to-do list,

golf inspired George, then brought out his

even a tour player whose career had

best. The takeaway was heartening for

wound down, and there was no smooth

a player with more finesse than power:

entrée into the field, as there would be

A golfer and golf course in tune with each

in the decades to come. The fact is that

other is as robust a weapon as a 300-yard

in George’s playing heyday right on

drive.

through the late 1960s, professional golf-

When the time finally came for

ers left the designing to the designers—the

George to try his hand at the architect’s

Robert Trent Joneses, the Dick Wilsons,

craft, he didn’t forget where he came

the Geoffrey Cornishes, and the Gordons

from—nor could he fight his own nature.

(father William and son David). Architec-

As a golfer, he was a perfectionist on an endless quest for the elusive keys that

ture was not then an avenue that the pros looked toward actively pursuing.

would unlock the door into mastering the maddening

Until George, by default, established a path.

endeavor he had chosen for himself. He was also a golfer

“He was the first to make the transition in a sig-

blessed—or is it cursed?—with a surfeit of artistry and

nificant way,” maintains Ron Whitten, Golf Digest’s

initiative.

longtime architecture editor and co-author of The Golf

“He just couldn’t bring himself to play a straight

Course, the bible in terms of the history of the field. “His

shot,” recalled Jimmy Demaret, “and he played that way

early success, I believe, gave others”—Jack Nicklaus,

ABOVE: Robert Trent Jones , Dick Wilson, Geoffrey Cornish. OPPOSITE: ??? Country Club, Donald Ross ( below left), A.W. Tillinghast

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Arnold Palmer, Tom Weiskopf, Gary Player, and Peter

person than a Michelangelo,” he liked to say, “because

Thompson, major champions all—“the confidence that

Da Vinci was more versatile.” Not all of his caps hung

they could make the transition, too.”

on the golf course; when the right opportunity presented

George didn’t have much choice about it. Like his

itself, George simply donned another as a complement

entry into the game as a caddie so many years before, he

to, and an extension of, his life in golf. Everybody in

was tossed in to sink or swim, latched on for the ride, and

Philadelphia knew of George Fazio. His name was his

became an important influence at a critical time in the

best advertisement. He was happy to use it wherever and

evolution of the craft.

however he could.

How he found his way there, then found his way, is both a process and a story.

When he returned to Philadelphia after his post-war stint in Los Angeles and was shown an opportunity in scrap metal by one of his golfing friends, he hopped in—

✧

and brought his brothers with him. “I enjoyed it no end,”

✧

he admitted later, “because I don’t like to throw things GEORGE WAS A MAN OF MANY CAPS,

and was never shy about

wearing any of them. “I would rather be a Da Vinci-type

away.” A dabbler in real estate before the war, George

ABOVE: George and family

This is dummy copy for a caption

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As a man of golf, there were times that the good of golf overrode the drive of commerce for George. In 1955, Charlie Sifford ( left) needed a car. Sifford had come north from North Carolina in the 1940s, settled in Philadelphia, and playing largely out of Cobbs Creek, turned professional in 1948. The premier African American player in the country, he won the Negro National Open six times. He wanted to step up to the PGA Tour and a car was essential, so he approached George. George understood the obstacles Sifford faced in those times; a car shouldn’t be one of them. George sold him a new Ford for $500, well

began buying and selling property more seriously, look-

below his own cost, taking no money down. “I told him I would pay him back,” Sifford later recalled. George knew he

ing to the future. He saw development on the horizon,

would—and Sifford did.

and what was over the horizon fascinated him.

“He was a good man,” Sifford added.

Then, in the early 1950s, Bill Ford, his pro-am part-

Sifford repaid the debt in more than cash. He drove off

ner, staked him to a car dealership; Fazio Ford in Con-

the lot in Conshohocken and down the highway to become

shohocken became the go-to place for Philadelphians with golfing connections to buy their cars. “George didn’t know much about the car business,” says nephew Tom

the first African American with full status on the Tour in 1961 and the first to win on Tour—the Hartford Open—in 1967. In 2004, he became the first African American inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, and in 2014, the year

Fazio, “but he was a celebrity. He was a name.” And

before his death, Charlie Sifford received the Presidential

as Bill Ford’s friend, he had pull. Tom remembers when

Medal of Freedom.

the Ford Thunderbird was unveiled in 1955. “It was a hot car. Each dealer was allocated only a couple.” But

of sports broadcasting. Before his unmistakable voice

George’s friends knew George had connections. “They

emanated through TV screens from Super Bowls, rac-

would call George, and George would make a call and

ing’s Triple Crown, and the Masters, Whitaker earned his television stripes in the dawn of the Eisen-

get them a car.”

hower era on a ten-minute local Philadelphia

George’s popularity—celebrity even— in his home town was hard to put a price

sports show. “Golf was just beginning

on. His domination of the Philadelphia

to bloom,” Whitaker recalls. Off the

Open notwithstanding, it was his loss to

air, he sought out George for lessons—

Ben Hogan at Merion in the 1950 U.S.

“He looked like he was just swinging through the air, and that was his personal-

Open that cemented his position as a Philadelphia sporting icon, the local David coming so close to pulling off the impossible

Jack Whitacker caption to go here and more caption here

upset that his loss locked him into the city’s

ity,” says Whitaker. George took a shine to the budding TV star. “George knew everybody and introduced me to everybody.”

generally critical sporting heart. “It really raised his pro-

One night Whitaker brought the pro on the show to give

file,” stresses Tom.

a lesson. “I never had such mail in my life,” Whitaker

Just listen to Jack Whitaker, the incomparable poet

remembers. George returned to the show from time to

D E S I G N I N G

F U T U R E

time, and would sometimes bring a few friends along.

included two other munis under the commission’s

The night he brought Bob Hope, Whitaker’s ten minutes

umbrella—to install a Cold War anti-aircraft site. The

of air time expanded to ninety. “George was like a guru.

jewel that once hosted the U.S. Amateur Public Links

He found people and people found him.”

and a pair of Negro National Championships needed a miracle worker.

✧

George was the obvious choice. His bona fides were

✧

impeccable. At forty-two, his touring career was winding TAKE THE MEMBERS of

Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park Com-

down. And his name had cachet.

mission. They found George at the end of 1954, and

“He was the figurehead leader of golf in Philadel-

made him an offer that vibrated with his dream of being

phia,” explains nephew Tom. “He wasn’t just the best

the man in charge.

golfer in the district, he was the best known.” Which is why the city beckoned its favor-

In the late 1930s, George had become part-

ite-son golfer-cum-scrap-metal dealer-cum-

ners with two fellow pros—Bud Lewis, who

car salesman to don a new cap—as

George worked under at Jeffersonville

the Park Commission’s special con-

Golf Club, and Jack Gately, an assistant at nearby Manufacturers Golf

sultant on golf. His charge was

and Country Club—in the City

broad: to inject new vision onto

Line Driving Range just west of

a structurally superb golf course

the Philadelphia border across

and the way it should be run. The commission hoped the

the fence from one of the nation’s

Fazio name alone would resurrect

municipal gems: Cobbs Creek Golf

interest in Cobbs Creek and its two

Club. They liked City Line enough to

sister courses, with Cobbs clearly the

team up again on an indoor range and golf school on Center City’s bustling Market Street before constructing one from

Wilson caption to go here and more caption here

priority. In George’s career as a head professional in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and suburban Washington, D.C., he’d kept golf

scratch together opposite the Donald Ross course in Jeffersonville. “We were taking in $200 a day

operations humming, but his brief from the commission

selling those little buckets of balls,” said George. “The

was asking for more. George would oversee the golf, run

bank presidents in Philadelphia weren’t taking in $200

the facility, minister to the grounds, and play the car-

a day.” George liked the money. And he certainly liked

nival barker. The dreamer in George was on overdrive.

the control.

His confidence was so high that when the appointment

When the Park Commission came calling with a

was announced, he predicted that Cobbs Creek would

$15,000-a-year offer to hop the fence and resurrect the

be hosting a significant professional event before 1955

shabby but still chic Cobbs Creek, he smelled both.

was out.

He kept his word.

1916, the course had fallen on hard times. Rounds were

By early March, he had rebuilt most of the tee boxes

down. Bald spots pervaded. Greens were exhausted and

and introduced new Bermuda grass, then kept right on,

the tees compact and bare. And this, too: The U.S. Army

figuring out how it’s done step-by-step with every stage.

had annexed roughly 15 percent of the property—which

Given the loss of land to the army, he reconfigured the

T H E

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routing, adding 500 new yards of length. He moved

his more familiar headwear as a player he finished

several greens and conceived a new hole with a hillside

respectably—in the top twenty—a considerable achieve-

tee box. Fred Byrod, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s golf-

ment for a forty-two-year-old with so much on his plate.

writing fixture, was duly impressed. George, he wrote,

George continued at Cobbs Creek for another

“has jumped into his new job with the enthusiasm of a kid

year, calling shots, tinkering with the golf course, and

for a new toy. If he accom-

rebuilding a trio of greens

plishes half of what he is

that floods washed away.

talking about, it will be a

When the Daily News Open

major achievement.”

Invitational returned in June

George

didn’t

dis-

1956, Tournament Director

appoint. As

Fazio called in a few chips, the

commission

luring marquee names like

had hoped, under George’s

newly crowned U.S. Open

purview receipts were up con-

champion Cary Middlecoff,

siderably in 1955, and Cobbs

Jimmy Demaret, and reign-

Creek reaped its share of

ing PGA titleist Doug Ford.

hosannas for improved conditioning. In September, a

Even Bob Hope joined the fun; George lured him into

fair sampling of the nation’s top pros encamped on the

conducting an exhibition and playing in the pro-am.

property for the $20,000 inaugural playing of the Daily

George again finished in the top twenty.

News Open Invitational Golf Tournament with George

Cobbs Creek may not have been Pine Valley, but it

donning still another cap: tournament director. Under

was both a milestone and a stepping stone on George’s

ABOVE: Cobb Creek Golf Course caption here. INSET: Bob Hope uses a basketball to puts on 13th green at the Cobb Creek during the 1946 Daily News Open practice round. Watching Hope (left to right) are Fred Hawkins, Jimmy McHale, George Fazio, and the current U.S. Open Champion Cary Middlecof.

D E S I G N I N G

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résumé. It gave him a chance to feel what it might be like

them until he lost his lease in 1967 when the township’s

to be a John Arthur Brown. It also whet his appetite for

Board of Commissioners decided he was running their

leaving his mark on the landscape.

establishment like his fiefdom.

He was an architect in formation.

But by then, he’d become an industry. Using Flourtown as his base, he began sending out

✧

tentacles. In 1959, he took over Langhorne Country Club, in Bucks County, in another lease agreement—with an

in late 1956 for a final full-

option to buy—and like Flourtown, he went on a build-

time fling on the Tour before hanging up that cap for

ing spree. A new swimming pool. An overhaul of the club-

GEORGE LEFT HIS CONSULTANCY

good when an intriguing new

house. And a major renovation

opportunity came calling in

of Alexander Findlay’s dated

1958, courtesy of the Pennsyl-

design.

vania Department of Trans-

lengthened the layout, rebuilt

portation, which had opted to

seven holes to mitigate their

drive a state road through the

steepness, and, in general, over-

heart of the Ross golf course at

laid it with a mid-century look

Sunnybrook Golf Club, north

for a mid-century clientele.

George

substantially

of Philadelphia in Flourtown,

Which isn’t the same as

condemning enough property to

building from scratch. Like writing and editing, the two share enough

obliterate, in effect, half of the layout.

genetic building block to be classed

A bastion of privilege and prestige

in the same general genus, but they

since the day it debuted eighteen in

are different species altogether.

1915, the club was forced to move,

Which George was about to

but the township was intent on

find out.

salvaging the fifty-one acres that

The hard way.

remained as a semi-private facility. George was brought in—and given a stake in its success as the leaseholder.

✧

Once again, opportunity opened a door and necessity drove his vision. To draw

“YOU MIGHT SAY,”

wrote the Inquirer’s Byrod

membership, he needed the kind of amenities the new

in 1980, “George Fazio got into golf architecture by

Flourtown Country Club lacked, so he’d have to build

coercion.”

them, which he did, overseeing the addition of a mod-

Byrod was looking back at George’s birth as a

ern dining room and lounge to the venerable stone club-

designer of eighteen holes he could call his own, back

house, three swimming pools, basketball and volleyball

to 1961, and the formation of Atlantis Country Club

courts, a picnic area, and a children’s playground. All of

in southern New Jersey. Once again, connections made

that was expensive—an early flash of George’s free hand

through golf forged the link. A couple of golfing friends

with someone else’s money—and it ate into the nine holes

were intent on developing 1,200 acres in Tuckerton, north

he had—so he rebuilt them, then regularly tinkered with

of Atlantic City, and had hired an architect to design the

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golf course central to the project. With the plans drawn

construction. The harmony with nature. The long, soft

and the land staked, they asked George to come down

flowing lines. The sweeping bunker faces. The reliance of

for a look.

strategy over punishment. The embrace of the architec-

George loved the land. But he wasn’t at all impressed

tural classicism he grew up on.

with the concept imposed upon it. Which relieved his friends;

“George was never a breakthrough architect,”

they weren’t either. “So,” George recalled, “one night after

explains Golf Digest’s Whitten. No, he wasn’t. But from

four or five drinks they kept saying to me, ‘You do it.’ I kept

his first work forward, he was a breakwater battling the

saying I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to be bothered, it was

hard par-easy bogey demands instituted by what was

hard for me to do because I’d never

then architecture’s prevailing cur-

done it. They said, ‘Yeah, you can be

rent: Robert Trent Jones. “Trent was

critical, but doing it is different.’ ”

always trying to trap everybody,”

That night, he drove back from

says Whitten. “George was always

Tuckerton to his office at Flourtown

trying to give you a preferred line.

with the development’s land plan. He grabbed some gray velox paper, headed down to the dance floor, and spread out paper all around him. “I got down on my knees, “he’d recall, “and drew out the topo of the golf 40

H I L L S

course. It took me six or seven hours to chart it, because I didn’t know how wide fairways were supposed to be and stuff like that. I had to recall all my knowledge of golf courses I’d played. And I’ll tell you, my knees were killing me when I got through. That dance floor was hard.”

ONCE THE DESIGNING bug hit, it hit hard. George would design anything. Perhaps the oddest of his early projects was the seventy-eight-acre Bristolwood Golf Ranch on the Delaware River south of Langhorne. Conceived in 1963 as the centerpiece of what the local papers called a sprawling entertainment “mecca for Bucks County,” it consisted of an eighteen-hole executive course, an eighteen-hole chip and putt, an eighteen-hole miniature course, and a forty-five-bay driving range. It disappeared when urban development played through in the late 1970s.

But he had trusted the land

He went on to have a pretty important impact on the game and on the profession of golf architecture.” Whitten

was

leader

acknowledging that fact. When he joined forces with architect Geoffrey Cornish to write The Golf Course in 1983, he tapped George, along with Pete Dye and Desmond Muirhead, as part of a postJones—though Jones was still alive and working in his late seventies then—triumvirate that had turned into a “major force of influence in the field.” Jones employed fea-

and course to find each other, and when he stood up, he

tures like forced carries and perched greens—angled

was looking at his—his—conception for Atlantis, which

to the line of flight—with sentinels of sand standing

opened in 1962. More than Cobbs, more than Flourtown,

guard at their entrances. He liked narrow fairways that

more than Langhorne, it was his incubator, his labora-

dictated to players how his holes were best played. He

tory, and his canvas. Mining what he knew, he rediscov-

called his style “the heroic school”; George, Dye, and

ered in the recesses of his mind what hours before had

Muirhead responded with alternatives.

seemed like a lost continent. Over the next year, he raised Atlantis.

By the time George stepped onto the land that would become Jupiter Hills, “it had become apparent,”

The eighteen holes George laid into the land bore

Whitten wrote in 1983, “that by a progression of works

the seeds of the features he would return to and improve

he had developed into a fine classical course architect.”

upon through the rest of his career. The frugality in

His works fit the land—“Trust the land and course to

D E S I G N I N G

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GEORGE WAS AN early believer in horses for courses, or in this case, higher degrees of difficulty for better players and vice versa. At Hidden Springs Golf Course north of Philadelphia, he deliberately designed one of the eighteens as a more stringent test. “A novel innovation to speed up play on the Professional course, which has 15 water holes,” enthused the Philadelphia Inquirer when it opened, “will restrict play to golfers with handicaps of 20 or less.” George conceived Jupiter Hills as the apotheosis of that bifurcated approach.

find each other,” George would say again and again; more than that, his works appeared to have always been part of the land. Finding that fit, that exquisite intersection of man and nature had become paramount for him. “A golf course cannot be built artificially and be beautiful to my eyes,” he insisted. “It has to have a line, a roll, a look. It must fit in with the environment and climactic conditions. I look hard before I change anything nature has created.” For George, then, nature revealed almost limitless

Filtered through George’s imagination, they remained as

possibility. He relished its beauty, certainly. But he also

relevant and fascinating as ever. “Especially Flynn,” says

relished the way its twists and turns and humps and

Whitten. “You can see the influence on George so clearly.

bumps encouraged the kind of variety in design—and

Flynn was more for the big bold bunkers, but they were

strategy—that could engage a golfer’s imagination from

amorphous forms with soft edges. There was nothing

first tee to final green. There’s an enigma at the heart of

rugged or fingery or ‘dunesy’ like Mackenzie or Tilling-

good architecture, and George, who would stand in the

hast. Flynn liked to flash his sand where Ross liked to

middle of the fairway, as Demaret said, and think up six

grass face, especially in the Philadelphia area.”

ways to hit a simple iron shot, understood it better than most: if the mysteries reveal themselves too quickly, golf-

✧

ers will quickly lose interest. He etched that into every one of his courses.

BETWEEN ATLANTIS AND JUPITER HILLS,

Fazio and his growing

Which is why, Witten emphasized, “They were chal-

skills were in ready demand. Working out of his upstairs

lenging without being repetitious. One Fazio hole might

office in Flourtown, then another in nearby Fort Wash-

feature a huge bunker in the inside corner of a dogleg and

ington, George turned himself into both an industry that

a tightly bunkered green. The next might feature a trap

designed and built courses and a family business that intro-

on the outside of a bunker and a green devoid of sand.”

duced his older brother Sal’s sons—Jim and Tom—to their

Ross, Tillinghast, and Flynn had taught him well.

futures. “Had Uncle George won at Merion,” Tom still

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

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With Squires Golf Club, George hoped to better his John Arthur Brown dream by owning—not just designing—a golf course. Conceived as a public course on 140 acres, the project hit a money wall during construction. George’s chief investor, Bill Elliott, a longtime Fazio friend and a later essential to the founding of Jupiter Hills, helped broker the sale that allowed George to finish the job, though it meant losing control. When it opened as a private club in 1964, Squires was unique for its time; it was men only with no religious , ethnic or sartorial restrictions. It encouraged the wearing of shorts and even made shirts on the course nothing more than an option. Waynesborough Country Club never traversed the same path of informality, but its evolution displays similar footprints. Once again, George found the land and began the process fully intending to own and operate. Once again, the money got tight. And, once again, a project George hoped to retain ownership rights in was, through Elliott’s saving intervention, bought out. The truth about George is that he was never good with money; his vision was always grander than his wherewithal, especially in the early years. “We were always trying to jiggle,” nephew Tom concedes, to the point that the Fazios developed a knack for when creditors were calling. “I’d have to not answer the phone sometimes.”

likes to say, “maybe he wouldn’t have been a golf course

Uncle George,” Tom remembers. “You had to be there

architect, and I’d have spent my life bagging groceries.”

every day. There was no time off. And you got paid the

Which would have made for a less time-consuming life. But a less interesting one, too. 42

bare minimum. That’s just the way it was.” Jim, two and a half years older than Tom, began

One generation removed from the Old World itself,

working for George first. He’d gone off to Penn State

George was decidedly old school in his approach to the

to study agronomy after high school but came back a

new world around him. He saw business as a family

semester later when their father Sal had a heart attack;

affair. A family business, in George’s thinking, could keep

Jim joined George at Flourtown in 1960. Like Sal—

family connected, could keep family members employed,

who George later installed as the head pro at Lang-

and could teach the next generation a trade. A family

horne—Jim was a golfer, and a good one, so entering

business also supplied a ready, if not always willing, pool

the golf world wasn’t much of a stretch. He learned the

of labor, and because that labor was young and starting

nuts and bolts of course construction on George’s ear-

out, it was industrious enough to prove itself and less

liest jobs—at Atlantis and Kimberton Golf Course near

expensive than it might otherwise be. And, being family,

Valley Forge—before overseeing the work at George’s

it would likely get the job done. That was also ingrained

first acknowledged standouts, Squires Golf Club, in

in George’s thinking.

Ambler, eight miles north of Philadelphia and, nearer

“George always needed a right-hand man,” explains

to Reading, Moselem Springs. In 1964, Jim joined the

Tom. “George wasn’t really a businessman. He just did

navy. He got married when he got out, worked on one

things his way. He wants to play golf. He wants to hit

final project for George—the thirty-six-hole Hidden

balls. He wasn’t the kind of guy who liked going to an

Springs Golf Course in Horsham, adjacent to the run-

office and working in an office every day. We had a lot of

ways of the Willow Grove Naval Air Station north of

responsibility under George.”

Philadelphia—and stayed there when it opened in 1968,

Not surprisingly, then, George worked his nephews hard. “It was seven days a week when you worked for

as head pro and general manager. Tom began with his uncle in 1962. He had just finished

D E S I G N I N G

F U T U R E

high school and George was building Squires. Unlike his

he’d be in a hurry to leave, to go play golf with one of

brother, Tom wasn’t a dedicated golfer, but he’d caddied

his friends. We’d be walking together, and he’d be say-

for his father on Sundays—“If he didn’t win, I didn’t get

ing, ‘Do this, do that, put a bunker in here, put a bun-

paid,” Tom remembers—and learned the game under

ker in there,’ and an hour and a half later he’d get into

his father’s tutelage at Langhorne and the range he ran nearby. More important to George, Tom could man a shovel. Soon, he learned to operate equipment; the

the car, and I’d try to hold him around as long as I could. He rolls the window down. I’m walking beside the car and he’s still saying, ‘Do this, do that.’ And he’s

contractor at Moselem Springs

got one foot on the brake and one

taught him how to move dirt. And

foot on the gas, and he’s driving

he was good at doing what he was

down the driveway and he keeps

told to do. George’s work sites had

telling me to do this, do that, and

a hierarchy, with George at the tip

I’m going, ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ and

of the spear in title and in charge of the big picture. “But Jim was in charge here,” says Tom. “I worked for Jim and Jim worked for George.” Tom clearly remembers the daily routine.

the last thing before he released the brake and stepped on the gas was, ‘Don’t forget to work ’til dark tonight.’ That’s just who he was.” Even so, Tom is quick to add gratefully, “George was

“Uncle George would come into the project to see

my high school and college.”

how it was going”—making sure his plans were being

And graduate school, too, as he continued honing

correctly interpreted and his directions followed—“and

the skills—from where to place a bunker to how skilled

ABOVE: Moselum springs caption INSET: Demaret and Burke caption.

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Less than a year after the Jackrabbit course opened at Champions Golf Club, famed golf writer Dan Jenkins wrote a long two-parter for Sports Illustrated, later published in book form as The Best 18 Holes in America. Naturally, Jenkins’s mythical golf course included holes from Merion, Baltusrol, Pine Valley, Oakmont, Augusta, Seminole, Winged Foot, and Pebble Beach. It also included the par-5 ninth hole at Jackrabbit, “as sporting a ninth hole,” suggested Jenkins, “as the country can offer.” Those words formed the biggest early feather in George’s design cap. “It helped cement a reputation for us,” says Tom. Jenkins loved the hole’s overall feel of Pine Valley—the tee was tucked down an alley of pines—the tri-level green and the daring strategic adventure the hole posed. If multi-tiered putting surface and the Pine Valley sensibility sound like forerunners of what George laid down at Jupiter Hills, consider this, too: Jack Burke and Jimmy Demaret conceived their club strictly for golf and golfers. As Burke stressed at the time, “We’re wasting no money on fancy ballrooms and dining rooms with a lot of idle waiters standing around.” Pine Valley’s John Arthur Brown could have hardly expressed it better.

players navigate a layout—he would need to go forward

Tahoe, Webb’s new resort in Stateline, Nevada. This was

under his uncle, who continued to raise his own mas-

a high-profile project and a well-funded enterprise. Mag-

tery over the next several years creating highly praised

nificently situated on the shore of Lake Tahoe with the

courses—like Coral Harbor in the Bahamas and Jackrab-

Sierras as an eye-popping backdrop, Edgewood Tahoe

bit for his friends Demaret and Jack Burke at Champions

took on a deeper significance for George personally when

Golf Club in Houston. While Jim was busy overseeing

his wife Mary died during the construction phase. Golf

construction in Houston, Tom got his first chance to run

Digest quickly identified it as one of the best new courses

the show at Waynesborough, outside Philadelphia. “I

in the nation on its opening in 1968. “It put us on the

was just nineteen years old,” he says. “I did the hiring.

national map,” says Tom with pride.

I signed the checks.” He also helped his uncle with the

If, as Tom described it, when George began focusing

routing. “George was the boss, but I was the head guy.”

on design and construction at the top of the 1960s, “he

Tom reveled in the position and responsibilities. “I was in

did it with smoke and mirrors,” by the end of the decade,

charge. I was multi-tasking. Where else can a kid get out

though his dreams remained off in the clouds, the foun-

of high school and have that?”

dation beneath his feet as an architect was solid. George

Four years later, that hierarchy was intact when

knew what he was doing. He knew what he wanted. He

another George friend, Del Webb, the construction mag-

was all in. “When I go to bed now,” he’d later reveal in

nate who co-owned the New York Yankees, tapped the

words that ring like a manifesto, “I never think about

Fazios to design and build the eighteen holes of Edgewood

the golf swing anymore. Sometimes, I can’t go to sleep,

D E S I G N I N G

F U T U R E

thinking about the land. How can I orient that green?

now had a more than capable sidekick in Tom who—

How can I angle this fairway? Every piece of land has a

despite no formal training—could run the business side

personality, and when I’m designing courses, it’s just me

of the business and was picking up more and more of

and that ground. It gets to me. You see, I don’t want to

what went into good golf design and the nuts and bolts

build it the way someone else would. I want to build it as

of construction every day.

I want it, the way I see it.”

Finding work was no longer an issue. The work

So, if George had once believed, as he told the Brit-

found George. What he still hadn’t found yet was the per-

ish golf writer Ben Wright, “I was such an egomaniac

fect piece of land to infuse with everything he had learned

that I thought designing courses would be easy,” time

about the art of what makes a great golf course from the

and reality had disabused him of that notion, so much

great golf courses he had grown up on and everything he

so that, as his successes piled up, he grew secure enough

had learned about the craft of how to build them.

to draw from a more circumspect well. “I don’t think I’m any good at [course design],” he’d say candidly, “but I

How fortuitous, then, for fate to step in and point him towards Florida.

don’t see anybody who’s better.” Equally significant, he

Edgewood Tahoe caption

CHAPTER THREE

The Hills Are Alive ✧

F THE ESSENCE OF FATE,

✧

carries implications of right place, right time, and right circum-

stances, then this inference is worth mulling over: Fate had an eye out for George Fazio. What better explanation can there be? The same fortuitous shifting of spheres that aligned Pebble Beach in 1947 to Pebble

Beach in 1968 were still shifting, luring Fazio to Florida that fall. Though his design business was continuing to build, his office was fixed in Philadelphia. With the occasional foray farther afield, so was most of his work. But the dreamer within him was restless. He was about to turn fifty-six. He wanted something tangible, something that he could be identified with, something—well—grander than regularly hanging his white cap in a small office in Fort Washington. He sensed that the most lucrative opportunities going forward weren’t going to be in southeastern Pennsylvania, or anywhere in Pennsylvania at all. But where? The demographics were clear. With the nation’s population following the sun, Fazio

figured the time might be right to pack up the business and follow along. But to where? California looked promising. So did Arizona. Florida, certainly. Knowing he had friends and connections in all those ports of call, he set out exploring. Which is why he found himself on the golf course in the fall of 1968 playing a casual eighteen holes with a couple of friends in North Palm Beach. Right place. Right time. Right circumstances.

WAS THERE EVER A YEAR QUITE LIKE 1968? The Smithsonian dubbed it “The Year That Shattered America.” Beyond just a date, those four digits have come down to us as a signpost marking an unforgettable twelve months of historic events and cultural shifts, remarkable human achievement, and unbearable human tragedy. LBJ announced he wouldn’t seek another term, George Wallace made a serious bid for the office, and Richard Nixon won the job. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated. The Democratic National Convention turned Chicago into a combat zone; Walter Cronkite deemed the city a police state. North Korea seized the USS Pueblo, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive, and the Prague Spring briefly blossomed before the Soviet Union sent tanks into Czechoslovakia. Students sat-in at Columbia University and stormed the streets of Paris. Hair opened on Broadway. 60 Minutes debuted on TV. Boeing rolled out the 747. Hollywood unveiled 2001: A space Oddessey. The Beatles released The White Album. Yale voted to admit women; Vassar voted to admit men. Pope Paul VI reinforced a ban on artificial contraception. O. J. Simpson took home the Heisman. Arthur Ashe won tennis’s first U.S. Open, and Lee Trevino prevailed over golf’s sixty-eighth. Olympians raised fists in protest. The world was introduced to the mouse and the word processor. Apollo 8 astronauts became the first human beings to orbit the moon—and the first to witness the awe of an Earthrise 230,000 miles from home. The past is not just prologue. It’s also context. And this was a part of the world at the time.

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Early golf in Palm Beach.

✧

Membership in any one of them was a privilege, and

✧

access didn’t come with knuckles rapping on doors; if life FROM DELRAY BEACH TO HOBE SOUND, the

Atlantic coast was

a beckoning patch of potential.

blessed you with the right bloodline, the right name, the right school, the right marriage, and the right career, you

Though there wasn’t nearly as much golf then

might—might—be invited in. They were the clubs that

in place as there is today, the golf that was there was

infused the perception of golf on the Gold Coast as a

as choice as it was exclusive: Gulf Stream Golf Club,

chic pastime dressed in white linen, draped in status, and

Seminole Golf Club, and The Ever-

dripping with cachet.

glades Club, for starters, on the route

In 1961, Pine Tree Golf Club in

running north from Palm Beach County

Boynton Beach, a decidedly new kid on

toward Martin County. These were old

the block with impeccable, if modern,

clubs, traditional clubs, and perennials

pedigree joined that exclusive rota. No

on golfers’ bucket lists. Born in the teens

less a perfectionist than Ben Hogan

and ’20s, they reflected the wealth and

anointed its Dick Wilson-designed

joie de vivre that fashioned themselves

eighteen as the greatest flat course in

to the nation’s image of this strip of

the solar system.

the Florida coastline as a winter refuge for northern society. These were clubs with

extraordinary

Beyond them? The Gold Coast of Wilson at Pine Tree

pedigrees—golf

1968 was not yet the golfing oasis it would become.

courses by Donald Ross and Seth Raynor, clubhouses by

Ross had built a sporty course for a hotel on eighty

Addison Mizner and Marion Wyeth, and founders like

swampy acres in 1917; it was resurrected as the Palm

broker E. F. Hutton, sewing machine heir Paris Singer,

Beach Country Club in 1953 with its own exclusive point

and bankers Edward T. Stotesbury and Edward Shearson.

of pride: Its second-generation founders were Jews for

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whom the doors remained essentially still closed at Semi-

officially unveiled the original PGA National Golf Club.

nole and Everglades.

The posh Jupiter Island Club’s golf course had been evolv-

A threesome of courses open to the public—Lake

ing since 1916—from nine holes to fourteen in 1959 to a

Worth Golf Club, the Golf Club of Jupiter, the West Palm

full complement of eighteen in 1961—but as golf courses

Beach Golf Course—went on line in 1927, 1940, and

go, even Nathaniel Reed, son of the club’s longtime rulers

1947, respectively.

and a fine player in his day, readily admitted, “We were

Tequesta Country Club was founded in 1957 as the

still a long way from having a suitable golf course.”

centerpiece of a new planned village—Tequesta—that it

And that was pretty much it.

nestled in.

The Medalist? Loblolly? The Bear’s Club? MacAr-

Developer Llwyd Eccclestone established the Lost

thur? PGA National? Old Marsh? Frenchman’s Creek?

Tree Club in North Palm Beach in 1961 and, with it,

The Dye Preserve? Loxahatchee? Riverbend? Hobe

established the blueprint for the plethora of residential

Sound? Turtle Creek? Old Palm? Lost Lake?

golfing communities still on the far side of the horizon.

None were on the drawing boards.

Three years later, insurance and real estate titan John D. MacArthur, the envisioner of Palm Beach Gardens,

Was the Atlantic coast ripe for golf? About as ripe as a crate of honeybells prepped for shipment.

With the promise of thirty-six holes and modern new headquarters just east of Florida’s Turnpike south of PGA Boulevard, John D. MacArthur lured the PGA of America to his burgeoning Palm Beach Gardens community from Dunedin, Florida, in late 1963. When MacArthur pulled the plug on the lease ten years later, the facility was eponymously redubbed JDM Country Club. It remained JDM until its sale in 1988; it has since transformed into BallenIsles Country Club. Meanwhile, 2,340 acres of golf resort and housing developed by Llwyd Ecclestone, Jr. was beginning begun to rise up just west of the Turnpike from JDM with PGA of America Executive Director Mark Cox, a Jupiter Hills member, one of the driving forces behind it. Cox had taken his position at the PGA right after MacArthur cast them adrift. Finding a permanent home for the organization? “My only objective,” he said in 1979. In February 1981, the PGA of America moved into new headquarters—at the new PGA National—where it remained for the next twenty-seven years until announcing in 2018 plans to relocate to Frisco, Texas. PGA National’s first three courses—The Haig, The Champion, and The Squire (since renamed the Fazio Course)—all run with Fazio DNA; George and Tom designed them, with one of George’s younger brothers, Vince, involved in the construction. Though barely three years old, The Champion staged the 1983 Ryder Cup, won by the American side 14-1/2 to 13-1/2. Four years later, Larry Nelson outlasted all comers on The Champion in blistering August heat to secure his second PGA Championship, but the Fazios didn’t make it easy for him; Nelson’s 287 remains the highest winning score since the major went from match play to medal in 1958. PGA The Jupiter Hills tie to the PGA of America doesn’t stop there. Besides Cox, the club’s membership rolls have had other significant PGA connections: Leo Fraser, the organization’s president from 1969–1970; Mickey Powell, president from 1985–1986; and Joe Steranka, chief executive officer from 2005– 2012. Steranka chaired the club’s 2018 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship.

T H E

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Which is why George Fazio was at Lost Tree that

coterie of contacts—businessmen, financiers, entertain-

morning, playing golf with Leo Fraser and George Storer

ers—drawn from golf’s orbit. Storer had parlayed a sin-

and wondering where the future would take him.

gle radio station in Toledo into a communications empire that included TV stations, cable systems, even the Boston

Within twenty-four hours, he knew.

Bruins and Boston Garden. For fun, he developed golf ✧

✧

courses—a resort in Wyoming among them. George saw

✧

him as a potential client. GEORGE HAD FRIENDS EVERYWHERE,

and Leo Fraser was one

Whatever decisions Fazio may have been mulling,

of them. George’s friendships were

Fraser and Storer were good men

naturally built on golf, but they fell

to hear him out and give counsel.

into two intersecting subsets. The

After golf, they sat down for lunch

first was from golf’s nucleus—the

in the clubhouse.

professionals from back home and

And Don Moe stopped by.

on tour. These were the men he’d

AFTER WORLD WAR II, Leo Frazer bought

Everyone in golf knew Don

played with and against for years.

New Jersey’s historic but foundering Atlantic

Moe. Also a Lost Tree member,

Together, they shared the monot-

City Country Club—the terms “birdie” and

he’d heard George was around and

ony and trials of the road, and they

“eagle” both took flight there—revitalized

there was something he thought

bonded over successes and failures. Fraser was part of that fraternity. Two years older than George,

it, and presided until his death in 1986. As a friend of Fraser’s, George was a welcome habitué and a fixture in the regular exhibitions Fraser liked to stage. Bob Hope was

George should see. Moe was a jack of several trades, all beginning with his pro-

he was the son of a golf pro and a

also a familiar face at the club; he began play-

digious skills on the golf course and

golf pro himself; George and Leo

ing Atlantic City in the 1930s when he was still

the renown that came with it. His

began squaring off regularly in

touring in vaudeville. He was later tapped for

prime interest—besides continuing

sectional events as far back as the

honorary lifetime membership and was still

to chase par in his late fifties—was

mid-1930s. He served several terms

dropping by well into the 1980s.

real estate. “He was a quiet kind of

as president of the Philadelphia

guy,” remembers Tom Fazio, “but

section of the Professional Golfers’

he was doing big projects.” He thought one, in particular,

Association of America and had

would interest George.

just risen from secretary to president of the national organization,

Moe grooved his pitch. There

headquartered in Palm Beach Gar-

was some land at the southeast

dens, in a make or break moment.

corner

issues, and Frazer helped broker a

Jonathan

Dickinson

State Park adjacent to US Highway

Touring pros had gone to war with the PGA of America over several

George Fazio , Bob Hope and Leo Fraser at Atlantic City Country Club

1 about twenty minutes north that he urged George to take a look at.

temporary peace. A vocal booster of golf’s potential in

Maybe next time, George told him. He had a noon

Florida since the 1930s, Frazer had been a member of

flight the next day for Honolulu and a meeting with real

Lost Tree for several years.

estate and construction titan Del Webb, for whom he’d

George Storer, on the other hand, was from Fazio’s

already designed a well-received course in Nevada, so

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J U P I T E R

Don Moe was one of golf’s boy wonders.

H I L L S

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Growing up in Oregon’s golf-rich Portland, he won

the city’s Amateur Championship at fifteen and his first state title at seventeen. Then, on the strength of his victory in the prestigious Western Amateur at eighteen, he was named to the 1930 the Walker Cup Team. His singles match against English Amateur champion Bill Stout at Royal St. George’s is the stuff of legend. Four down after the first eighteen holes, Moe was all but buried when Stout’s trio of 3s to begin the matinee extended his lead to 7 up. Three holes later, Moe morphed into a player possessed, winning seven of the next eleven holes before walking off his thirty-sixth hole of the day with a 1-up triumph. “That was not golf,” offered a shaken Stout, “that was a visitation from the Lord.” The Americans retained the Cup easily for captain Bobby Jones—Moe also won his foursomes match—and Jones predicted a bright future: “I cannot speak too highly of Don Moe’s performance,” he told all assembled. “He will go a long way.” Moe went a lot further in Amateur golf—he added another point at Brookline two years later to finish his Walker Cup career a perfect 3-0—but it was 1930 that sat at the pinnacle of Moe’s golfing memories. He played in all four Grand Slam events that year—when Moe approached George at Lost Tree, he and Jones were the last living remnants of all four championships—and he’d kept a detailed chronicle of the journey. Jones so liked the young Oregonian that he asked Moe to accompany Jones’s own parents in the car behind as Jones rode up Broadway when New York welcomed him—and his Walker Cup, Claret Jug, and British Amateur trophies—home with a ticker-tape parade. Moe would become one of Jupiter Hills’s ten founding members, playing an influential role in its set up and first years.

there really wasn’t time. Moe persisted; this property is

Road, the site emerged over a rise on their left. They

so hot, he stressed, that he guaranteed there would be no

drove past it, continuing north until they reached the

next time. George still demurred. Back and forth it went.

park’s old entry road, built in the 1940s as the entrance

Finally, Moe volunteered to drive George to the

into what had been Camp Murphy, a World War II

airport. Finally, George relented.

training site for the U.S. Army’s Signal Corps. They turned left into the park and drove west,

When Moe picked up George the next morning,

through acres of sand dense with Calusa pines, live oaks,

he had company: a local banker named Pat Snow. A

palmettos, scrub, and brush, to the Old Dixie Highway

vice president of the Jupiter-Tequesta branch office of

that ran parallel to the tracks of the Florida East Coast

the Community Federal Savings and Loan Association,

Railway. They headed south until they reached an access

Snow was on the verge of a promotion to the main

road to the old Camp Murphy shooting range where

office, a senior vice presidency and, with it, a new port-

Moe turned. He weaved across the rough terrain, stop-

folio: chief of the bank’s mortgage department. He had

ping the car near the base of a considerable dune ridge.

his own particular interest in this land.

This wasn’t the highest point on the property—they’d

The trio drove north on the Federal Highway, just

head to that later—but it offered a view. When George

a sleepy two lanes then. As they crossed County Line

walked up to the top of the ridge, he knew he wasn’t

T H E

H I L L S

going to Hawaii that day. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was looking—all around him—at Jupiter Hills.

A R E

A L I V E

this place, too, because so much had to have gone so precisely right over the forty million years that led up to this precise moment to produce the precise panorama George

✧

was ingesting. Had there been no heavenly collision with the Earth, no extraordinary mutations in the sea, no gar-

“I WAS BESIDE MYSELF,” George

would explain years later, as

gantuan mollusks, no Ice Age, and no effluvial melt carry-

he remembered the tousled vista he was taking in from

ing sediment from well over a thousand miles north to this

the vicinity of what would become the 18th tee on the

precise place, who knows what George would have been

Hills Course. “I just fell in love with the land.”

looking at. But it wouldn’t have been this.

Which, in itself, was a pure act of faith, because

“It’s a more complicated geology than you’d imag-

it looked nothing like a golf course. Jim O’Brien, the

ine,” suggests Ed Petuch, professor emeritus of geosci-

surveyor who’d marked the meets and bounds of this

ences at Florida Atlantic University and one of the leading

corner of the park, roughly four hundred acres shaped

experts in the cosmic logistics of how Florida assembled

like Nebraska reversed and turned on its end, recalled

itself.

the challenges the terrain posed some years later: “The

It’s a geology so complex that its unfolding seems to

scrub was chest high. We had difficulty sighting through

vibrate with an unfathomable commingling of magic and

it because of the trees and dips in elevation. We’d see two

mystery. The harmonies had to have converged just so.

or three rattlers every day.”

Consider…

In that place, at that moment, though, George

Some forty million years ago—almost thirty million

saw something else. The dreamer in him was revving

years after the disappearance of the dinosaurs and 4.5

into overdrive. Of course, he was seeing what was: the

billion post the Big Bang—there was no Florida. What

dunes, the wild movement of the land, the natural lakes,

we know as the American mainland screeched to a halt

the trees—pines, like at Pine Valley—the ridges. In those

in central Georgia. Whatever solid land was poking up

features, he was also seeing what could be—the tees and

through the seas to the south looked like lily pads dot-

greens and fairways and bunkers—for as his eyes swept

ting an infinity pool. Jupiter Hills? It was AWOL then,

the scene, the land he beheld was unlike anything he’d

submerged beneath nearly eight hundred feet of Paleo-

ever seen in Florida.

genic-period ocean. The closest sure footing was a long

With good reason.

swim away—around Gainesville; given the water tem-

There was nothing like it to be seen in Florida.

perature, wetsuits would have been a must. A flask of

As Charlie Price, the founding editor of Golf mag-

whiskey on arrival—had whiskey been invented—would

azine, later observed, it was “geographical incongruity.”

have helped, too. Then, about thirty-six million years ago, things

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perked up as Nature put on a phantasmagoric display of power, destruction, and creation after an asteroid

THIS WAS RARE LAND, indeed, land slowly soaked in time, geo-

smacked into the planet near Baltimore. The impact left

logical time, evolutionary time, stretching back eons to a

behind the crater that filled in to become Chesapeake Bay,

time—paradoxically—before the land taking hold of his

but that was just for starters. “When this happened,” says

imagination was even there. Whatever fate was keeping

Petuch, “the impact was so horrendous it sent a series of

an eye on George Fazio must have had a keen affinity for

hundreds of thousands of half-mile to mile-high tsunamis

IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO CONSIDER THE EAST COAST OF FLORIDA WITHOUT ACKNOWLEDGING THE ENORMOUS IMPACT HENRY MORRISON FLAGLER LEFT ON IT. Born in Upstate New York in 1830, he parlayed, at thirty-seven, the lessons of early failure and lasting friendship into a founding stake—and partnership—with John D. Rockefeller in the juggernaut that became Standard Oil. It made Flagler a very rich man. A winter visit to Jacksonville in 1878 whet his appetite for Florida; his next trip—to St. Augustine—five years later, set off spark that ignited an explosion; though he saw great potential for tourism, commerce, and agriculture, he found the essential infrastructure to support them—hotels and transportation—sadly lacking. Given his vision and wherewithal, Flagler rolled up his sleeves and transformed the state, donning the mantle that’s been given him: the man who invented modern Florida. Flagler set out by building hotels and acquiring railroads, and when the tracks ran out, he laid new ones. By his death in 1913, his Florida East Coast Railway connected Jacksonville to Key West carrying passengers and freight up and down the Atlantic seaboard. His great hotels—from the Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine to the Royal Palm in Miami—oozed with opulence. His Royal Poinciana, which opened in Palm Beach in 1894, was then the largest hotel in the world; together with The Breakers ( below), his most famous hotel, Flagler helped transform Palm Beach into the Gold Coast, a winter wonderland for Gilded Age elites and the upwardly mobile with aspirations of joining them. His tracks continue to form the western boundary of Jupiter Hills, so tight to the 14th green that passing freights can blow putts off line.

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down the eastern bank of the U.S.” These tidal waves

years ago; they were so large that a single oyster might

washed away an entire ecological layer of the lower

be a meal in itself for a small dinner party, though given

Middle Atlantic and Southeast; their loss was Florida’s

its size, educated palates would have balked at the chew-

gain. As the waters rushed south, they carried with them

iness. Butter, bread crumbs, and a sprinkle of Parmesan

sediments—like sand, coral, and limestone—that slowly

might have worked wonders—had they existed. Like their fork-sized descendants, these mollusks

spread out to become South Florida. Over the next thirteen million years, give or take,

weren’t mobile creatures; they congregated in sedentary

a chain of coral islands—like the Keys—took shape.

colonies and attached themselves to the coral founda-

Together, they comprised the earliest spine of the Flor-

tions below them. With each rise of the sea, their pop-

ida coast. The terminus of this archipelago was a drive

ulations grew; with each fall, they died, leaving behind

and a wedge south of Dickinson State Park. After that,

zillions of shells to pile one atop the other. Over hundreds

The Deluge. Literally. Imagine the kind of endless watery

of thousands of years, there were dozens of these rises

abyss upon which future map-

and falls. Meanwhile, as sea

makers might insert the warn-

levels changed drastically, the

ing, “There Be Dragons.” That

land between the lagoon and

was Florida below Jupiter Inlet.

the ocean washed away, leav-

Petuch

ing the coastline much as we

maintains, “this is the end of

now know it. And those oyster

the chain. That makes it a sig-

beds? They kept rising—into

nificant piece of land.”

substantial hills, with what

“Geologically,”

Meaning all those mil-

seemed like accentuated val-

lions of years before George

leys between them. “So, the

came across it, there was already

oysters,”

something unique about the

Ed Petuch caption here

Since geology moves in its own directions at its own

explains,

“became a template for the ocean sand and other sedi-

land that would become Jupiter Hills Golf Club.

Petuch

ments to pile on top of. That’s why the hills look so high and the valleys so low.”

unhurried pace, that developing island chain was actually

In short, they formed the under structure of the dra-

located ten-to-twenty miles west of where Florida’s east

matic east-west ridge at Jupiter Hills that had Fazio in its

coast is now. About twenty million years ago, it began

immediate thrall.

expanding in width and filling in, and a million years ago,

Residue from the last Ice Age eventually came down

the Atlantic Coast was actually miles farther east than it is

and piled on. When the thousand-year flow of glacial melt

now. The Jupiter Hills neighborhood? Grab a snorkel and

and sediment began arriving about 12,000 years ago, it

fins. It was at the bottom of an enormous inland lagoon.

brought with it sand and rock and other detritus from

That lagoon turned out to be a fortuitous locale

as far north as the Hudson River Valley. “That’s when

for future golfers. Geologically and biologically, the

this land really became this land,” Petuch stresses. “The

conditions were ideal for breeding oysters, scallops, and

dunes would still change, but not their foundation. They

clams—but mostly oysters. These ancestors of the mod-

were now permanent.”

ern delicacies went extinct hundreds of thousands of

Eventually, the layers of sediment—each distinct

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with its own complex story to a trained eye like Petuch’s—

Petuch described, the end of the chain; there was nothing

would compact, consolidate, and stabilize. Then various

beyond to latch onto.

forms of vegetation took root, further stabilizing the scene.

As Palm Beach and points south began to emerge

Geologists call this process “cementing,” and an overlap-

from the sea in what geological time considers almost yesterday, that baby land cemented to become the south bank of the Loxahatchee River in its path from Riverbend

There is no point in Florida south of the Jupiter Hills clubhouse

Park to reconnect with what it used to be—the Atlantic Ocean—through Jupiter Inlet. “This is a very different

higher than Conch Bar Hill: 63 1/2 feet above sea level

world south of the river,” Petuch adds. “Palm Beach has

when George first saw it, as memorialized in the marker

sand dunes, but not the same as the dunes formed by

implanted on the hill, “the highest sand hill W of the end

coral and oysters that you find above the river.”

of Jupiter Sound,” according to a 1909 survey report, and “2.5 miles NE of the Jupiter Point Lighthouse on the highest sand ridge,” as per a follow-up report in

Not that any of that concerned George. He was too busy falling in love.

1934. Club co-founder Bill Elliott was so intrigued by the marker that he told the Philadelphia Inquirer in late

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1969, “We are going to have to move that to the clubhouse entrance.” The original marker, set in concrete in a clay tile pipe, never made it; it had eroded badly. Instead, in 1971, the Geological Survey installed a new set of markers—standard disks stamped “Conch Bar Hill 2 1971” atop concrete monuments. One, according to agency reports, was “84 feet west-northwest of the of the southwest corner of the Jupiter Hills Club

AND WHAT WASN’T TO LOVE?

The more Don Moe led George around the property, the more captivated George became. Together, they traversed the dune ridge, dropped into the glen, and then ascended Conch Bar Hill, the crown on these four hundred acres and a perfect place to one day plant a club-

building, 108 feet southwest of the northwest corner

house. There, George may or may not have seen the

of the building.” Another was “68 feet east-south-

geodetic marker placed by the Department of the Inte-

east of the flag pole, 36 feet south of the south edge

rior’s U.S. Geological Survey in 1883, four years after

of the golf cart parking area.” In other words, not

Congress established the scientific agency. Imagine the

far from the first tee. They disappeared during the

moment: George at the pinnacle of the property drinking

construction of the current clubhouse and patio.

in the world around him. A few miles north, the sandy wasteland of this spe-

ping succession of grasses, vines, bushes, trees, and palmet-

cific patch of the Earth was so distinctly and visibly white

tos so cemented the scene that George was held breathless

from offshore that the Spanish dubbed it “Ropa Ten-

in its presence.

dida”—the clothes line—before late eighteenth-century

Interestingly, oyster beds also formed the founda-

British cartographers began to identify it as “The Bleach

tion of the forty-foot coastal ridge—the transverse dunes

Yard.” Both images are apt. Spanish seamen dried their

perpendicular to the winds covered by sand blown inland

sails here before heading back to Spain, hence, the clothes

off the beaches—that wanders north through Dickinson

line. And from the sea, the view conjured the image of

State Park before swinging inland. Still, the land is espe-

freshly washed linen laid out in the sun.

cially hilly where the golf course resides—because that

To the east, the Indian River flowed between Jupiter

was as far south as the oysters found footing. It was, as

Island and the mainland; beyond that, the Atlantic, as

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far as the eye could see. Turning south, the Jupiter Light-

culture around the area. The Italian explorer John Cabot,

house moved into view.

sailing under English flag, was likely the first European

George’s mind must have been whirring like a com-

to lay eyes on these hills when he navigated his ships

puter analyzing the macros and dissecting the micros,

along the Florida shoreline in 1498; though there’s no

his synapses exploding with visions of what he might be

record he ever landed, Ponce de Leon certainly did. As

able to coax from the land

did the Quaker merchant

beneath his feet. This was,

Jonathan Dickinson in the

to be sure, marvelous land

late seventeenth century,

even beyond its unique

albeit not by choice. The

topography, for as George

American Army fought

would

the

learn,

this

land

Seminoles

here

was as rich and layered in

the early nineteenth cen-

human history as it was in

tury, and in World War

the tangible outgrowths of

II, this land contributed

times unimaginable.

significantly to the Allied victory. As for that light-

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house, it began shining its

✧

beacon—as it still does— LONG

BEFORE

RECORDS,

men and women

from the juncture of the

WRITTEN

Loxahatchee and Indian

Dummy caption.

were walking here. Artifacts uncovered around Jupiter Inlet show evidence of

rivers at the inlet before the Civil War.

hunting and fishing that go back at least as far as five

From the first hominoid footprints on, this junc-

millennia, and before any Europeans even realized Flor-

ture of waters has been essential—to the survival, to the

ida existed, Native American tribes had built a thriving

commerce, and to the forging of community—of those

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AS EUROPEAN EXPLORERS KEPT CROSSING THE OCEAN, THEY KEPT BUMPING INTO FLORIDA, WHICH, FOR 58

THEIR OWN SEA-GOING SAFETY, THEY BEGAN CHARTING from off-shore. Maps from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were as primitive as they were inaccurate, providing rough approximations of shape and odd renditions of the interior, though by and large, the coastline from St. Augustine to Boca Raton would look familiar. Though the names Jupiter, Jobe, or Hobe are still more than a decade away from debuting on a published map, a 1749 depiction of “La Floride” by French cartographer Robert de Vaugondy was the first to mark something resembling hills around the Jupiter area. By the second half of the eighteenth century, Florida would become fully recognizable as itself, though as late as 1763, the beginning of Great Britain’s twenty-year control of the state as part of the Treaty of Paris that ended the French and Indian War, British mapmaker John Gibson’s widely published map, while still deserving kudos for placing the Rio Jobe—in one of its first clear identifications—in the right place, earns a thumbs down for charting the state’s southern interior as a swarm of separate islands. Thomas Jefferys, the official geographer to King George III, repeated that mistake the same year. Within a decade, that would change. Jefferys atoned for his error in a beautifully detailed map published shortly after his death in 1771. Mixing both Spanish and English nomenclature, he introduced Jupiter as a replacement for Jobe at the inlet, while adding an alternative—Grenville, after the new English settlement at the lighthouse site named itself for Lord Grenville. Just to the south, he notes Gropers Hill—later mapmakers would call it Groupers Hill or Croppers Hill; it likely wasn’t a hill at all, but a series of Indian middens. (One of those middens was flattened in 1898 for Harry and Susan Dubois to build their house—listed on Description of items here. The map above is a detail of map on right

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Map of Florida caption

the National Register of Historic Places—in what’s now Dubois Park.) More importantly, Jefferys raised the curtain on “The Bleach Yard,” further identifying this white sandy maw around Hobe Mountain as

“a High Hill full of white Spots” before deeming it “a Remarkable Land Mark.” Bernard Romans also included The Bleach Yard—as “Bleech Yd.” on the stunning map he finished three years later. The Dutch-born Romans was a Renaissance man, adept, among his myriad skills, as navigator, naturalist, cartographer, surveyor and writer. He was a pretty good self-promoter, too, unabashedly proclaiming himself “the most skillful draughtman in all America.” He wasn’t far off. His map was attached to the first volume—the second was burned in a printing fire during the American Revolution—of A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida. Despite its title, the Concise History was anything but. Published in 1775, it ran to 342 pages of text and an additional eighty-nine of appendices. As a reference, Romans’s text is anecdotal but iffy. His map, on the other hand, is a revelation. As one of George III’s principal surveyors in the southern colonies, Romans, between 1766 and 1772, made a thorough examination of the coastline, identifying sources of fresh water, drafting coastal charts, recording depth soundings, noting the better harbors, and accurately recording the interior. In 1773, he left Florida for New York, then Connecticut, where he finished his map—roughly eight feet by seven feet in size—before bringing it to Paul Revere in Boston; Revere engraved it—as well as

Ponce De Leon Caption here

several plates for the Concise Natural History—in the fall and summer before his famed midnight ride. Finally published on its own in 1781, the map resides in the Library of Congress. Both graphically arresting and cartographically sophisticated, it was far more detailed and precise than anything preceding it, and nothing surpassed it for more than a quarter century. The area around Jupiter Hills is just to the right of an artistic cartouche with an engraving of an alligator, a wild cat, a merman with a trident and conch shell, and a mermaid seated on a ship’s anchor. The inlet is marked— as “Hobé,” and he notes the different kinds of sands and shells found along the shore. Just to the north

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is an open space west of the Indian River that he identifies as “Bleech Yd.,” which he describes like this in his book: “Six miles and a quarter N.N.W. from the mouth on the edge of the sound, lieth the hill by the Spaniards called Ropa Tendida, and by us the Bleach-Yard on account of its appearance; being a high hill full of white spots, the first of any note from the Neversinks in the Jerseys, to this place, and”—tipping a tam to Jefferys—“is a remarkable land-mark.” The next wave of mapmakers continued to note the hills south of the inlet. They also began to clearly insert within the Bleach Yard a hill they referred to as Bald Head Mount—aka Hobe Mountain—though Henry Schenck Tanner, one of the nation’s first geopolitical cartographers and a stickler for details, added a particularly salient feature to his 1823 map of Florida: two distinct hills north of the inlet and west of Jupiter Island in the vicinity of the Bleach Yard. His scale puts them roughly two miles apart. Though unmarked, the northern hill is Hobe Mountain. The only significant hill south of that is Conch Bar Hill, the high point of the property George stood on as he surveyed the land and the site of the Jupiter Hills clubhouse. Interestingly, Tanner also reversed the trend that designating the inlet Grenville by calling it “Hobe or Jupiter Inlet.” It took another decade before Tanner’s fellow mapmakers brought “Jupiter” back to stay.

John Cabot caption here

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oars, and arms [and] with their arrows and armed shafts,

When Ponce de Leon sailed into the inlet for a brief

the points of sharpened bone, and fish spines, wounded

stopover in 1513, the land was then the province of the

two Spaniards.” The Sirens of Homer’s Odyssey could

Jobe tribe, a Native-American culture with clear ties to

hardly have been more luring.

the larger Jaega tribe just south. The

Ponce and his men stayed

Jobe were an accomplished people

less than a week before sailing for

with a complex tribal structure led

Palm Beach and points south, but

by a cacique or chief. Though they

they were around long enough to

congregated around their main vil-

understand the importance of the

lage of Jobe just south of the inlet,

DESIGNED IN 1854 by U.S. Army Lt. George

inlet; just as he named the land he

they lived in several satellite camps,

Meade— as Maj. Gen. Meade he successfully

first set foot on north of St. Augus-

as well—and they were mobile; they

led the Army of the Potomac against Gen.

tine some weeks earlier “Florida,”

navigated the complex system of waterways from the inlet to Lake Okeechobee in dugout canoes they’d

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Robert E. Lee’s advances at the Battle of Gettysburg—the lighthouse was first lit on July 10, 1860. The 108-foot-high structure sits on a forty-eight-foot hill that was formed

he christened the inlet at Jobe the “Rio de la Cruz,” supposedly marking it with a stone cross.

hewn from cypress trees. They

much the same way as the dunes at Jupiter

It’s a name that appears on

didn’t farm, so they lived off the nat-

Hill, though until science proved otherwise,

only the earliest maps; by the

ural bounty that surrounded them,

settlers believed it to be an Indian shell

eighteenth century, it was regu-

and they had much to choose from:

mound, or midden. Now part of the Jupiter

larly referred to as either the Jobe

fruits, vegetables, occasional deer,

Lighthouse and Museum, the light remains in

River or Jobe Inlet.

lots of fish, and even more mollusks, as evidenced by the middens—large

operation, and can be spotted by ships from as far as twenty-four miles away at sea.

As the Spanish continued landing at the inlet, the Jobe

refuse mounds made up largely of

continued to trade with them, as

shells and bones—they left behind.

well as the English who followed,

Capable wood carvers, they were

through the sixteenth and seven-

adept potters and weavers, and it’s

teenth centuries—even learning

clear from the variety of non-indig-

bits of both languages—but by the

enous materials—like flint—found

early eighteenth century, the Jobe

around their village sites, that they

had largely vanished from the

carried on brisk trade with other

area. Jonathan Dickinson prob-

tribes north and south.

ably wished they’d disappeared

And, as Ponce de Leon quickly

earlier.

found out, they were clever enough

A Quaker merchant from

to employ ruses to protect them-

Jamaica, Dickinson, his family,

selves when they thought it nec-

and his ten slaves were en route

essary. Witness this report, culled

to a new life in Philadelphia in

from Ponce’s ship’s log, by a Spanish historian eighty

the late summer of 1696, when the Reformation, the

years after the fact: “Juan Ponce went ashore here, called

barkentine providing passage, separated from the Royal

by the Indians, who promptly tried to steal his launch, the

convoy it sailed with, ran into a storm, hit a reef, and

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went aground north of Jupiter Inlet. Everyone on board

city as its eleventh mayor—the journal, which contin-

survived but the Jobe discovered them within hours of

ued its chronicle of Dickinson’s Florida journey, is the

the wreck, then quickly liberated most of the provisions

most vivid first-hand English account of the people who

the castaways had spent hours trying to salvage. Afraid

walked and hunted through the landscape that George was so hopefully surveying.

of these people who dressed, acted, and sounded nothing like Quakers,

One passage in particular, a

Dickinson instructed his fellow stran-

description of the land itself, would

dees to put their faith in God and

have felt presciently contemporary

offer no resistance. The next day, the

to George so many centuries later.

Jobe marched them to their village at

A VETERAN OF Christopher

“The wildness of the country,” wrote

the inlet, then returned to burn what

Columbus’s second voyage in 1493,

Dickinson, “looked very dismal,

was left of the ship.

Ponce de Leon set off, at the request

having no trees, but only sand hills

Dickinson kept a dense and detailed journal of the experience, four days seared into his memory

of King Ferdinand of Spain, to return to the New World to check out the rumors of undiscovered islands beyond Hispaniola. On April 2, 1513, he sighted

covered with shrubby palmetto, the stalks of which were so prickly there was no walking against them.” George, a consistent editor of

characterized by fear and abuse but

what he believed was an immense and

also some kindnesses and care—

verdant island to his west. Given the

his own work, would have no doubt

Jobe women nursed the Dickinsons’

Easter season, called Pascua Florida,

insisted on a few small but significant

baby—until the cacique, who Dick-

or Festival of Flowers, back home, he

changes. He would have run his red

inson saw as more humane than the

christened the landmass La Florida.

pencil through the word “no” before

Jobe tribe he led, gave them their

trees, and replaced the word “dismal”

leave on a long boat rescued from the wreck. Published

with something more in tune with what he was feeling in

in Philadelphia in 1699—Dickinson served his adopted

that time and in that place.

What’s in a name? It depends on who has the naming rights, and in this case it’s a cross of two worlds. When the Spanish encountered the Jobe Indians—pronounced “Ho-bay”—and the inlet they lived on, they left things as they were. Not so the English. When their ears heard the sound, they drew on their schoolboy Latin, and dubbed the people and the riverway they lived on “Jove,” a variant of the name Jupiter, chief god of the Romans. Since Jupiter has always been the more prevalent appellation, we have Jupiter Hills, Jupiter Inlet, Jupiter Island, and the town of Jupiter instead of the Jovian alternative, but—by Jove!—the Jobe name still rings on, despite the disappearance of the long “a” sound, in Hobe Sound and Hobe Mountain in Dickinson State Park. Topped by an observation platform, the mountain—a dune hill over a foundation of mollusks that rises eight-six feet above sea level—is the highest natural peak in Florida south of Lake Okeechobee, twenty-three feet higher than the second highest: the hill that’s home to the Jupiter Hills clubhouse.

WAR LEFT LASTING MARKS ON THE REGION OVERALL AND ON THE LAND BENEATH THE GOLF CLUB SPECIFICALLY. Going back to the American Revolution, Florida, as a conse-

dispersed Natives of the southeast into forced migrations.

quence of Britain’s defeat, returned to Spanish control from 1783

Over time, the Jupiter area began to grow, slowly, and

until 1821, when Spain ceded the territory to the young United

wilderness, slowly, gave way to settlement. By the early twen-

States in exchange for debt relief and considerations on terri-

tieth century, the town was established, the railroad was run-

tories west of the Mississippi. Meanwhile, throughout the eigh-

ning and the first church and school were built. Officially

teenth century, Native tribes from the southeast crossed into

incorporated in 1925, Jupiter almost blew away three years later—

Florida. Collectively, they became known as Seminoles, from a

via hurricane. Then, with World War II on the horizon, the nature

Creek word meaning outcast or runaway.

of the neighborhood changed.

In 1818, an American army led by Andrew Jackson rode

Its situation on the coast, its height above sea level,

into Florida to stop Seminole raids of white settle-

and, of course, the inlet, turned the land from Jupiter to Hobe Sound into one of strategic

ments in the final year of the First Seminole War. The conflict ended in a treaty that es-

interest—and purpose—for the U.S. Army and the U.S. Navy.

tablished a Seminole reservation in the

In 1939, the Navy established bar-

middle of the state.

It didn’t work. With food scarce,

racks and began the work that would

hunting grounds waning and now-Presi-

transform part of the area around the

dent Andrew Jackson’s resolve to move

Jupiter Lighthouse into a secret com-

them—by force, if necessary—west of

munications radio intelligence unit to

the Mississippi, the Seminoles, behind

track German submarines in the south

their charismatic warrior-leader Osceola,

Atlantic. By the summer of 1940, Station

rose up; in 1835, they began raiding settlements and farms, and even took control of a militia

J—officially, U.S. Naval Supplementary Radio Osceola caption

supply train. Through 1837, the fighting was con-

Station Jupiter—was operational, monitoring sea lanes, warning allied shipping of the dan-

fined to lands north of Lake Okeechobee, but in January of 1838,

gers that lurked, and alerting American bombers and fighters to

it moved to the banks of the Loxahatchee River and the Battle of

U-boats rising to the surface at night, wreaking havoc on the Nazi

Jupiter Inlet, which began at Riverbend Park and ended in a quick,

fleet; sixty-seven U-boats were destroyed off the coast in May

strategic victory for the Seminoles over a small naval force.

and June of 1943 alone. At its peak, Station J covered just over

Nine days later, the result was different. Commanding a

twelve acres, housed twenty-four radio receivers, ninety-five

substantial outfit of 1,500 soldiers, Maj. Gen. Thomas S. Jesup

Naval personnel and eleven Marines who stood guard. When the

defeated three hundred Seminoles in a messy confronta-

war ended, the station was transferred to the Coast Guard.

tion, much of it played out as guerilla warfare through the

For a town of eight hundred residents—Jupiter’s population

swamps. The fight became known as the Second Battle of the

in 1940—Station J didn’t upset the apple cart. But Camp Murphy

Loxahatchee, and the safe surround of Ft. Jupiter—on Pen-

did.

nock Point—was constructed on its heels. Though the Second

Opened on July 5, 1942, three months after construction be-

Seminole War continued on into 1842, this was the last major

gan, the Southern Signal Corps School at Camp Murphy became

standing engagement of a fight that ended in the decimation of

a sprawling khaki universe that oozed west across the 11,364

the Seminoles and a mass exodus of survivors to Indian Territo-

acres fronting US Highway 1 from County Line Road in Tequesta

ry. Given the Seminoles’ reversal of fortune at the Second Battle

to the southern border of Hobe Sound. Almost 10 percent of

of Loxahatchee, historians suggest that Jupiter be considered

that land belonged to the Reeds—Joseph V. and his wife Perme-

the southern source of the diaspora—the Trail of Tears—that

lia, the founding family of the Jupiter Island Club—who’d begun

Camp Murphy cpation

buying masses of property on both sides of the Indian River in

the aegis of the 801st Signal Training Regiment, this was where

the 1930s; they agreed to lend their land to the federal govern-

the U.S. Army studied and taught the mysteries of radar, a rev-

ment with the proviso that it be returned to them after the war

olutionary technology at the time, until late November of 1944.

in as close to the native condition it had been given.

Dedicated to the memory of Col. William Herbert Murphy, a

That this land hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t been cleared is what made it so appeal-

pioneer in radar technology killed in Indonesia in early 1942, the

ing to the federal government. Dense with pines, swamp maples,

facility had its own power and sewage plants, railroad station,

cabbage palmettos, live oaks, cactus, mangroves, and thick lay-

bank, churches, a hospital, a library, and a bowling alley among

ers of shrub and scrub, the location was ideal for keeping Camp

its one thousand buildings. With a population that swelled to

Murphy hidden, a necessity given its top-secret function: Under

more than 5,700 enlisted men and almost nine hundred officers,

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ABOVE: Aerial of Camp Murphy. LEFT: Barracks still stands today. RIGHT: Sydney Lummet caption

plus a sizable civilian support staff, all sworn to secrecy, Camp

began. Men arrived for an average stay of five months of rigor-

Murphy was a city unto itself.

ous and intensive training in combat, as well as radar operations

Jupiter Hills is nestled into its extreme southeast corner. The

and repair, and pilots from the nearby Naval Air Station in Stuart

campâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s rifle range sat west of the railroad tracks adjacent to the

flew missions over the camp to give radar operators moving tar-

12th green of the Hills Course.

gets on which to hone their skills.

NBC chairman Col. David Sarnoff, the radio and television

There was plenty of down time, as well, with entertainment

pioneer who served on Gen. Eisenhowerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s communications

available on the base and off at USO satellites. The camp had a

staff, addressed the camp on its opening day, and the hard work

softball league, a basketball league, and a bowling league. Profes-

T H I S

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C O P Y

sional athletes staged exhibitions, and the camp theater put on a

renamed Jupiter State Park. Urged on by the campaigning of the

multitude of shows. A nineteen-year-old enlistee named Sidney

editor of the Stuart Daily News, the state’s Board of Parks and

Lumet—who went on to become the Oscar-winning director of

Historic Memorials changed the name to Jonathan Dickinson

such films as “The Verdict,” “Dog Day Afternoon,” “Network,”

State Park three years later. “Historians throughout the United

and “12 Angry Men”—“brought down the house,” according

States will be glad to know that Florida has honored the intrepid

to the camp newspaper, with a three-act play he wrote and

Quaker merchant,” the state park director declared.

directed; “On the Ball,” which included six original songs, was,

But Mrs. Reed wasn’t finished. There were still plans afoot to

per the camp’s drama critic, “the best thing ever done by Mur-

develop within the park. A recreational area? A wildlife preserve?

phy actors!” Captain, later Major John V. Reed, under his hats

Mrs. Reed was fine with that. A Boy Scout camp? That was OK,

as the camp’s Special Services officer, a member of its board

too. But the idea of selling land to a group intent on creating a

of governors, and, of course, potentate of Jupiter Island, made

private rod and gun club? That crossed the line when it was pro-

the facilities of the Jupiter Island Club available to

posed in 1951—and she and the Martin County Com-

officers, and built a dock just below the camp’s

mission vociferously shot that one down.

main gate to ferry them by boat to the is-

Two years later, man-about-Broadway Ed-

land—where he’d set up a USO. Even local

die Dowling, director of the original stagings

legend Trapper Nelson was drafted into

of The Iceman Cometh and The Glass Me-

service—as an MP; part of his assignment

nagerie, led a group that proposed a long-

was to keep the snake and lizard popula-

term lease on a square mile of land toward

tions down in the living quarters.

the south end of the park. His vision was to construct a religious-themed pre-Dis-

As soon as the camp was deactivated, committees, organizations, and

neyland Disneyland called Holy Land USA,

Florida politicians went to work to find

complete with a full-scale replica of ancient

a new use for the land, including migrant

Jerusalem and a series of annual theatricals

housing, which was approved for 1945, and a tuberculosis sanitarium, which never inhaled

portraying the life of Christ. Meetings were held. Reed caption here

A lease was drafted. Money was raised. An archi-

a breath. Neither did a concerted push for

tect rendered a scale model. And the state Park

locating the new U.S. Air Force’s dream of an Air

Board gave its blessing. In late 1954 Dowling re-

Force Academy. By then, most of the buildings on site had ei-

ceived a fifty-year lease on 748 acres.

ther been torn down, moved to other federal agencies, or sold at

“That ignited my mother,” says Reed. “She made it crys-

auction. John Reed bought several for use at the Jupiter Island

tal clear that over her dead body would there be an amuse-

Club. More than a few Camp Murphy veterans contributed to the

ment park across from Jupiter Island.” In March of 1954, she

area’s post-war population boom.

again flew to Tallahassee, this time to address the Park Board.

In late 1946, Permelia Reed, a force as politically influential

“She did most of the talking,” reported the Palm Beach Post.

in South Florida as she was socially, began actively lobbying an

Under no circumstances, she stressed, would residents tol-

idea of her own. “This land was very important to our family,”

erate any development that would result in motels and night-

says her son, Nathaniel, who served the Nixon and Ford adminis-

clubs being established along the Federal Highway. Her al-

trations as an assistant secretary of the interior and chaired the

ternative? “Preserve the natural beauty of the area along the

commission on Florida’s environmental future. “My mother and

Loxahatchee River.”

uncle chartered a plane, flew to Tallahassee and met with Gov.

Thus spaketh Mrs. Reed. And so it came to pass that all these

[Millard] Caldwell. She announced that Camp Murphy would

years later, driving south on Rte. 1 from Hobe Sound toward

become Florida’s most important East Coast park. ‘But, my God,

Jupiter, instead of progressing past a passel of fast food joints,

Mrs. Reed,’ the governor told her, ’there are thousands of acres

chain motels, and neon cluttering the night sky, the lone struc-

there.’ Well, that was my mother’s point.”

ture commandeering the horizon on the west side of the high-

In June of 1947, the campsite was transferred to Florida and

way is the Jupiter Hills clubhouse.

CHAPTER FOUR

Friends and Finances ✧

O, INSTEAD OF FLYING OFF,

✧

instead of flying off to Hawaii that fall day in 1968, George Fazio flew

to the phone. Nephew Tom was then in his mid-twenties, minding the office back in Fort Washington and attending to the nuts and bolts of the design business that bore his uncle’s name. He wasn’t

expecting a call from his uncle, and he didn’t get one; not until George got back to the office would he hear about his uncle’s find. But that’s OK. George didn’t need Tom in the loop just yet. Young as he was, Tom already understood the way business worked and how George maneuvered his way through it, and George’s first order of business was raising cash. “Financially, that was a pretty tough time,” Tom remembers, and there was Uncle George, the man out front with more hope in his

heart than reserves in his bank account and an opportunity that was burning a hole in his mind and his pocket. He needed money—now—to secure the option on the property that would buy him time to put a deal together. He was thinking—and thinking fast. With the perspective of half a century, Tom reassembles the pieces of his uncle’s process. “How do you get the deal? That was George’s priority. You’ve got to get the land first. So, the dreamer that he was, even though he doesn’t have any money, he’s gonna have to get it done somehow.” How? “He starts calling. He doesn’t call his friends”—or his nephew—“who don’t have money. That would be a waste of a phone call. He calls his friends who do.” Like Bill Ford. Who wasn’t available. And Bob Hope. Who was. George was so excited he could barely get his words out. He kept trying to explain what he’d seen and the need to move quickly.

William Clay Ford caption here.

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WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A THREE-YEAR HIATUS THAT BEGAN TOWARD THE END OF WORLD WAR II, GEORGE FAZIO REMAINED professionally fixed in the mid-Atlantic until his move to Florida to build Jupiter Hills. But his hiatus was fruitful. It burnished his reputation and added important names to his address book. After less than eight months in the U.S. Navy, George received a medical discharge in October 1944. He returned briefly to Pine Valley, then headed to California for the PGA Tour’s annual West Coast swing. In early January of 1945, he began talks with Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles about assuming the head pro slot on an interim basis until the incumbent had completed his own enlistment in the navy. By the end of the month, the job was his, and Hillcrest’s hierarchy couldn’t have been happier. “We consider George Fazio one of the outstanding golf professionals in the country,” the club’s greens chairman exuded. Fazio liked California; he had begun his Pacific forays just before the war. He looked as forward to the respite from Philadelphia’s winters as he did to hobnobbing with Hollywood’s golfing elite, including Hope and Bing Crosby; he joined them at Lakeside Country Club for a pair of war-benefit pro-ams. Competitively, the coast rewarded his consistency; he recorded top-five finishes in the San Francisco and Los Angeles Opens in early 1944, then, still a little rusty from the service, finished just outside the top five in both a year later. As he prepared to settle in at Hillcrest, UPI dubbed him one of “the darlings of the galleries on the west coast professional caravan,” adding that his fellow competitors “all agree the diminutive athlete”—he was all of five-foot-eight and 128 pounds—“has all the spots that go toward making a champion.” Just as he won over galleries, George enthralled the Hillcrest membership, casting a particular spell over its sparkling constituency of celebs. His devoted pupils began with Hope— he played with George regularly, too—and included Jack Benny, Harpo Marx, Danny Kaye, Danny Thomas, Rita Hayworth, Leo Durocher, Fred Astaire, and Clark Gable, who’d signed on with George at Hope’s urging. Ed Sullivan, the nationally syndicated Broadway columnist

and later host of one of television’s most eponymously favored variety shows, even devoted a column to George’s pedagogic skills and Tinseltown popularity. “In a town that develops ‘crushes,’ ” wrote Sullivan in 1947, “violent crushes on doctors, foot-doctors, restaurant proprietors, tennis instructors and golf professionals—Hillcrest professional Fazio is the hottest thing out here. Rita Hayworth caption

Actually, he rates it, because he is an unusually lucid golf teacher.” Sullivan, a former caddie, would have known; he was a Fazio pupil himself. Benny did Sullivan one better; in the fall of 1947, he featured Fazio—as himself—on his

popular weekly radio comedy in an episode about a match at Hillcrest. “I’ve been taking lessons from him,” Benny beamed as George walked into the club’s grill room, “and what he’s done for my golf game is simply wonderful.” So wonderful, Benny boasted in a most un-Bennylike concession as George thanked him for his check, “It was money well-spent.” In service of accuracy, it would be prudent to add that the rest of the episode was conceived to prove otherwise. George left Hillcrest at the beginning of 1948, largely because his wife Mary and daughter Rosalie were homesick. When they returned to Philadelphia, George brought several trophies with him, including the California State Open, the Canadian Open, and the Crosby, as well as his abiding friendship with Hope. After a year and a half of being referred to in the local press as “Conshohocken’s freelance follower of the fairways,” George settled into another club job in 1950—as head pro of Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Maryland, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. In 1952, he reattached himself to Pine Valley. By then, it hardly mattered where he hung his hat, as what resided under it: One of golf’s greatest swings and an uncanny ability to teach it, and the world beyond golf recognized both. In a 1954 article that tried to zero in on Ben Hogan’s elusive secret, George was one of a rarefied selection of pros—including Claude Harmon, Sam Snead, and Gene Sarazen—that the magazine tapped for insight. How the story identified George was as instructive as his perception. It referred to him as “the pro who gives other pros lessons.” OPPOSITE: The comedians that made up the Hillcrest Country Club Round Table were caricatured by Albert Hirschfeld.

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This is the place for a caption for this photo

✧

Florida’s most colorful characters, a New Jersey transplant named Vincent Natulkiewicz, but no one had called

wasn’t Don Moe’s only potential

Vincent Natulkiewicz that for decades. Everybody—

customer anxious to turn this wasteland into a golfing

everybody—in Florida and beyond knew him as Trapper

Eden; Moe, it turned out, was every bit as savvy a sales-

Nelson. Since arriving in the area in the 1930s, Nelson

man as he was a Walker Cupper. Yet, as part of Dick-

had amassed a sizable swath along the Loxahatchee River

inson State Park, the land Moe was showing belonged

that had grown—bit by bit as he kept moving deeper into

to Florida; Moe had no direct connection or rights to it

the wilderness—to well over one thousand acres at its

whatsoever.

grandest. By his death in 1968, he had sold off several

But…

hundred acres of his domain to live and pay taxes, but

Pat Snow, the banker riding shotgun on this jour-

Nelson retained a giant footprint on the upper reaches of

BUT GEORGE, IT TURNED OUT,

ney, did.

the northwest fork of the river.

Snow was connected to a much larger block of

Snow represented that acreage for Trapper through

land abutting the western border of the state park that

the first half of 1968—Moe wouldn’t enter the picture

Florida’s Parks Board had been salivating over for some

until that fall—because Trapper knew him, liked him,

time. They viewed it as the piece they needed to give

and had faith in him. In the mid-1960s, when Nelson was

Dickinson State Park its exclamation point.

in his late fifties and as commanding as ever at six-feet-

That piece—almost 860 acres—had a unique nar-

two and 240 pounds, he had walked into Snow’s office

rative thrust. It belonged to the estate of one of South

carrying what looked like a parcel in his hand. It would

F R I E N D S

A N D

F I N A N C E S

his land would be. After all, it contained the headwaters

be the key to Jupiter Hills. “He had scribbled out his will on this old paper bag,”

of the Loxahatchee and, overall, miles of riverfront and

Snow later recalled, “and wanted me to put it into proper

vast expanses of pristine wilderness that the park would

legal form. He didn’t want any lawyer involved, because

preserve. Smith asked him to consider this, too: The state

he didn’t trust them.” But he trusted Snow, who’d helped

would pay him well for his holdings, though there was no

Trapper with some earlier transactions. To ensure the “t’s”

way of coming up with a number short of an appraisal.

were crossed and the “i’s” dotted, Snow gave his rendition

Trapper gave the go-ahead. “So it looks like the coming

to the bank’s lawyers anyway. “I never let on to Trapper.”

winter may produce a big deal,” he wrote his nephew. Smith had the land surveyed and appraised and

What mattered was that the document would hold

returned with good news and bad news for Trapper. His

up in court. It would. Eventually. Concerned as he was about his health, Trapper

property was worth almost $1.4 million. That was the

was very much alive in late 1967, and still surrounded

good. The bad was that in tight fiscal times, the state

by the 857 acres he held title to, though—with commer-

couldn’t justify spending that. But Smith knew who might. His wild idea was

cial development moving closer to his land—Trapper had

fermenting.

begun sending out smoke signals of a willingness to sell off chunks here and there.

✧

He’d drawn nary a nibble.

✧

Enter Charles Smith, preparing to bite. Smith was the head acquisition agent

THOUGH PAT SNOW

was no Don Moe in terms of

for the Division of Parks of the State Depart-

golf, he knew enough to know that the land

ment of Natural Resources. He had a wild

at Dickinson’s southeast corner was destined

idea brewing, but it would be a meaningless

to become somebody’s golfing haven. But how

one without Trapper. He knew of Nelson’s

do you pry that land free from the state’s tight

openness to some kind of divesting. Given

fist? Until the grip eased, there was no place

Snow caption here

the immensity of what he had to divest,

to go.

Smith thought it worth paying a call.

What if…

Smith was a savvy operator. Aware of Nelson’s habit

Smith knew that the four hundred acres at the cor-

of greeting unwanted visitors with a hail from his shotgun,

ner of the park had been valued at a shade over $1.3 mil-

Smith left his car behind, walked quietly into the camp,

lion, only $25,000 less than Trapper’s. Yet, in sheer size

and found Nelson, the outdoorsman with impeccable

and recreational potential, Trapper’s expanse was worth

senses for sniffing trespassers, waiting—shotgun ready.

far more to the park than a scrubby swat fronting the

Smith never flinched. He pointed to the large pile of wood,

highway.

a consistent source of pride for the man who chopped and

What if…

stacked it, and asked, as if to the universe, “Show me the

Smith could bring his wild idea to pass with a solu-

man who cut a pile of wood that big.” “I cut that pile,” came Trapper’s answer. The ice

tion that both Florida and Snow—acting on Nelson’s behalf—were likely to embrace as a win for each party.

was broken, and within minutes the two were inside the

So, what if…

cabin, talking like a couple of cronies. Smith asked Trap-

They simply swapped the lands.

per to consider what a perfect complement to the park

Let whomever Snow could bring to the table buy

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HOW BEST TO DESCRIBE TRAPPER NELSON? MAYBE BY CONCEDING UP FRONT THAT IF HE WEREN’T, IN FACT, REAL, SOME screwball scribbler would have come up with him. How else to

proportions—and appetites. Bessie DuBois, Jupiter’s de facto

explain Jupiter’s own version of Sasquatch, yeti, Paul Bunyan,

resident historian until her death—at ninety-five—in 1998, had

Davey Crockett, and Tarzan? He was that much a part of the

no problem vouching for that. She remembered his early visits

landscape of his time. He hunted. He fished. He trapped.

to the inn, restaurant, and fishing camp she owned and operated

He chopped a cord of wood a day. He wrestled alligators.

with her husband John. “He would order a pie,” she told an inter-

He communed with snakes. He read the Wall Street Journal and

viewer after Trapper’s death, “not a piece of pie, mind you, but

built an empire of open land.

a pie—and he’d eat the whole thing right in front of me.” Later

Though the facts can’t contain him, the basics, meticulously supplied by longtime Jupiter resident and writer James D. Snyder in Life and Death on the Loxahatchee, his biography of

he added gallons of ice cream to his repertoire and well over a dozen eggs at a single sitting. Certain that stardom awaited, Vince headed from Mexico

the enigmatic pioneer, go like this:

to Hollywood where he couldn’t get arrested, so back he went

Fact A: He was born on November 6, 1908, in Trenton, New

to New Jersey to reconnect with Charlie and John and another

Jersey, to a pair of Polish immigrants named Natulkiewicz who

freight train—this time headed south. In September of 1931, they

attached the handle of Vincent to their

hopped off in Jupiter, established a camp

youngest son.

on the inlet in a lean-to they found in what’s

Fact B: He died of a gunshot wound to the

now Carlin Park south of DuBois Park, and

chest in the summer of 1968, at his home-

cut the Natulkiewicz name down to size.

site within the 857 acres he’d amassed since

“It just seemed to me,” Nelson explained

settling in Jupiter in 1931. Between those

years later, “that if people have a hard time

facts hangs a tale.

pronouncing your name, you ought to do something to make it easier for them.”

Best to start near the beginning, for the abiding skills that carried Vince through his

For three months, the trio did well

life manifested themselves early. As a boy,

together, trapping furs for sale to north-

his older brother Charlie, a mentor but a

ern markets. Then a darkness descended.

volatile one, showed him how to make

In December of 1931, Charles and Dykas

money trapping muskrats and otters in the

got into a disagreement that ended when

marshes around where they lived. It was

Charles shot Dykas in the back. Vince’s tes-

a skill that served Vince well. So would his knack for numbers; he had such a

Trapper Nelson caption here.

good head for figures—and the English

timony helped send his brother to Raiford prison in north Florida. Alone, Vince returned to New Jersey,

language that his parents never learned—that he would help

but the lure of the Loxahatchee had taken hold; he came back in

his father by trailing him into stores to make sure shopkeepers

1934. Following the river nine miles upstream, he found an aban-

took no advantage of him. But Vince Natulkiewicz wasn’t long

doned cabin at a bend in Loxahatchee’s upper branch. With the

for New Jersey.

exception of a brief posting to Texas with the Army in World War

His mother died when he was thirteen; he left home not long

II, this land was home until his death.

after his father remarried, eventually hopping a train west with

He built a new cabin for himself, added a boathouse and

Charlie and their friend John Dykas. They trapped their way

dock, put up a chickee hut and a water tower for the irrigation

across Colorado and Texas and then down into Mexico, where

system he installed to keep the grove of plum, orange, mango,

Vince was jailed on suspicions of gunrunning; the Federales soon

grapefruit, lemon, key lime, and pineapple trees he planted

released him, he liked to boast, because he “wrecked their food

healthy. He set traps and inspected them daily. Though he lived

budget,” a claim not completely discountable given his heroic

primarily alone—he was briefly married; “couldn’t get unmarried

fast enough,” he claimed—he was no hermit, at least not until

by comparison. Joseph V. Reed regularly ferried guests over from

much later. He was a swashbuckling sensation, actually, who

Jupiter Island. “To these people from up north,” recalled Reed’s

would come out of the jungle, his torso bronzed by the sun, for

son Nathaniel, “this was already an exotic experience like they’d

regular visits to town in his bandana and shorts and a hunting

always imagined the Amazon to be. But now we’d twist along the

knife lodged in his belt. The name “Trapper” found its way to

river, round a bend, and there would be Tarzan himself standing on

him naturally.

his dock with a big Indigo snake draped around him.” According to

So did the locals. They’d travel upriver to picnic with their

a 1972 retrospective in the Palm Beach Post, the daughter of one

colorful neighbor and listen to him tell stories. Soon, chartered

of FDR’s cabinet secretaries was so smitten by Trapper’s brawn

boats arrived with tourists to see Jupiter’s one-off celebrity—

and charm that during a family sojourn in Palm Beach “she would

and tourists brought opportunity. In 1938, he opened his wildly

disappear for days at a time and return home with brambles in her

eclectic “Trapper Nelson’s Zoo and Jungle Garden,” charging

stocking and a smile on her face.” She was far from the only one.

two bits admission for the exhibition and show—alligator wres-

When war broke out, he married briefly to try skirting the draft,

tling, snake charming, tall tales—that went with it. The “Tarzan

but Uncle Sam found him anyway. He served as an M.P. at Camp

of the Loxahatchee” took form.

Murphy—part of his responsibility was wrangling snakes—than as

By the end of the 1930s, his fame had so spread that the social

a scout in Texas. When he came back to Florida after the war, his

set from Palm Beach was dropping in for social calls and pho-

wife had left him for another man, taking the car he’d given her

tographs beside Trapper to immortalize their meetings. Visiting

with them. From then on, he was still known to gift women friends

Trapper became such a rite of passage that the social pages of

with cars—but only on installments, “thereby,” assured the Post,

the local papers reported on the comings and goings. The Ken-

“insuring himself of at least their periodic loyalty.”

nedys came to call. As did Gary Cooper. European royalty paid

The post-war years were a boom time for South Florida,

respects. Wendell Wilkie dropped by shortly after he lost the

and Trapper made the most of it, continuing to buy foreclosed

1940 presidential election to FDR. Boxing Hall of Famer Gene

land, as he’d begun before the war, at bargain-basement prices.

Tunney was a frequent guest; the former heavyweight champion

At its height, his holdings exceeded 1,100 acres. Three miles of it

thought Nelson’s hands were so beefy his own looked feminine

fronted the river. His zoo prospered. He kept himself buff, as

always, by cutting a cord of wood every day. He built a sawmill and a firing range. He began taking in overnight guests.

interested. He became even more reclusive. And then, in late 1967, the state approached him with

Times were about to change.

the idea of selling his land in its entirety. “The State Park,”

As the 1950s turned into 1960, Trapper hit his fifties, and tax

Trapper wrote his nephew the following March, “is indeed

burdens—over $10,000 annually—crushed him. The county

taking steps to make me an offer for my ranch.” In addition to

deemed his facilities unsanitary. Local kids mocked him. He was

money, the state agreed to let him live on the hundred acres

putting on weight. He felt trapped under a

surrounding his cabin for the balance of

cloud. Enough was enough. He closed the

his life, but when it balked at Nelson’s

camp, cutting trees to block access to it by river

insistence that he retain trapping rights

and barricading the road in. He put up a sign:

throughout the entire parcel in play,

“Danger Land Mines—No Trespassing.” Those

negotiations hit a wall.

who failed to heed its warning were turned

Where they remained until a shotgun

away by the report of a shotgun. “His eyes

blast ripped through Nelson’s stomach in

seemed to lose their sparkle,” said his nephew

July. His body, badly decomposing beneath

some years later. “He became a lonely man,

Trapper Nelson caption here.

and a rather sick one.”

the chickee hut, shotgun lying beside it, was discovered a week later when John

He tried to sell land; now he was the one

DuBois drove in to bring Trapper the mail

on the short end of low-ball offers. He finally divested 215 acres

he hadn’t picked up in a week. Though the coroner’s jury ruled

north of the river in 1964; after taxes, fees, and debts, he walked

the death a suicide, the verdict left heads scratching throughout

away with $60,000, enough, certainly, to begin carrying him

Jupiter.

through the rest of his life. But his worries persisted. He imagined

Nelson’s property became part of the park in 1969. Open

he had cancer. His health declined. He kept a keen eye on how

to the public for tours since 1977, the “Trapper Nelson Zoo

building development in Jupiter was nipping at the edges of his

District” was formally recognized for its unique cultural signifi-

territory. He tried selling off more property, but no one seemed

cance by the National Register of Historic Places in 2006.

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the Nelson land, then turn around and trade it to the state

Philadelphia real-estate family, Meinken, in his mid-for-

for the acreage in the park they actually wanted.

ties, had been the first to meet with Snow, and the first

On the morning that Moe and Snow drove George

one in on any land swap. In early 1968, he’d formed a

out to the park, Smith’s proposal had been hovering in

four-man partnership, called Florida Equities, to develop

the atmosphere, in play, theoretically, since spring. There

a golf community like Lost Tree. They’d brought in a local

were still governmental hurdles to leap and red tape to

realtor to find the right property, and by spring, he had

cut. Any final OK was still months away.

led them, through Snow, to Dickinson State Park. The

Still, even without the formalization of the land

Equities team brought out Mark Mahannah, the designer

swap, there was an urgency, a very real urgency, for

of the golf course at Lost Tree and a staple in the stable of

George to come to some sort of understanding with Moe

designers then working in Florida, for a look. If nothing

in as few heartbeats as possible.

else, Mahannah saw it as unique, but his judgment went further; golf belonged there.

There were other interested parties.

By early summer, Meinken and ✧

✧

his group put in their first offer for

✧

Nelson’s land, a lowball $750,000. ONE OF THEM

But Trapper didn’t say no. He seemed

was named Nicklaus.

A relative newbie to Florida,

intent on moving forward. And to

Ohioan Jack Nicklaus had added

all indications, they were moving

Lost Tree as another address to reach

forward, though they’d reached an

him at in 1967. He was just seven

impasse when the unsettling news

years into his competitive juggernaut

broke on July 30: Trapper Nelson

in 1968, still eleven major champi-

had been found dead at his campsite

onships shy of his majestic eighteen.

with a shotgun blast through his ribs.

His architectural career was on the

Any thoughts of further discussions

verge of hatching—Harbor Town, his

ground to a halt—until the coroner’s

debut effort alongside Pete and Alice Dye was a year away; he was not yet

Jack Nicklaus won the U.S. Open in 1967

the entrepreneur he was destined to

inquest was over. A month went by before the six-person coroner’s jury in Martin

become when Snow explained the potential land swap to

County concluded that the cause of death was suicide,

him, as he had already explained it to others. Snow even

but questions hung over the inquest, and those who’d

took Nicklaus to the site. The Golden Bear was more

known Nelson through the years had their doubts. The

than intrigued—but cautious. “Jack was careful not to

idea of shooting yourself through the ribs with a shot-

show too much interest,” recalled Snow, “because he

gun seemed implausible for anyone save a contortionist,

didn’t want to drive up the price.”

and while Trapper had voiced concerns to friends about

And Ken Meinken, for one, wanted to make sure

his health, he hadn’t seemed depressed or desperate. Was

that price wasn’t driven up. An electronics executive en

it murder? And if so, at who’s hands? The question still

route to the presidency of Magnavox and the vice presi-

hangs.

dency of its parent concern, North American Philips Cor-

Suicide or murder, Nelson’s death altered the course

poration, Meinken was in the cat-bird seat. The son of a

of the negotiations. The Meinken group was now talking

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with Trapper’s heirs—his two sisters and his nephew—

that Hope, a fan and a friend, took his business deal-

through Snow. The pace had slowed. Meinken was

ings, the way he took his golf—seriously. So why was he

worried.

responding with jokes? George steamed ahead anyway.

He was right to be concerned. September came and went and still no agreement; then, in October, one

Hope kept dropping one-liners. Then George reached a punch line of his own: the cost.

of Meinken’s partners, a real estate broker named Bert

“What did you say?” asked Hope.

Turner, began chatting casually with Don Moe at a party

“And I said,” said George, “well, that’s what those

at Lost Tree. As the conversation turned, as so many did

jokes just cost you. You could have said yes earlier.”

then, to conjecture around Trapper’s death, Turner let slip

But he was in.

about Florida Equities’ negotiation over Trapper’s land

When Bill Ford returned the call from his office in

and the land swap, which was not yet public knowledge.

Detroit, the exchange went back and forth like a tennis

Moe pounced as if he’d just found himself 7 down in a Walker Cup match and about to take a hole. He called Snow. Snow corroborated Turner’s story.

rally. “I found the property we’re looking for,” George exhaled when he heard Ford’s voice.

Then Moe asked the key question: Can he get in on this?

“What property and who’s looking for it?” Ford

Snow told him he could. He began searching for the right

riposted. He’d long forgotten what he’d seen as noth-

buyer. Within a few weeks, he’d found his man when he

ing more than an imaginary hunt for an imaginary golf

saw George Fazio sitting down for lunch at Lost Tree.

course in an imaginary setting at that very real dinner at

George, in return, so fell for the land Moe had shown him

Pebble Beach ten months earlier.

that he was intent on outbidding Meinken’s group for an exclusive option to try putting a deal together. Hence the

George was undeterred. He reminded his friend of the conversation.

haste in finding a phone. George’s dream could only take

“I didn’t know you were serious,” Ford conceded.

him so far. He would need a million dollars—fast—to

He continued to listen as George rolled out the particu-

take him the rest of the way.

lars, but George’s enthusiasm ran into a wall. Florida? Thoughts of swamps and alligators and topography so

✧

level you could land a squadron of fighter jets on it ricocheted through Ford’s brain.

the transcontinental wire relaying those

“As a kid,” he recalled years later, “I had lived in

essentials to Bob Hope in California. “George was smart

Hobe Sound and was pretty familiar with the neighbor-

enough to realize that if he could talk Hope into it,”

hood. The land was flat as a pancake, and there was no

explains Tom Fazio, “he could get the others. He had to

water other than the Atlantic Ocean and Intracoastal

get somebody first.”

Waterway. I wasn’t interested in building another flat,

GEORGE BURNED UP

His pitch had high heat. This was a great opportunity, George stressed, even better—for golf and for business—than Coral Harbor in the Bahamas, which Hope

Florida golf course with palm trees.” Fine, thought George, but that wasn’t what he’d just seen and it wasn’t what he had in mind. He pressed on.

had enthusiastically joined as an investor. But what he

“He was very persistent,” Ford remembered. George

was hearing back wasn’t encouraging. “He was telling

stressed that he was eager to assemble a group of inves-

me all these jokes,” George said, “and I kept telling him

tors to make this deal happen and had only a couple of

I wanted to tell him about this property.” George knew

days to exercise an option. “He insisted that I come down

T H E

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O F

J U P I T E R

ONE OF THE PREMIER

H I L L S

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ENTERTAINERS OF THE TWENTIETH

CENTURY, BOB HOPE WAS A SELF-CONFESSED GOLF NUT WHO LIKED TO point out he’s “been playing the game so long that my handicap

they looked up to find a crowd of a dozen or so curious onlook-

is in Roman numerals.” He had III holes of his own in his backyard

ers, including two policemen, gathered around.”

in Toluca Lake near Burbank, was an active member of some XX

In 1974, with George beside him, Hope put everything George

clubs worldwide, and found ways to weave golf into his comedy

had taught him through the years together into one streamlined

and comedy into his golf, shooting punch lines at the quality of

shot at Butler National outside Chicago. George was fiercely

his own play.

proud of his design work there and wanted to show it off to his

The truth is, though, Hope was an excellent golfer. He was in-

friend. At the 220-yard-over-water par-3 fifth, George hit first,

troduced to the game as a kid caddying in Cleveland, then took it

plowing a 4-wood to the back of the green. Hope took a 4-wood,

up seriously in his late twenties. He maintained a low handicap—

too, but deposited his into the bottom of the cup. It was his fifth

in numerals Arabic as well as Roman—and even qualified for and

career ace. He naturally sprung for the drinks after the round in

played in the British Amateur in 1951. Like Bing Crosby, his peren-

the clubhouse but was never charged. “His signature is worth so

nial partner on the screen and on the links, Hope wound up with

much,” said the manager that Butler National kept it as a souve-

a tournament in his name and a plaque in the World Golf Hall of

nir, a clever check-writing tactic that Hope was famous for.

Fame—as thanks for the memories of his many contributions to the Royal & Ancient endeavor around the globe.

A tireless trouper, he traveled with his clubs when he performed—he almost always brought one onstage when enter-

Hope liked professional golfers in general—and George Fazio

taining the troops on his myriad USO tours—and made time on

in particular. Through the years, according to a 1961 story in the

the road to play whenever the weather cooperated. He would

venerable Golfdom magazine, Hope came to George for instruc-

generally drop in for a round at Jupiter Hills a few times a year—

tion more often than he did any other golf pro. “But,” cautioned

he’d stay in the Bob Hope Suite, an apartment atop the main

George, “don’t say I taught Bob Hope to play golf. He can do

building at John D. MacArthur’s old Colonnades Beach Hotel

anything well. I think he’s had the most studious approach to the

on Singer Island—more so in the club’s first years when Hope

game of any man I taught. He tackles golf like Einstein tackled

was serving on both Florida’s Council of 100, a kind of statewide

the theory of relativity.”

chamber of commerce, and on an advisory committee of the

Beyond the lesson tee, the two played a lot of golf togeth-

PGA of America. In the be beginning, he’d play with George, head

er, on courses from Atlantic City to Los Angeles, including Pine

pro Phil Greenwald, and their mutual friend Toney Penna, the

Valley, beginning in the late 1930s, though their friendship didn’t

former touring pro who’d turned into a club-making guru oper-

cement until the ’40s. In the 1950s, Hope came to Philadelphia

ating out of a factory close by. By the late 1970s, he was coming

to help George promote a tournament, and in the early ’60s, he

by less often, and in the ’80s, less often still.

invested in a Fazio project in the Bahamas. He so wanted George

Lead Golf Professional Tom Roberts, an assistant when he ar-

to relocate his design business to Los Angeles that he went so far

rived in 1988, was awed by Hope at first sight. “He was smaller

as to establish a phone line and address for it in a friend’s offices

in stature than I would have thought, but so much larger than

in Beverly Hills, though George never used either.

life,” he remembered. “And he was always humming and happy

In 1967, Hope was still actively entrusting his mechanics to

to be here.” The last time Hope stopped by at the club, in the

George’s care when the two created a scene on a post-midnight

early ’90s, Kirk White, now the club’s director of outside ser-

ramble through Manhattan. They had just finished dinner and

vices, joined him and Penna for six holes. “He didn’t hit it very

were so deep into their golfing gabfest that they transported it

far,” White recalls. “He was just excited to get back out and see

seamlessly from the restaurant to the streets. Sports Illustrated

the golf course again.” That night, Hope had dinner in the club’s

picked up the story in a profile of the comedian the following

dining room with fellow member Perry Como and actor James

year. “As they walked,” recounted writer Alfred Wright, “they

Earl Jones.

would discuss the finer points of the golf swing and then stop

Hope remained a member of Jupiter Hills until his death in

when Fazio demonstrated his pointers. The two became so en-

2003, two months beyond his one hundredth birthday. As an apt

grossed in what they were doing they were astonished when

coda that firms his—and Jupiter Hills’s—twining circle, twenty

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five years earlier, Hope and Crosby were jointly honored for their long walk down golf’s road together with the USGA’s highest honor, the Bob Jones Award, reserved for those who best personify the living spirit, character, and love of the game that Jones embodied. In 1992, a decade after triumphantly raising both the U.S. Amateur and Walker Cup trophies—both synonymous with Jones—Crosby’s son Nathaniel joined the club. He was a member for the next seventeen years.

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immediately.”

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knowing that it would, Elliott told George to count on

He did.

him, too. Elliott wasn’t disappointed. “The first time I

Meanwhile, George had another call to make—to

saw it I darn near fell over,” he later recalled. “It was the

Bill Elliott, the president of the Philadelphia Life Insur-

wildest piece of property I’d ever seen in Florida.”

ance Company. They’d met in the late 1940s at Pine Val-

There would be more partners involved through the

ley. “They became good buddies”—so good that Elliott

first few years, but Fazio, Ford, Hope, and Elliott formed

drove a string of Fords that he bought at George’s deal-

the Core Four that would guide Jupiter Hills through its

ership in Conshohocken—“and good golfing buddies,”

first decade and into its second. Which, on that fall day

recalls Katherine Elliott, his daughter. They were also

in 1968, was still a fantasy propelled by a true believer’s

good partners. Elliott had invested in several of Fazio’s

true belief in himself.

golfing ventures around Philadelphia as well as Coral

Ford made it more tangible when he stepped foot

Harbor, along with Hope. “My father enjoyed golf,” says

on the property. George picked him up at the airport,

Patty Torrance, Katherine’s twin sister, “and when you

and the two drove straight to the park, strapped on snake

enjoy it like he did, you want to go to the next level. You

guards, and hopped into a jeep. Unlike the dinner at Peb-

go, ‘Wouldn’t it be fun to build a golf course?’ ” Already

ble, this Ford remembered well. “We began driving into

OF JUPITER HILLS’S CORE FOUR FOUNDERS, BILL ELLIOTT MAY HAVE BEEN THE LEAST WELL-KNOWN BEYOND HIS OWN CIRCLE, BUT HE WAS 82

the one most widely enmeshed with George Fazio, the one most

With little in the way of team sports around him, the new nine-

closely involved with George in the workings of the club in the

hole Chautauqua Country Club, on the edge of Chautauqua

early years, and the one closest to George the longest. They’d met

Lake, became his playground—and, as a young caddie, his first

at Pine Valley in the late 1940s, where Elliott was a member; he

business address—when it opened in the summer of 1914. Seven

was also on the board at St. Davids Golf Club on the Main Line

years later, it became his crystal ball; that’s when Donald Ross

in Philly. Their friendship deepened through the 1950s, and by

arrived to carve out the second nine as the young high-school-

the early 1960s, they’d become tied through the golf business.

er watched with interest from the sidelines. “He always liked

Beginning with Kimberton Golf Club, which opened in 1962, Elliott

construction sites,” explains his daughter Katherine Elliott.

signed on as a financier and adviser for George’s most important

He didn’t mind hard work either. “The family didn’t have

projects around Philadelphia: Moselem Springs, Squires Golf Club,

much money when my father was growing up,” explained Sally

and Waynesborough Country Club—as well as Coral Harbor in

Templeton, Katherine’s sister, and Bill and his older brothers need-

the Bahamas. That George would reach out to him once he saw

ed to work—even in winter. Living close to the lake, Bill cut ice and

the potential of Jupiter Hills was a gimme: He relied on Elliott and

stored it in the ice house. “It was something that he used to tell us

trusted him.

about a lot”—and something that contributed to the linebacker’s

William Elliott was an exemplar of that remarkable all-Ameri-

build then attached to his six-foot-two-inch frame.

can creature: the self-made man. “He had the knack,” recalls his

Elliott’s work ethic paid dividends. He followed his two

old friend Pete Trenham, former head pro at St. Davids. “Every-

brothers to the Naval Academy, switched to study engineering at

thing he touched turned to gold.”

Drexel Institute of Technology, then offered his skills to the

Though it would take him half a lifetime to learn the alchemy.

American Bridge Company for use on the construction of

Born in 1905, Elliott grew up in Mayville, the very toe of the

Philadelphia’s Ben Franklin Bridge. “He used to catch rivets,” says

New York boot in the southwestern-most county of the state.

Templeton. Until he missed one and it burned through his cover-

His father owned the general store. The town was so small there

alls. “That was the end of his career in bridge-building.”

were only two other boys in his high school graduating class.

And the beginning of the rest of his life. Limiting his risks, he

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thickets so wild you needed a machete to penetrate it,”

some “terrific” elevation, and a lot of Florida flatness,

he recalled in the ’90s. “Finally, we worked our way

George saw a massive canvas that his imagination was

almost to the top of the hill where the clubhouse now

beginning to fill in. “George pointed out one or two

stands. All I could see was this awful looking scrubland.

ponds below us,” Ford went on, “and said he could

I couldn’t envision anything beautiful coming from this.”

expand those and lay out a golf course around the big

George could. And had.

hill. There were smaller dune ridges and hollows, he

Where Ford saw what he called “one nice hill,”

said, which would add to the sense of elevation. It would be different than anything in Florida.” Ford’s resolve was cracking. “George was a good salesman,” he conceded, and knowing that men like Hope and Elliott were already willing to stand behind him on faith alone made the pitch look better. Ford asked if George planned to put together some preliminary plans before they got too deeply into it. George said he did. “So I went along with it,” said Ford. “I thought it

But by then, he’d begun quietly winding down at Philadelphia Life; Fazio’s 1968 call about Jupiter Hills caught him at the right time. “He needed something new to sink his teeth into,” recalls Trenham. “At Jupiter Hills, he found it.” His two great loves were his farm outside Philadelphia and golf. “This would be his perfect day,” described daughter Katherine. “Play golf in the morning. Be home by lunch time. Go out on the tractor to mow the fields. Then get on a horse and go for a ride with one of us.” He had two sons and three daughters, all adopted. went into insurance, first at The Travelers, in 1929, before mov-

Like Ford and Hope—neither of whom he’d known before

ing on to the Philadelphia Life Insurance Company five years

George put them all together at Jupiter Hills—he kept a hand-

later, rising from agent to the vice presidency before enlisting

icap in the low single digits—and shot his age for the first time

in the U.S Navy’s submarine service when the war broke out.

at 74. “He liked competition,” says daughter Katherine. “He liked

Four years later, he returned to dry land as a lieutenant com-

being outside. And I think he was drawn to the peace of it, the

mander and was named Philadelphia Life’s president in 1946. In

toughness of it—it’s really hard to be to be good at it—the con-

1957, he added chairman to his title. He had an uncanny ability to

centration it demanded, and the camaraderie. He always liked

read people. “He had a nice way about him,” Trenham remem-

the men he played with. He always played early in the day. And

bers. “He would say, ‘I don’t do business with that man. He’s too

he always played fast.” And, according to Rod Ross, his mentee

smart for me.’ That was his way of saying someone couldn’t be

and successor at the helm of Philadelphia Life, he displayed such

trusted, because you knew no one was too smart for Bill Elliott.”

a proclivity for accepting putts beyond the circle of friendship,

Under his steady hand, the company experienced an extended

his golfing pals dubbed him “Raker.”

period of unprecedented growth to become one of the top one

He was eighty-four when he died, the morning after suf-

hundred publicly traded insurance firms in the nation until it

fering a stroke during dinner in the dining room at his beloved

was bought in the late 1970s by the conglomerate Tenneco.

St. Davids.

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BILL FORD INHERITED

J U P I T E R

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MUCH FROM HIS FATHER, BUT A QUALITY

GOLF GAME WASN’T PART OF THE EDSEL FORD LEGACY. Which isn’t to say the namesake of one of the great misfires in automotive history didn’t love the game. He did. Exquisitely. These two tales alone support that. First, when caddies at his summer home at the Kebo Valley Club in Bar Harbor, Maine, went on strike in 1941, Edsel Ford remained undeterred; he played through the pickets, carrying his own bag. Second, he was always desperate to improve; he began playing the game as a natural left-hander, switched to the more conventional starboard side, then reverted back to port. None of which really helped. Still, Edsel played on. Eventually, Bill Ford would become a less ambidextrous practitioner of the game, though no less a devoted one, even if golf stood behind tennis and soccer in his earliest drivetrain. “I always liked sports,” he’d later explain, “because they involved a democracy of talent.” That statement says a lot. Take talent. He had it in multiple fields of play. What he lacked in size and birth order, he made up for in grace and grit, both of which served him well, even if the latter at times betrayed him, luring him into unnecessary risks. Consider this assessment of his skills on the tennis court by his occasional partner, Hall of Famer Bill Talbert. “He was an excellent player,” Talbert had no trouble asserting, “but he had a problem. He would go for too big a shot before he was ready for it.”

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When it came time for his shot at Jupiter Hills, he was ready. By then, he had won much and lost much. What had come to matter to him most was more internal than business success or athletic triumph. It was friendship and family, humility and civility. The former, especially, was essential to his signing on to George Fazio’s wild dream. Born in 1925, William Clay Ford grew up in wealth and privilege in Grosse Point, outside Detroit, the youngest child in the third generation of a certified dynasty eponymously powered by the automobile. At ten, his grandfather—Henry Ford—taught him how to drive a Model T; he’d regale anyone who would listen—and who wouldn’t?—about the time he and his grandfather were stopped for speeding… and neither had a license. Charles Lindbergh gave him his first airplane ride. By sixteen, he was captain of his prep school tennis team, and by seventeen, he’d won the club championship in tennis at the august Country Club of Detroit. At eighteen, following his father’s death, he became a very rich young man on paper. After two years of Naval flight service—he was an excellent pilot by all accounts—he won letters in tennis and soccer at Yale, united two industrial behemoths by marrying Martha Firestone of the tire family—the local paper deemed the nuptials “the biggest society wedding in Akron history”—and joined the board of Ford Motor Company

in 1948, a year before he earned his degree in economics and

beside his father’s doing watercolors of fine cars. Now he was

began the preordained climb toward the executive suite ruled

going to design his father’s car! He was just overcome by the

by his older brother, Henry II, aka “Hank the Deuce.” “That’s all

enormity of it.”

there was since I can remember,” Bill conceded years later. “It

But he reached his objective; the car was a success d’estime,

never occurred to me that I wouldn’t work there. I had loved cars

though, as the most expensive American car then produced, it

ever since I was a boy.”

lost money and was quickly pulled from production. Bill Ford

He did, indeed, love cars, the way his father did, not as com-

was devastated; he felt his older brother had sabotaged him.

modities, but as objects of beauty. He was a designer at heart

It was one in a series of personal crises that drowned him in

first—though the stubborn streak that he took from the tennis

alcohol for what biographers Peter Collier and David Horowitz

courts to the boardroom made sure the family retained enough

deemed, in The Fords: An American Epic, his “ten-year lost week-

control over the company when it went public in 1956 to ensure

end.” When his new Monday finally dawned, he had made peace

Ford influence over Ford going forward. In his late twenties, he

with Ford—at least with the company—retiring as vice chairman

led the design team that brought the distinctive Continental—

in 1989 and chairman of the Finance Committee six years later.

his father’s pride and joy—back to the Ford line-up. “Bill Ford

More important to his self-preservation, he bought the Detroit

came to the task with stars in his eyes,” recalled the Continen-

Lions in 1963. “What I needed most of all,” he later admitted,

tal’s head stylist. “His earliest memories were sitting at a desk

“was something to do. I always wanted something that was all

mine and mine to do.” The Lions, through thick and thin seasons,

lowed company. When Ford played with President Eisenhower,

became that for him; he remained the club’s president until his

he insisted that the former commander in chief putt everything

death in 2014.

out, as well.

And through it all, there was golf. His Grosse Point home

Of course, given George Fazio’s recalcitrant flat stick, Ford

bordered the fifth hole of the Country Club of Detroit—spike

offered him no clemency from close range either. “Bill loved

marks from the patio to the bar testify to the legion of friends

George,” emphasized Morse. “He called him ‘Gooney.’ He loved

who dropped by for refreshments through the years—and he

to needle George, and when the two were together with Bob

kept memberships at Seminole, Cypress Point, Shinnecock Hills,

Hope, they would ride George pretty hard.”

and Augusta. “He was a very avid golfer and a very good golf-

Because Ford, like Hope, so respected and admired George

er,” maintains his son-in-law and frequent golfing companion

and his talents. “Bill saw George as an artist,” Morse went on,

Peter Morse, an Honorary Member at Jupiter Hills since 1984.

“and was appreciative of his skills. He had faith in George.”

“His handicap was between 5 and 7—and he could play to it.” He

Which is why he hopped on a plane when George called him.

had a solid short game and was a superb putter with an ancient,

“This was a labor of love—for both of them. This wasn’t a busi-

nicked-up mallet that Morse regularly threatened to steal. “He

ness Bill was in. He saw himself as a patron and Jupiter Hills was

was very competitive. We would regularly play $5 Nassaus. Even

a painting George was going to do for him.”

from six inches, he would make me putt it out.” Morse was in hal-

On an epic scale for them both.

CHAPTER FIVE

Let the Wild Rumpus Start ✧

✧

ITHIN HOURS OF STEPPING FOOT ONTO HIS FUTURE, George Fazio began assembling verbal commitments, and within ten days he’d pulled another handful of investors from a list of friends he called his “Ten Percenters.” Tom Fazio can still hear his uncle in their Philadelphia office cajoling them on the phone: “It was just raining money.” Four

of the new investors were Philadelphia-based, and one of the two who wasn’t was, conveniently,

Don Moe, who became the deal-making point man on the ground. Two weeks later—on the strength of their combined good names and a payment wired to Pat Snow’s bank as a binder—Moe had effectively muscled Ken Meinken and his Florida Equities group, Jack Nicklaus, and any other potential parties out of the picture. “The price had climbed to a million,” Meinken later explained. “Before we knew what hit us, the Fazio group had wrapped up the deal. We got hit by a freight train.” Did they ever! On November 18, 1968, Moe closed on an exclusive option from Trapper Nelson’s heirs to facilitate the swap for Fazio and friends, but his agreement only ran until February 11, 1969. The clock was ticking. Which kept Moe moving. With Moe and his savvy for Florida real estate at the helm, the overall path to procuring the property proceeded smoother than it might have otherwise, but smoothness was still relative. There were some bumps in the road. And relatives on the route. First up, Nelson’s heirs. The less than $1 million that Trapper seemed willing to take for his property was now off the table. His sisters and nephew pushed the price up, eventually agreeing to $1,306,180, an un-round number roughly matching the evaluation of the property in the park. But there was more. In addition to leaving his 857 acres to his family, Trapper also assigned them 50 percent of the oil and mineral rights underneath. That had to be cleared up before the state would agree to proceed. As did the appearance—in March of 1969—of Trapper’s ex-wife seeking a share in the estate he hadn’t left her. George and Tom Fazio caption here.

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Though Ken Meinken knew he was licked and wouldn’t

PAGE

acquire the Jupiter site, he believed in his

135

development strategy. Before the year was out,

of book

Florida Equities found an alternative a few

C L U B

course, magically decreasing the size of the land Fazio, Bill Ford, Bob Hope, Bill Elliott et. al. would take title to by 10 percent, down to 360 acres, according to state Trust Fund records, from the four hundred agreed upon. Just as magically,

mid-irons west across the North Fork of the Loxahatchee in Tequesta and pounced on it;

its $1.306 million value in the state’s eyes

on January 5, 1969, it acquired the land that

didn’t budge at all.

gave birth to the Turtle Creek Club. In 1981, Meinken became a member of Jupiter Hills, and in 1989, the club’s first treasurer.

That was one detail that George and his confreres refused to sweat. By

As for Jack Nicklaus, though he was never a serious contender for the land, as late as January 31, 1969, the Palm Beach Post was mistakenly reporting that he was involved along with Don Moe in the deal for the land swap, and in July the paper outed him—incorrectly—as an investor. Still, Nicklaus wasn’t happy that Moe had made a deal before Jack got the chance to study

then, what they wanted most was to keep momentum moving. “They could have fought,” stressed Tom Fazio, “but George didn’t want to fight it. He had the whole deal done. We decided OK. We’re

the property more carefully—and he told Moe so more than once.

not gonna get 400 acres. We’re gonna get That added another hiccup, but just a hiccup. Her claim

366,” the slightly increased number agreed on at closing

was quickly dismissed.

on May 20, with the entire tract to be held by the group in a trust agreement, at least to begin with.

Second, the swap itself. On January 19, 1969, the Florida Board of Parks

Given that what they were losing was wetlands

formally recommended the exchange and asked that the

off-limits for golf and construction anyway, 366 would

trustees of the state’s powerful Internal Improvement

more than satisfy their needs.

not full-throatedly.

Besides, they were in too deep to

Despite trustee and state Controller Fred

turn back.

Dickinson’s extolling “the beauty of the area,” as reported in the Trust Fund’s

✧

minutes, the Fund attached a stream of caveats, all surrounding the oil and

THE SAME DAY THE SWAP was signed and

mineral rights. Though Nelson’s heirs

sealed, a new company was born. Called

consented to quitclaim their interest,

Jupiter Golf, Inc., it was established—

the state insisted those rights first be

per a letter from C. Vernon Kane, the

appraised and official agreements signed to avoid legal technicalities later.

club’s Fort Lauderdale-based accounGovernor Claude Kirk

tant and financial consultant—“for construction and operation of a golf course

By the end of the month, the issue was laid out for Governor Claude Kirk and his cabinet.

styled as ‘Jupiter Hills Country Club.’ ” The club’s official

The governor had a straightforward question: Will this

name, as it turned out was premature, but the timing of

deal protect the Loxahatchee River? Assured it would, he

the May 20 closing with the incorporation is testament

gave the transaction his OK.

to how eager everyone—especially George—was to get

And then the state dropped another hurdle onto the

started.

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GEORGE DIDN’T HAVE TO DIVE TOO DEEPLY INTO HIS WELL OF POTENTIAL INVESTORS TO ATTRACT HIS ORIGINAL SHAREHOLDERS, nor was the money handed over as a lark. With the assurance

du Pont and a trustee of the family’s Nemours Foundation. An ac-

that each would recoup their outlay when development beyond

complished golfer and an owner of harness racers, he was drawn

the golf course began in earnest, five beyond the initial core of

to the sporting life. Before the Hills Course was completed, Dent

George, Bill Ford, Bob Hope, Bill Elliott, and Don Moe stepped

sold half of his shares to Philadelphia lawyer Billy Van Alen—a good

forward.

friend and regular golf partner—to increase the investor roll to

JIM ELLIOTT (BELOW), better known as Jumbo, the legend-

eleven. Through the 1960s, both played golf with Bill Ford.

ary track coach at Villanova—his twenty-five Olympians brought

WALLY MCCALLUM, retired chairman of John Morrell & Co.,

home six gold and three silver medals—and co-owner of a con-

one of the nation’s largest meatpackers, and a director of sev-

struction company with $25 million in annual sales; he and George

eral railroads, was an early member of Lost Tree and a golfer of

were best men at each other’s weddings and Jumbo—no relation

considerable skill brought in as an investor by Moe.

to Bill Elliott—was a founder and director of George’s Squires Golf

When the shareholder agreement—a Subchapter S corpora-

Club and a member of Aronimink, where he chaired the greens

tion—was formalized on Valentine’s Day in 1969, a total of ten

committee. Captain of Villanova’s golf team in 1934 and 1935, Jum-

thousand shares had been created. Dent and Jumbo Elliott each

bo was undefeated as a college player and came close to going pro.

had five hundred of them. George received 150 in exchange for

JIM NOLEN, a noted architect who’d designed a series of

his vision, salesmanship and sweat equity. Bill Elliott, Hope, Moe,

buildings at Temple University. The son-in-law of Hall-of-Fame

Colen, McCallum, and Nolen acquired one thousand shares each,

manager Connie Mack, Nolen was also a founder and director

with Ford controlling the remaining 2,850.

of Squires.

Each share was valued at $100, making the shareholders

JOE COLEN, a manufacturer of machined metals and a busi-

stake in the deal $1 million. The remaining $306,180 required to

ness associate of Bill Elliott’s.

complete the purchase and land swap was financed through a

ALFRED DU PONT DENT, a grandson of philanthropist A. I.

mortgage held by the First Bank of Jupiter-Tequesta.

Caption here.

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Caption here for this land map.

In truth, he already had. For months, on and off between working on other

How do four hundred acres suddenly turn into 360?

projects, he and Tom had been doing what architects

Let Tom Fazio explain. Before Florida could sign off on

do. Back in Philadelphia, Tom Nolen, one of the original

the swap, the state required that the boundary lines as

ten investors, had assigned a team from his architectural

surveyed be reviewed and approved. Three boundaries,

firm to draw up a detailed topo map as a guide to work with. “After the option was signed for the Jupiter Hills land,” Nolen later noted, “George, nephew Tom, and I would meet at Squires, where George was living at the

of course, were fixed—by Tequesta Park, the highway to the east, and the railroad tracks on the west. The northern boundary was only as solid as the ribbons and stakes that were marking it. “They flew over in a helicopter,” Tom says, “and saw the stakes,” which were just beyond

time, to go over plans.” Notations on paper morphed into

a series of lakes above what’s now the ninth tee, which,

three-dimensional life as the Fazios kept walking the land,

from their vantage point aloft, was one lake too many.

brainstorming the possibilities, imagining the particulars,

“One of the guys said, ‘We don’t want to give them that

marking the access roads, and siting the clubhouse. By

lake. We want that lake.’ So they moved the stakes inside

the time the land deal had signatures, the Fazios had their routing. “We knew we were going to have two golf courses at some point,” explains Tom, with “some point” still a nebulous concept. “So it was, ‘Let’s put a golf course over

the lake, changed the line on the survey, and that’s how it came to be”—when all was said and done—“366 acres.” The club was later able to repurchase some of the land that it lost.

there where the hills are, because we’re not gonna have any

routing. Naturally, George, did far more than ride shot-

houses there.’ ”

gun; he supervised, participating actively and keeping

And that’s where the Fazios dug in.

his iron grip on final say-so. Just as naturally, uncle and

It was very much a family affair—and a para-

nephew didn’t always see eye to eye. “George won every

digm shift in the family dynamic as George entrusted

battle,” concedes Tom. “No matter what the discussions

his nephew with the a good portion of the preliminary

were, George won, because he was in charge and he took

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In early September 1969, Don Moe reported to the investors that the Martin County Board of Commissions granted the burgeoning enterprise’s zoning application on the northern 185 acres. Included was the OK to build a clubhouse, rental apartments, and condominiums on the twenty-five to thirty acres of hilly terrain between U.S. 1 and the golf course. As for the remaining 181 acres, Moe’s memo—issued on “Jupiter Golf Club, Inc.” letterhead— informed them that zoning “would be requested when development plans for this tract are finalized.”

charge.” Working together, they produced drawings and

so much more than just an investment to him.”

sketches—all sadly victims of time, moves and a 1980

Still, he kept his perspective; his years running Phil-

fire in the clubhouse. In October, with everything in place

adelphia Life Insurance had instilled that in him. So had

and the grass taking hold, Tom drew the detailed topo

his previous ventures with George. He was the steadying

map that now hangs in the clubhouse entry hall.

hand on George’s shoulder throughout, working to keep

Much can be overlaid onto 366 acres, and much,

him on his $400,000 construction budget and guiding

of course, would, but for the time being, every concerted

him through the twists and turns of what was feasible

effort was directed at the details of the

and what wasn’t in getting a club like

course George imagined when he first

they envisioned up and running. “The

saw the land. Though the rest had to

thing that always made the deal really

wait, the pesky details attached to own-

interesting,” explains Tom, “was that

ing 366 acres—like zoning, permits,

the plan was for the investors to even-

dollars, and sense—were never completely out of sight, out of mind. With a mortgage to pay, interest was accruing.

LOOKING BACK from the perspective of a half century, Tom Fazio continues to marvel at the synergy gen-

tually get their money back down the road when rest of the property was developed.”

If the engine driving George was

erated at the start by his uncle, Bill

How far down the road? For

fueled by a desire to build the best

Ford, and Bill Elliott. “The most im-

the time being, George, Ford, Elliott,

golf course he could—his Pine Valley,

portant part of George’s vision—be-

Hope et. al. were content to concen-

his Champions Club—with all other considerations secondary at best, the governor installed to keep him from hurtling off the road was the acceptance, however reluctantly, that it

side the vision itself,” Tom explained, “was that George had somebody who was committed to paying for it in Bill Ford and somebody in Bill Elliott who knew how George worked and knew how to talk to him.”

would be the considerations ancillary

trate on the Hills Course and let the details of the development-to-come come when they came. For months, the Palm Beach Post dropped hints at what might be coming: a golf course and condo development, a semi-pri-

to building that best golf course that would make the

vate course with apartments, a mix of private homes and

endeavor possible. Though Bill Ford was the club’s prin-

a golf course a la Lost Tree. It was all speculation and

cipal financial mover, Bill Elliott was its philosophical

it was all fluid, including the possibility—floated among

shaker and keeper of the practicalities—and he was into

themselves—that the property south of the first course

it. He stayed in his apartment on Jupiter Island through

might simply be sold off. In July, the Martin County

most of construction. “He went over every day,” remem-

Planning and Zoning Board entertained a proposal, put

bers his daughter Patty Torrance. “He took us over when

forth by Don Moe, for a golf course and apartment com-

we visited to see what they were building. He was very

plex. That would evolve, too.

proud of the whole project. He was enmeshed in it. It was

But George was eager to get started.

Tractors began clearing the thick vegetation on the Dunes in may 1969/

Now.

borders. The dunes told George where the golfing drama ✧

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lay. He paid attention. “When I got in those dunes,” he later said, “I didn’t have to create at all, just hold what I

“GEORGE WASN’T the kind of guy who would take a lot of time to think something out,” says Tom. “He was an action guy.”

found.” While working to solve the golfing conundrum that they posed.

The configuration of the property welcomed that,

“A flat piece of land,” George would explain,

emitting clear signals for how to use it most effectively

“you’re yourself. Here you’re not yourself. When you

and efficiently. Broadcaster Jack Whitaker distinctly

deal with nature that is so pretty, you get butterflies in

recalls feeling some of those signals through his poste-

your tummy when you think, ‘My god, am I going to ruin

rior on a visit to the site before shaping. “George drove

this?’ You have some sleepless nights. You don’t want to

me across the rough terrain pointing at excitement with

look at yourself in the mirror and say, ‘Oh, my god, I

each new feature he would create,” Whitaker remembers.

wish I had left this alone.’ It’s that type of land.”

“He kept saying we’ve got more elevation here than any-

Land that was defined clearly by the east-west dune

place in Florida. It was the bumpiest ride of my life.”

ridge on its northern edge. Unveil the mysteries that lay

And a ride many others would accompany George on.

hidden in plain sight and the rest would take care of itself.

The perimeter was locked in—by the railroad, the Federal

“That was the key,” says Tom. “It’s the hilliest land.

Highway, Tequesta Park, and County Line Road, and the

How many holes can we put there and where can we put

state park—so there were no ideas of bleeding past the

them? Those were our big questions.”

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IN EARLY MARCH 1969, the Palm

removed them, some heavy machinery rolled in to begin

Beach Post not only reported that “Moe

clearing, but since the site was still technically controlled

and his associates”—meaning Fazio and his friends—were negotiating the land swap, the paper also provided the first assessment of the land itself, at least in terms of golf. “It’s

by the state, the process was slow, more mindful than a wholesale sweep. Scrub was expendable; hardwoods weren’t, at least not yet. Jim O’Brien, who’d surveyed the

a hilly and wooded area,” wrote George Voorhis in his “Golf

site for the state, was brought in by the club to reprise his

Scene” column, “a bit of a departure from the norm of Florida

role. In the 1990s, he vividly resurrected the moment he

courses. Moe termed it a golf course builder’s delight,” adding

saw Moe clambering through the brush, so out of breath

that the course would be, not entirely accurately, semi-public

that his face had gone beyond blue towards purple, to

and part of a housing development.

stop one of the bulldozer operators from removing a tree that was still state property. As one of the preeminent

Even before the club was incorporated, the Fazios dug in.

real estate men in the neighborhood, Moe knew the rules. As one of the partners in the club, Moe was not about to skirt them.

Literally. Carefully. Preliminarily. Given the land’s past life as part of Camp Murphy’s shooting range, its sweep was riddled with spent rifle shells, thousands and thousands of them, both on the surface and embedded in the sand below. Once work crews

George enjoyed taking visitors for rides over the humps and bumps of the construction site, and several of the original investors availed themselves of that adventure. So did crooner and TV star Perry Como. An avid—and excellent—golfer, Como had known George since George’s sojourn in Los Angeles, and he was playing the occasional round with fellow entertainers Bob Hope and Bing Crosby even earlier. A resident of Jupiter Inlet since 1958, Como called Tequesta Country Club his golfing home, and he regularly teed it up at Lost Tree and Seminole, too. At Tequesta, he often partnered with fellow member Toney Penna. A four-time winner on tour—he beat George to take the 1937 Pennsylvania Open at Merion—Penna segued from a successful playing career to become one of the nation’s master clubmakers, operating out of his factory in Jupiter. Como was a vice president of Penna’s company; Hope was a director. One of Penna’s most popular clubs was the Como model putter, which the entertainer wielded expertly wherever he played, including the putting green on his Jupiter Inlet lawn, a surprise gift from his wife built under Penna’s supervision. Though Como wasn’t an investor at Jupiter Hills, as a friend of Fazio’s, George made sure he saw it early—and often. “While he was building it,” Como recalled, “George used to drive me around in a jeep and try to explain where all the greens and fairways would go, but I had no idea what he was talking about.” Which didn’t deter him from becoming an active member for the next twenty-six years. “Ah, Mr. C,” sighs former clubhouse chieftain Tom Horal. “He had two speeds: slow motion and dead stop. There was never anybody smoother.”

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With the swap finalized, construction began in earnest under two extraordinary craftsmen: as project supervisor, Jay Morrish manned the helm in the field working

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when the two get together. The kind of stuff that can be shoved around like a ninety-six-pound weakling.

closely with shaper Lou Capelli, who’d been assisting

“If I had to pick the easiest golf course in our port-

George from George’s architectural infancy, to transfer

folio to build physically,” says Tom, “it would be this

marks on paper into formations on the ground. By the

one.”

end of August, the substructure for the new fairways,

Since sand is easy to move, it’s easy to mold. Its

greens, and tee boxes was in place—though none of it

porosity means that drainage would never be an issue at

had yet found its way to the dramatic dunescape at the

Jupiter Hills the way it was on the thicker bases of soil

northern border. By mid-September,

and clay that George had worked on

the watering system—separate lines on

in the north. Conversely, its ability

opposite edges of the fairway for better

to compact when it gets wet actually

reach than a single, centerline system—

makes it easier to shift—and work

was operational, and the three-week

in—when it rains.

sprigging operation that turned a con-

JIM O’BRIEN was a master surveyor

struction site green could begin.

who picked up stakes in Boston and

From the first spade of dirt to the final clump of grass, there were decisions. Lots of decisions.

put them down in Florida during the Depression. When he wasn’t manning his transit, theodolite, and compass, he had an active and fulfilling alterna-

And this wasn’t just any sand. This was the gold standard—and they’d hit the mother lode. Tom calls it sugar sand. “It was like pushing butter with a knife,” he says. You want to float a green? Just

tive existence—as an entertainer. On

And the site took on a radically

stage, he acted and directed in the-

push up the sand and grade it off, then

different look. As construction pro-

aters along the Palm Coast. Behind

spread around some colloidal phos-

gressed, only two of the site’s gumbo

the microphone, he co-hosted

phate as a water-holding agent to help

limbo trees remained standing, and the

Jupiter’s first talk radio show on

grow grass.

native vegetation in place for so long made way for a new arboreal invasion of live oak, silk oak, laurel oak, acacia, mahogany, eucalyptus, and a variety of pines punctuated throughout by bottle-

WRYZ. Behind the typewriter, he wrote commentary for the local newspaper, The Beacon, often in sup-

You want to bend a fairway? The sand will be your friend. Insert a tee? Ditto.

port of the rights of migrant workers,

Who can’t appreciate that?

of whom he always considered him-

Perhaps only a crewf aced

self, as a native Bay Stater, to be one.

with

brush, periwinkle, oleander, hibiscus, and plumbago. With George, the never-satisfied tinkerer at the helm, some of those decisions would be made, revisited,

the

one

overall

disadvan-

tage of the sand: During construction, jeeps andbulldozers regularly marooned in the soft cushion bordered on farce.

and then made again. And again. Because George, the artist, had not only found his canvas, he had also found—

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beneath the original vegetation—his medium. Sand.

BY SHREWDLY SHIFTING the sandy footing, the substruc-

Golf’s magic mixture.

ture upon which the skin of the golf course would drape

The kind of stuff that does wonders to a golf course

quickly took shape, and the genial cooperation of the

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choosing not to level landing areas; if that produced uncomfortable uphill, downhill, and sidehill lies, well, that’s the golf George grew up with before more modern practitioners of the endeavor decided that fairways, tautologically, should be fair. Fill became a reliable ally. Taken from the sand dug out to create the irrigation pond in the triangle scribed by the first, fifth, and sixth fairways, it helped them hoist apexes throughout. It also pragmatically lifted the summit of the property several feet to begin manufacturing the pad that the clubhouse would one day sit on, as well as contributing to what would become the first tee.

George Fazio had an eye for hard work-

“We knew that the starting point,” says Tom, “was

ers with talent; he found one in Jay Moorish. Not long out

to be the highest point on the hill with the clubhouse

of Colorado State University with a degree in horticulture,

overlooking the ocean someday.” Someday. But not yet,

he turned to a career in course design, apprenticing for four years with Robert Trent Jones—he was on the crew that built Spyglass Hill—before signing on with Fazio in 1967. Post Jupiter Hills, he turned to design, most prominently by joining forces with a pair of fair golfers—Jack Nicklaus from 1973–1983, then Tom Weiskopf from 1985–1999—to produce layouts like Alabama’s Shoal Creek and Colorado’s

because finances dictated that for the foreseeable future, the entry to the course would be off Old Dixie Highway with temporary trailers doing the duties until a clubhouse could rise. “But we reserved the spot for it.” Then off they went in search of eighteen green sites and the tee boxes for them.

Castle Pines with Jack and Troon North in Scottsdale and

From the start, a pair of holes presented themselves

Loch Lomond north of Glasgow in Scotland with Weiskopf.

so clearly that the Fazios have never tried rearranging

Moorish may not have had a game to match the champions he worked with, but he certainly had a designer’s mind. “You don’t have to be the world’s best player to be an architect,” the president of the American Society of Golf

them, nor have they had to. They formed a short corridor hemmed into an opening between the railroad tracks on the west and the vestiges of the continuation of the Old

Course Architects from 2002–2003 insisted. “You just have

Dixie Highway to the east. What the Fazios saw was so

to understand what the golf ball’s going to do.”

strategically beckoning and aesthetically sound that they immediately identified what became their 11th and 14th

substructure encouraged the Fazios to ratchet up the

holes. In terms of design and the design process, they

drama already in situ by manually twisting the words

formed the hinge to fan out from, to establish a style, and

of Isaiah to exalt the hills and lower the valleys. “The

to set a tone.

theory,” explains Tom, “was always keeping the highs

This sliver became their northwest passage.

high and the lows low. We accented them by raising the

“From a golf design standpoint,” Tom emphasized,

highs.” Though not completely. “We had all the hills we

“this was an automatic for us. There were so many things

needed. If anything, we had too many hills. We had to

that were logical, and this was one.” The Old Dixie

knock some of them down, which is a nice problem to

Highway veered away enough from its parallel path to

have in Florida.”

the railroad tracks to open up a short thoroughfare bifur-

As for the lows, they let them fall where they may,

cated by the east-west dune ridge that the road traversed

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before George opted to put an end to it south of the ridge

level land around it. Unlike working in the dunes, they

when the maintenance shed went up. “There was just

could create whatever they chose to, and there was just

enough space to put in two par 3s, one going one way,

enough width between the railroad and an AT&T ease-

one going the other,” playing downhill in opposite direc-

ment that ran through the property to lay down a pair

tions with their entrances back-to-back on the ridge, one

of parallel holes—the current par-4 second and par-5

with the prevailing breeze, the other against, depending

fourth—as well as the par-4 12th. With its tee box beside

on the day and season. “When you back up par-3 holes,”

the 11th green, the 12th hole was enlisted to forge the

George would explain, “you take maximum advantage of

first link between the dunes and the flats.

the playability of golf.” Logic—and playability—continued to guide them. It guided them to the practice range and the more

“Now we’ve got five holes,” says Tom, “and have only a 13-hole golf course left to build.”

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each other, but they respected and appreciated each other. Theirs was a friendship built on mutual understanding.”

IF THAT MATH sounds impeccable, it still took a mulligan

And a loyalty fostered over years of competitive rounds

for it add up correctly.

played together.

Once George was satisfied with the routing, he

Each found in the other qualities, both inward and

called Bill Ford at his home on Long Island. He was eager

outward, that the fickleness of birth and fate had with-

to show his partner how the course was shaping up. The

held from themselves. For George, while Ford’s name

encounter resulted in a sublime tale—embellished per-

represented wealth and standing, the man who carried

haps—that Ford never needed much prompting to tell.

it stood for modesty, lack of ego, a broad generosity of

“He loved it,” emphasizes Peter Morse. “It captured their

spirit, a willingness to trust, and—the trait that the others

relationship so perfectly.” The dreamer in George—and

contributed to—an almost ingenuous eagerness to jump

Ford, who so loved to needle him.

on board for a good ride with a good friend. Ford was a

“You have to understand the real affection these men

good enough golfer, certainly, to value George’s mastery

had for each other,” Morse continues. “They loved to kid

and understanding of the game. As a Ford, he knew an

Like most architects juggling more than one project at a time, George wasn’t a full-time presence on site, and he hadn’t been one in some time. Tom became that presence for George at Waynesborough; they understood each other and had developed a shorthand. With several projects on the drawing boards, Tom added Moorish in 1967. “He became our person in the field living on site and supervising construction at Jupiter Hills,” says Tom, “the same thing I would normally do, but we were doing multiple golf courses at the time”—the preliminary planning for Butler National (right) outside Chicago and Rio Mar in Puerto Rico, the construction of twenty-seven holes for Hugh Hefner’s Great Gorge Playboy Club Resort in New Jersey, and actively discussing the course for a club, never built, on the north shore of Long Island that would have featured Ken Venturi as its golf pro, five-time Wimbledon champion Tony Roche as its tennis pro, and Mr. Billiards himself, Willie Mosconi—he once ran 526 balls in a row—overseeing the pool room. “We were growing the business in those years,” said Tom. By then, too, George had begun to rely on Tom’s growing skills as an architect. For all practical purposes, Tom had become his uncle’s junior—and still silent in terms of credit—design partner.

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George incorporated one of golf’s more novel concepts on the original incarnation of the 16th hole. “George loved being in the field,” says Tom. “He would walk and look at something. One day during construction George saw something new on top of a dune. ‘Let’s put a green here.’ Again, because of the sand, it was so easy to build here. So we also put in a second green on the hole.” George liked each so much that he kept both, giving golfers an alternative; they could either play the relatively straight, heroic par 4 as George first imagined with its second shot rising into the dune, or opt for a significantly shorter hole with a second shot pitch to an elevated green that served as the terminus of its new severe bend to the right. Each alternative had its own demands. Not surprisingly, George found his rationale for the idea at Pine Valley, where the ninth hole featured a pair of greens, the original, on the upper left by George Crump, and a second, to the right of it, laid in by William Flynn in the late 1920s. To firm this family circle, Pine Valley’s short par-4 eighth hole also has two greens, the tiny Crump original on the left and the even tinier putting surface on the right, created in 1986 by … Tom Fazio, Pine Valley’s consulting architect for decades.

exceptional salesman when he saw one. Beyond that, he

recalled, “but after studying it for a while I said, ‘George,

admired the free spirit, the flamboyance, the dreamer, and

I think people will score well on this course.’ ” George was puzzled.

the skill.

Ford looked at him dead seri-

Each filled in the blanks of the

ously. “It’s a great par 68.”

other. “Bill had faith in George,” says

He looked at the layout. “What

Morse. “He never looked at Jupiter

are you talking about, Hot Dog?” he

Hills as a business. It was his labor of

countered looking directly at Ford.

love. George was the artist. Bill was the patron. This was a painting that Bill wanted George to do for him.”

THE ABILITY of the course to drain has paid dividends over half a century, never more so than in the 2018 USGA Amateur Four-Ball

Then he turned back to the layout. Par 68? This is no par 68. Par 71. Score well? This is no pushover. His eyes

Championship, the second national

met Ford’s again. This time Ford was

vas with all the requisite elements. That

title to be contested at the club. More

smiling.

he found one missing was too much to

than a foot of rain fell on Jupiter Hills

pass up. The needle was in wait, as it

during the championship week in

were only 17 holes on the design.

always was between these two, when

late May. “Thank goodness we were

He called in his wife and children to

Which meant Ford expected a can-

George arrived in East Hampton in late spring with several boxes in the back of his car that he was eager to unpack and display for the whole family. “He had cut large models of the holes from plastic,” Ford recounted

on this golf course on this piece of property,” says superintendent Steve Ehrbar. “There wasn’t a local golf course that was open for play during

He revealed his rationale: there

double check the math. “It was very funny,” said Ford, “and typical of Fazio. Only George could do some-

championship week.” The contes-

thing like that. He recovered pretty

tants agreed. “It was like magic,”

fast by saying it was just a detail. They

one enthused.

would put a little par 3 at the south end of the course.”

years later, “which looked like a giant jigsaw puzzle.” Commandeering the Ford living room,

They did.

George rearranged the furniture to accommodate the

But George wasn’t happy with his original design

fit of his golf course facsimile. “It looked terrific,” Ford

for it. “I thought we had 17 good holes and a nothing

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par 3,” he later admitted. Moorish found the fix. During

routing was marked and ready to go. “We knew where

construction, he struck water. So he dredged a pond, leav-

the holes were.”

ing a small island in its midst, then reset the green on a rakish new angle. Both Fazio and Ford agreed that a

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forgettable add-on had been turned into memorable piece of the whole.

WHEN THE Palm Beach Post’s Jack Thompson came out

Despite omitting a hole, the build offered few hur-

for a tour with George, Moe, and Moorish at the begin-

dles. As an architect who preferred letting the land dictate

ning of summer 1969, he found what looked very much

to him rather than him imposing his will on it, George

like a construction site. Which it still was. George pre-

was happy to let the routing disclose itself, channeling

dicted that the course would open for play in December,

through Tom. The dunes, of course, spoke loudly, though

and that it would be “the best golf course that men can

the majestic dune at the northeast corner that would

make and money can buy.”

later yield the seventh, eighth, and ninth holes was left

Moe was a bit closer to the vest. He refused to be

untouched at first. George believed its maximum value

pinned down on what else might sprout from the land,

lay in real estate, and he originally marked this swath for

in part because he didn’t know. He also told Thompson

“villas.” He would revise that thinking. “The golf course

that it was too early to identify any of the other partners,

got built so fast,” says Tom. They’d done their home-

though he assured the reporter that they were prominent

work. When the deal with the state was finalized, their

men. Rumor had it, suggested Thompson in print, that

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W I L D

Hope and Nicklaus were likely on the roster. So much for rumor. Still, a half truth trumps no truth at all. What sat firmly in the camp of unchallengeable fact was the deep connection George displayed for what was taking shape around him. “I love this place,” he unabashedly told Thompson, adding that he’d soon relocate his offices to his new neighborhood and leave Philadelphia in his rearview mirror. Then Thompson asked George and Moe where they planned to draw their members from. They “only chuckled at the question,” wrote Thompson, but George amended his titter with an explanation. “We’re in no hurry to develop the club,” he assured. “We’re going slow and will do it right.” Yes. And no. They were in no hurry. But they were moving faster than George was willing to let on.

R U M P U S

S T A R T

[ADD TOM’s DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE HERE FROM THE ORIGINAL BOOK. ]

CHAPTER SIX

What’s in a Name? ✧

N SEPTEMBER 9, 1969,

✧

Don Moe sent a letter to his fellow investors with good news—the

club had its first manager—and bad—the proposed $500,000 loan from the First Bank of Jupiter-Tequesta didn’t work out. Though the bank, which held the mortgage, had approved the loan, it decided to double the interest rate to 15 percent. In the eyes of the

five owners who’d participated in the negotiations—Bill Elliott, Jim Nolen, Wally McCallum, Moe, and George Fazio—the bank had stuck a gun to their heads. They voted unanimously to reject the terms, temporarily advancing the club $76,000 from their own pockets as a bridge to tide them over before they could secure a $100,000 loan—personally guaranteed by Elliott

104

and McCallum—from the Bank of Palm Beach and Trust Company in October. Before the end of the year, the founders would each have to pony up an additional 25 percent for continued development of the club when the bank refused to extend further credit. They had no option. Bills were mounting and the club had run out of funds. On the bright side, there were other banks to go to. On the brighter side, Howard Everitt, the man George tapped to manage the disparate pieces of the enterprise, was the right man in the right place at the right time—and the only man George wanted. Lured over from Pine Tree in Boynton Beach, Everitt began at Jupiter on August 1 of that year, arriving as part of a packaged deal; his wife Edna signed on as his secretary. “As a team,” wrote Moe, “[they] have been active in golf club management for many years.” By way of introduction, Moe went on to catalog a pair of Everitt’s previous postings— club manager at Oakmont and manager of golf projects at Shawnee-on-Delaware. He added this, too: “Howard is also the finest golfer in Club Management in the United States, if not the world.”

ABOVE: Howard Everitt caption here. OPPOSITE: This is dummy copy.

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AS WITH SO MANY GOLFERS OF HIS GENERATION, HOWARD EVERITT’S ODYSSEY FOUND ITS ROOT IN THE CADDIE YARD, THOUGH IT was a blossoming romance with the game that propelled him there in the first place. “When I was about ten,” he recalled in the late 1930s, “I used to bang a golf ball around with an old stick. Not a golf stick, but a branch. We boys all had a yen for golf, so we fixed up a two-hole course in a field near my home.” After school, he’d play those two holes every afternoon—until he discovered something better. Which he did—at Manufacturers’ Golf & Country Club, not far from where he grew up in Glenside, just north of Philadelphia, and within hailing distance of where George began at Plymouth. When Everitt wasn’t caddieing there, he was playing. By the time he was twelve he was breaking 90. By fifteen, he’d

106

Cary Middlecoff and Howard Everitt relax on the lawn at Baltusrol

won three consecutive caddie championships and had qualified

after firing course reocrd 68s during the 1946 U.S. Amateur Championship.

for his first Philadelphia Open. It only got better from there.

Baltusrol’s Lower Course set earlier in the opening medal round

A long hitter with deft command of his putter, Everitt turned

by Cary Middlecoff. He then dusted two-time Amateur cham-

pro at sixteen. While spending the next several years as an

pion Willie Turnesa in the first round before falling to Middlecoff,

assistant at Manufacturers’, he worked his way up the leader

who’d left Augusta that spring as low amateur in the Masters.

boards of local tournaments; in 1935, at nineteen, he ran away

Between 1946 and 1961, Everitt amassed a trio of Philadelphia

with the district’s assistant professional title, outdistancing the

Amateur titles, two Pennsylvania Amateur crowns, and a pair of

runner-up—twenty-two-year-old

runner-up finishes in each. He also played in eight U.S. Amateurs

George

Fazio—by

eight

strokes. Everitt briefly hit the road in 1936, but realized that

and the 1946 U.S. Open.

the touring life was not his métier. Acknowledged as one of

Supporting his golfing jones through a mixed bag of careers—

Philadelphia’s five best sticks of the time, he returned to the

from selling scrap metal to managing a distillery—Everitt

amateur ranks shortly before World War II. His playing career

played the bulk of his competitive golf out of Atlantic City

hit warp speed when hostilities ended.

Country Club through the largesse of his old friend Leo Fraser.

In the first post-war U.S. Amateur, Everitt took advantage

In the early 1950s, he settled in to a long stint as publicity direc-

of his late draw into the field to tie the competitive record on

tor for Fred Waring and his resort, the Shawnee Inn & Country

That was no exaggeration; Everitt could play with

history with Pine Tree and its founders. He started with

the best of them, had played with the best of them, and

them when they began in 1962, and he’d helped them

had a shelf of hardware to prove it. Together, he and

mold the club into the golfer’s sanctum it became with

George had history. The two began knocking heads

its Dick Wilson golf course and a membership that

on Philadelphia’s fairways in the 1930s and had been

included two of the game’s greatest: Sam Snead and

golfing friends—and rivals—ever since. Once George

Louise Suggs. In late 1967, the heady lore of Oakmont

decided Everitt was his man, George proceeded to

and an upcoming U.S. Amateur there pulled him to

cajole him into leaving the security of Boynton Beach

Pittsburgh, but he was back at Pine Tree in January of

for what was still nothing more than a start-up.

1969. Though he’d barely resettled, George was hard

What a complicated decision this must have been for Everitt. Just as he had history with George, he had

to say no to. So here he was, just over a month on the new job,

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TWH HE A TW ' I SL DI N R U A M NP AU MS E S? T A R T

Club in the Poconos, which hosted the 1937 PGA Championship.

new golfer’s club in Boynton Beach—Pine Tree—asked him to

One of the nation’s most popular bandleaders, Waring and his

be their first manager in 1962, he was ready. With Sam Snead,

Pennsylvanians chorale recorded a succession of hits dating back

another old friend from the 1930s, among the members, Everitt

to the 1920s. In his spare time, he invented the Waring blender.

felt at home.

Whatever time was left, he devoted to golf. Finding a good golf

Until Oakmont beckoned. In 1968.

partner in Everitt—they’d teamed successfully in several ama-

For a man of golf like Everitt, the idea of managing a club

teur events—he brought Everitt to Shawnee. The two got along

so steeped in the game’s history—the 1969 Amateur and

splendidly; each played a role in one of golf’s most indelible

the 1973 Open both loomed—was too enticing to pass up. But it was more than he’d bargained for;

courtships. In 1954, Waring invited Arnold Palmer

he returned to Pine Tree within a year.

to Shawnee for the prestigious tournament

“It was a challenge,” he said of Oakmont,

he put on every November. Afraid that the

“particularly with a national tournament

newly crowned U.S. Amateur champion

coming back this year. It was back-breaking.

would demur, Waring asked Everitt to step

I found myself working fourteen to sixteen

in. Everitt knew Palmer well; they’d play

hours a day some days—six days a week.”

Atlantic City together often during Palm-

He told Oakmont’s brass he wasn’t right for

er’s stint in the Coast Guard. When Palmer

this. They understood.

showed up in the Poconos, he was instantly

He was back at Pine Tree for less than a

smitten by the young woman Waring put

year when George applied his full-court press.

in co-charge of entertainment beside his

Winnie and Arnold Caption

own daughter Dixie. Her name was Win-

It worked. Everitt began on August 1, 1969, and stayed at Jupiter Hills until 1973, when club

nie Walzer. Palmer asked Everitt who she was; Everitt told him,

member Red Harbour, with George’s blessing, asked him to relo-

then had Waring’s secretary introduce them properly. “It was

cate once again—to the Chicago area, to steer Butler National,

love at first sight,” Everitt maintained. Turning pro right after

which the Fazios designed and Harbour helped found, through

the event, Palmer played the Miami Open then rushed back to

its early going. Back in Florida in 1974, Everitt shifted careers,

Shawnee. Everitt set up a game for him. After eighteen holes

opening a restaurant in Boynton Beach—and qualifying for three

with Winnie walking alongside, he proposed. They married

U.S. Senior Opens. A regular presence at Jupiter Hills into the

before the year was out.

1980s, he was even featured in a promotional video made in 1983

Over time, Waring led Everitt through the ins and outs of the

to promote the club and its real estate development. He died,

golf business and club management, eventually assigning Ever-

at 81, in 1997, and was inducted into the Golf Association of

itt oversight of Shawnee’s golf projects. When the owners of a

Philadelphia’s Hall of Fame fifteen years later.

penning a missive, which Moe attached and mailed

see some of the individual holes as they are laid out.”

off with his own. “While our immediate interests,” he

He reported that George had engaged a professional

emphasized, “lie in the completion of the golf course,

photographer, as well; pictures filled a book of 8x10s

numerous other important items of concern are now

that would remain on display in the club’s temporary

receiving attention.” Like a building to store equip-

office at 30 Tequesta Drive. Now sadly lost, “This

ment. A temporary clubhouse. A shed for carts. And a

album,” Everitt assured them, “is a permanent part of

roadway into the playing area.

the Club’s record and will show the progress since the

He’d also been taking photographs “so that

original dozers started clearing the property back in

you”—his eleven overseers (up from the original ten

May.” Imagine leafing through it today. Thankfully,

now that Alfred du Pont Dent had sold half his inter-

some of the photos found their way into the club’s

est to Philadelphia attorney Billy Van Alen)—“might

twenty-fifth anniversary history.

107

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On October 22, Everitt sent out a follow-up prog-

100-by-50-foot Butler building that would house it,

ress report, which did not bury the lead. The irrigation

and it’s with that building, that went up just before the

system was working, the grass was growing in, and the

New Year, that Weber memorialized his tenure. On

heavy rental equipment had departed on October 4.

December 19, he and an assistant etched their names

“For all practical purposes,” he wrote, “we consider

in the cement foundation slab. They are still there.

the course as being built

All in all, Everitt

and completed as of that

was quite pleased with

date.”

the headway made since

The club now had

his arrival. “Seeing the

a superintendent: Don

course every day,” he

Weber.

Everitt

wrote, “we do not recog-

assured all that Weber

nize the changes taking

was “getting along fine,”

place but outsiders who

his longevity prospects,

have been away from the

through no fault of his

project for several weeks

While

own, were limited on arrival. George rode his

appear to be amazed at

This is dummy copy.

our progress.”

superintendents hard; what mostly separated Weber

There was, however, one essential feature that

from his myriad successors was simply that he was

the club lacked when Everitt sat down on October 22

first, the leader of what turned into a parade of skilled

to update his bosses.

practitioners that George saw as little more than inter-

A name.

changeable, if not disposable, parts, thoroughly subject to his whims.

✧

Which is not to say Weber didn’t leave a mark. He did. His ministrations to the Hills Course helped

EVERITT HAD PUT MUCH THOUGHT TO THIS,

insure it would soon be hale and hearty and ready for

face, serves as a definition of self and an introduction

play. He assembled a staff. He consulted with George,

to everyone else.

for a name, like a

Nolen, Everitt, and Moe on the equipment the club

Just as Mark Twain believed that the difference

would need for necessary maintenance and the

between the right word and the almost right work

If we could see the book of 8x10s that Howard Everitt kept in his office, we’d be taking in a not entirely familiar golf course. Before grow-in, it was clear that the peaks and valleys of the finished golfscape would look like nothing else in Florida. George’s insistence that the palm trees he’d found on the property had to go and the trees replacing them would be pines further reinforced its un-Floridian distinctiveness. Still, in its earliest years, Jupiter Hills would be less closely related to George’s Pine Valley paradigm than to that other classic golfing pinetum: Pinehurst. As Tom Fazio explains, “Pinehurst has some hilly terrain with pine trees and pine needles on the ground like we had. Though there were many similarities to Pine Valley, it looked more like a North Carolina site. We didn’t have the sandscape we do now. But since George’s connection with Pine Valley was so well known, people just made the Pine Valley association.” Still, he adds, “Had George found Jupiter Hills with less tree cover on it, I believe it would have looked more like Pine Valley from the start.”

sailed the vast ocean between the ideas of “lightning” and “lightning bug,” the assignment of a designation carries meaning. And just as T. S. Eliot made clear about cats, naming a club “is a serious matter; it isn’t just one of your holiday games.” Sometimes it’s obvi-

A year after George’s death, a paragraph in the Palm Beach Post about George and his nephews highlighted George’s mercurial relationships with his greenskeepers. “One turned

ous: Pine Valley, Fishers Island, Oakmont, Cypress

his keys in at 10:30 on the morning of his first day,”

Point… Sometimes it’s subtle: Myopia, Winged Foot,

waxed the writer, “telling George he couldn’t stand

Baltusrol, Piping Rock… Either way, the right name

the pressure of waiting to be fired.” He was in good

helps set a tone. The wrong name, on the other hand,

company. One early member tallied eleven in the first

can turn into a burden. “My personal feeling,” Everitt wrote presciently, “is that you are going to have a great golf course and it will make the name important.” To make a name important, though, you have to

five years alone, and when George asked Jack Gately, an original staffer imported from Philadelphia, where he could get a good super, Gately famously replied, “Gee, George, I think we’ve had ’em all.” Tom Horal, the club’s locker room attendant in the 1970s recalls

first have a name, and right now, their stationery read

talking with Bill Ford one day about the revolving door

Jupiter Golf Club. Not bad. But was there a combina-

to the superintendent’s office. “He told me that George

tion of mots more justes?

hired and fired so many that if we ever had a green-

And so, Everitt began by carefully laying out the

skeeper reunion we’d have to lease an amphitheater.”

parameters from which he felt they could draw. Like location, which could be complicated. While the club sat in Martin County, the two areas already associ-

choosing. “It might,” he suggested, “enable us to have

ated with it—Jupiter and Tequesta—were in Palm

a better meeting of the minds on this very important

Beach County. “Someone mentioned it might be wise

subject—the name of the club.”

to choose a name that had no bearing on the area at all and in fact no relation to the State or even to the Country,” Everitt wrote. “Many others feel that

Lists arrived. Results were tallied. And the winner was… The Llanmark Club. With an Ogden Nashian

a name which would describe the property such as

pair of initial “l”s, no less.

Rolling Hills, High Lands, something with the word

The Llanmark Club?

‘Pines’ in it, etc. might be a wise decision.”

Never heard of it? Neither has anyone else.

Working with Moe and their wives, Everitt came

But, according to a letter—on Jupiter Golf Club

up with a catalog of seventy-five possibilities running

stationery—sent by Everitt to McCallum on Novem-

from A–Alpine—to W–Whispering Pines—with other

ber 13 and to his fellow principals a day later—that

letters represented by appellations such as Conch Bar

was the choice. “Now that your club has been prop-

Hill—the favorite of Bill Elliott—Esquire, Four Rails,

erly named—The Llanmark Club—printing of our

Hills and Glens, Lighthouse Country Club, The Pas-

application for membership has been ordered and

ture, Sylvan Sand, The Club and a single entry proudly

should be in our possession within a short time.”

flying the flag of J—Jupiter Hills.

What happened to those applications is anyone’s

Everitt then asked each of the founders to send

guess, but what happened to the name isn’t. George

back a list of five, either drawn from what he’d assem-

asserted his executive privilege for voter nullification.

bled or, if they preferred, an alternative of their own

“George wasn’t much into voting,” assures nephew

JUPITER HILLS BY ANY OTHER NAMEâ&#x20AC;Ś

Before settling on the name Jupiter Hills Golf Club, Howard Everitt, Don Moe, and their wives came up with a list of potential names for the new golf club, using the alphabet as a guide. Imagine what could have been?

W H A T ' S

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N A M E ?

✧

Tom. “He knew ‘Hills’ should be in there. And even

✧

though people didn’t know where Jupiter was, he thought it was right, no matter what anyone else

THERE WERE OTHER

wanted.”

Some were philosophical. Some were practical. But

Including Bill Ford, who preferred the singularity of Jupiter Hill. “So many courses have the name ‘Hills’

intangible strands to tie together.

until they could be connected, Jupiter Hills, as a concept, could unravel before the first ball was ever hit.

attached to them,” he reasoned. “I thought Jupiter

The questions were basic on their surface, though

Hill might be more distinctive, but nobody liked my

the answers to them could be complex. Like, for

idea.” He reluctantly deferred, as was becoming the

instance, what kind of place should Jupiter Hills be?

pattern, to George.

What would its ethos be? Its atmosphere? Its rules?

So, by December, Llanmark was out, and a new name with more meaning, more relevance, more stay-

How would a membership coalesce? How would the place be governed? Who should we invite in?

ing power—and more distinctly Georgian—was in.

Such inquiries can be mulled over in seclusion

From then on, the almost rectangular patch outlined

or debated in companionship accompanied with

by the highway, the railroad tracks, and parks north

ample sustenance to keep the conversation flowing.

and south would be known—officially—as The Jupi-

George preferred the latter. Then living in an apart-

ter Hills Club.

ment owned by Jumbo Elliott across from Seminole,

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around,” recalls Tom. Some nights, Bill Elliott would join them. These discussions were long in term and wide in exploration and extended well beyond the opening of the club. They batted about ideas for what they considered the best features—culturally, aesthetically, socially, atmospherically—from the multitude

The Flame restaurant was owned

of exceptional golfing grounds they knew well. What

and operated by Peter Makris, who billed it as “Possibly

made Seminole Seminole? Pine Valley Pine Valley?

Florida’s Finest Restaurant.” Makris had opened several

Cypress Point Cypress Point? Merion Merion? The

popular restaurants around Chicago’s western suburbs

more cherries they picked, the closer they came to

before deciding to follow his golfing jones to Florida for winters at Lost Tree. George insisted he join Jupiter Hills,

zeroing in on their image of the perfect golf club. What would that even look like?

as well; he became one of the first members. Seeing the

And what, then, if they could distill the essence

need for an exclusive dining establishment closer to the club, Makris joined with Bill Elliott and another early club

from all of that and pour it out over Jupiter Hills?

member, Chicago businessman and fellow Lost Tree-er

As a contemplative exercise, it was likely every bit

George Trees, to create The MET Club in Jupiter, the

as much fun for them as the evening at Pebble Beach

designation an acronym built on the first initials of their

with Jackie Burke, Jimmy Demaret, and friends rebel-

last names. For years, it was a go-to dinner spot for

ling against the Pacific’s mercurial chill.

Jupiter Hills members, unimposing on the outside, but step through the door, and it was, as one devotee described it, “like walking into a Fabergé egg.”

This was no idle exercise, though. It was George’s and Ford’s—and Elliott’s— opportunity to chart a set of standards for Jupiter Hills, to lay a foundation and a direction by selecting the best of what they knew.

he’d meet Bill Ford, a winter resident of the Jupiter

With their support, George saw this as his chance to

Island Club, for dinner at The Flame, an upscale red-

infuse the character of Jupiter Hills with a golfing spirit

leather steakhouse in North Palm Beach convenient to

stripped of the kinds of trappings and complications

them both. “They would sit for hours kicking ideas

committees tend to impose, a spirit worthy of what

George had nothing against tournaments per se. What he was against was the idea of closing the golf course to the

Willaim clay ford trophy

overall membership to stage them, even for a day or two. Why no club championship? In the theoretical democracy of membership to which he dictated, he believed the idea of any one individual stepping up to claim golfing pri-

WIILAIMA CLAY FORD

macy for a season was unseemly. Eventually, George lifted his tournament ban—in 1978—when the club hosted the first of a succession of Jupiter Hills Invitational pro-ams to benefit the new Palm Beach-Martin County Medical Center. A year later, the club added its annual March member-guest, which evolved into the William Clay Ford Classic—with a distinctive trophy featuring the iconic Ford Model-T—in the mid-1980s. As for the tradition of no club champions, that still holds. [USE TROPHY PIC NOTE: TOURNEY NAME]

TROPHY

W H A T ' S

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was emerging from the sand and the hills, worthy of

Under George’s aegis, those “no’s” would be

what he’d held so close for so long from his own for-

inviolate, though he would soften in good time to

mative experiences working for John Arthur Brown.

allow exceptions he believed would enhance the club’s

Ford, for his part, was more than

prestige to seep through. As a man

happy to see it the same way. “Bill,”

of golf, he insisted that Jupiter Hills

explains his son-in-law Peter Morse,

be a haven for the game and its fair

“was not the kind of guy to run the

play with no room on the premises

partnership and say this is what we

for sloppy golf etiquette or displays

are doing. He just wanted to enjoy himself here. He trusted George. He

IN 1914, Golf Illustrated magazine ran an intriguing analysis on its

of poor sportsmanship, on course or off. Pace should be brisk and

“Our Green Committee Page.”

membership small enough to allow

“We have said there are good green

members and their guests the pre-

committees,” it argued, “but we

rogative of strolling up to the first

way, they could indulge themselves in

make the admission mainly for the

tee and inserting a peg whenever the

the what ifs to see where it might take

sake of argument. By far the best

urge struck; a cap of two hundred

them. These evenings, combined with

work in this or any other country has

would accommodate that, espe-

trusted George’s skills. He wouldn’t have just written checks if he didn’t.” So, encouraged by Ford in every

his own self-reliance and certainty of mind, assuredly validated George’s hopes and helped him clearly see

not been done by committees but by dictators,” it went on, singling out the guiding hands of Herbert Leeds

cially if George’s personal efforts at natural selection ensured that a sig-

at Myopia, C. B. Macdonald at the

nificant chunk of the membership

what he wanted going in, and much

National Golf Links, and Hugh Wilson

had somewhere else within reason-

of what he wanted was preceded

at Merion. “These dictators, how-

able proximity to play. He didn’t

by the grammatic determiner “no.”

ever, have not been averse to taking

want to draw a crowd.

As in:

advice. In fact they have taken advice

No tee times, No tournaments, No club championships, No gambling,

from everywhere, but they themselves have done the sifting.” The idea of the reasonable and responsible dictator has worked well in other outposts of American golf. Consider

Questions

membership

were much on Everitt’s mind, as were questions of governance. In his late October report, he emphasized that decisions were “desperately

No card playing,

Oakmont, Pine Valley, Seminole,

needed” on what kinds of mem-

No unaccompanied guests

and Augusta. If absolute rulers like

berships there should be and what

(other than those George

the Fowneses, John Arthur Brown,

the fees should be to accompany

himself had invited),

George Coleman, and Cliff Roberts

them. Within a month, Everitt had

No signs on the golf course,

had assembled “A Little Red Book of

his answers. George’s preference for

No swimming pool, No tennis, No formal bar, No men’s grill,

Elite Golf Club Operation,” George would have surely committed it to memory. “He was very aware of the old tsars,” maintains Jack Whitaker.

membership on an annual basis had prevailed among his fellow founders, with fees set at $660 per year, beginning on January 1, 1970. The

No ladies days (though there was

$660 covered the whole family, including unmarried

no “no” to women members),

children under twenty-five. Since membership was

No boorish behavior,

annual, no initiations would be assessed, and though

No committees.

it was never advertised, George reserved the right to

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As a touring pro in golf’s wild and wooly era, George was neither naïve about high-stakes gambling nor a fan. He never wanted any hustling on the premises, which is why he didn’t want any gambling—as integral to golf as a friendly Nassau might be—or card-playing. Cut to the twenty-first century and the men’s locker room in the new clubhouse. “George died ten years before this building was even built,” said his nephew, “and I’m sitting there playing gin one day and I think he’s gonna walk in the door, and he’s gonna fire me and throw everybody out who’s playing cards!” George’s ghost still has a way of haunting. Tom recalls playing another time with his back to George’s picture. When it came time to move to the other side of the table, terror gripped him. “I looked up and there’s George looking down at me. How can I play this hand with him looking at me? And he’s been dead for how many years?” [MAYBE WE COULD GET A PHOTO OF CARD PLAYING]

decide who would be asked back from year to year.

formal minutes. But that was the future, a Jupiter

Where would these members come from? The

Hills down a long and bumpy road of the 1980s that

insiders controlled the track. Each of the eleven

would leave its share of casualties, hard feelings, and

investors were asked to put together a list of no more

law suits and would take most of the second half of

than twenty-five suitable candidates who would then

the decade to shake out before another incarnation

be sent an invitation and an application. After that,

of Jupiter Hills would rise and take precedence over

the inside track would still prevail with the founders

the vision of the founders. In late 1969, no one could

relying on the recommendations of member-to-pro-

see that because that Jupiter Hills was nowhere to

spective-member word of mouth with George the

be seen. This Jupiter Hills was nothing more com-

ultimate arbiter. Applicant by applicant, he would

plicated than a golfing lark for a group of golf-lovers

dispense fate with a Nero-echoing thumbs up or

who could afford it, a gathering of good friends intent

thumbs down.

on establishing an outpost of the game with the same

Though George had the kind of power and

sense of we-can-do-it verve and vitality that Mickey

influence he’d never had before, he didn’t have abso-

Rooney and Judy Garland cinematically infused into

lute say. Elliott, who knew him better than Ford and

putting on a show, albeit a kind of wild west show

Hope, made sure of that by establishing a hierarchy

when it came to laying down the law. Everything was

with Ford at the tip of the spear as club president.

full of hope and possibility and good will, and if the

Elliott sat just beneath him as executive vice presi-

central troika—Ford, Bill Elliott, and George—pull-

dent with Hope, Nolen, Colen, Jumbo Elliott, and

ing the rest along couldn’t make a go of it, who could?

Dent serving dual roles as directors and vice presi-

This was for George, their great friend who brought

dents. Moe took on the chores of club secretary and,

with him the unbridled energy and vision. Elliott and

in a stroke of sheer irony, George, the prodigal in

Ford, both extraordinarily wealthy and successful,

the group when it came to realizing his vision, was

signed on from the start to make the wonder behind

cloaked with the mantle of treasurer, though that title

the venture possible, have some fun along the way,

was nothing more than a title, as, in fact, were they

and leave something worthwhile behind: Elliott with

all. Everitt kept the books.

his steadying hand and unwavering friendship and

If that sounds neatly structured, it wasn’t really.

Ford with his wherewithal; his pockets weren’t lim-

Not until 1989 would the club convene formal board

itless, but they were as deep as his bromance with

meetings, assemble formal committees, and keep

George and as wide as his own benevolent spirit.

W H A T ' S

I N

N A M E ?

So, no, though the founders shouldered impres-

they, too, went way back. Byrod had been writing

sive titles, they didn’t establish layers of hierarchy

about George since the 1930s and, of course, chronicled George’s heroic pursuit of the 1950 U.S. Open. A fine golfer himself, Byrod took boatloads of lessons from George and had played with George for decades. Under George’s tutelage, Byrod was a two-time victor of the Philadelphia Newpaperman’s Golf Championship, and he tirelessly promoted the Inquirer’s Invitational Golf Tournament, a Philadelphia tour stop in the 1940s where George was always a drawing card. Now George was tapping Byrod to promote his latest venture. Given its Philadelphia connections, Byrod was happy to comply, and he led, not surprisingly, with the local angle. “A group of Philadelphians,” he wrote, “is deeply involved in a new Florida golf course that has excited most of those who have seen it.” A few paragraphs later, he let George do the talking. “It’s some of the best land for a course I’ve ever seen,” George exuded. “It will be the only wooded course in that part of Florida. Every hole is tree-lined. But they are all pine trees—no palm or coconut and there’s no

and committee assignments. George didn’t want that,

resemblance to a tropical course.”

and neither did they, but they all agreed that a single

Comparing what he’d wrought to Pine Valley,

committee was crucial for going forward. To get itself

Seminole, and Moselem Springs, George praised the

up and running smoothly, Jupiter Hills would need a

beauty of the four lakes he used to build six water

membership committee. Applicants had to be vetted

holes around, then extolled the virtue of the three

before welcomed aboard.

tee locations on each hole that allowed the layout to stretch from 6,200 yards to 7,260 yards, the first pub-

✧

lic hint of its length. “The course is still unnamed,” wrote Byrod,

George was so ecstatic over a story that

“but is scheduled for opening at the end of the year,”

ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer in late October by

before concluding that “a nationwide membership is

Fred Byrod, the paper’s sports editor and a nation-

planned, limited to about 200.”

MEANWHILE,

ally known golf writer, that he immediately clipped a ✧

copy and sent it off to Ford in Detroit. It was the first

✧

mention of the club in print since the Palm Beach Post story in July. That George sought out Byrod was a gimme;

SO, WHEN WOULD the

first of those two hundred line up to

buy their club hats and shirts in the pro shop?

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

That was the question and the answer was unclear. George, predictably, had been overly optimistic in his end-of-the-year prediction.

H I L L S

C L U B

Elliott’s temperate reasoning convinced him—and everyone else—to hold off. Which is not to say the course simply idled. On

First of all, there was no pro shop to buy a hat or

New Year’s Eve, Georgie Moore Lapham, as much a

a shirt. Nor was there a locker room or a place to grab

part of the Palm Beach social scene as The Breakers

a bite or a beverage, nor would there be—at least not

and Mar-a-Lago, told the readers of her weekly col-

in the snugness of a formal clubhouse setting—until

umn in the Gold Coast News that though the club

1972—or anywhere else until the fall of 1970. There

“won’t open for a spell,” she had heard through

was barely a staff. [SIDEBAR: JACK GATELY] Tem-

Everitt that “The Jupiter Club’s President Billy Ford

porary facilities in the form of a trio of single-wide

Had a Better Idea (the club) and is joined in an occa-

trailers, designed by Jim Nolen and his Philadelphia

sional foursome by a du Pont and an Elliott or two.”

architectural firm were being built and fitted out—one

Though George wasn’t mentioned by name, he had

as a changing room, one as a snack bar and office,

been test-driving the track since the grow-in was

and one as the pro shop and bag storage—but they

deemed grown in in early December. So had Golf

wouldn’t be placed on their gravel pads, concealed in

magazine’s Charley Price, who was just short of rap-

a copse of oak and pine off the Old Dixie Highway

ture in his assessment. “Jupiter Hills is a geographic

entrance road between the fourth and 12th greens

incongruity,” Price would beam in the pages of the

until the summer.

publication. “You stroll up and down those hills and

As for the golf course, it looked like it was ready,

you get the feeling you are at the foot of some non-ex-

but it still needed seasoning. George would have pre-

istent mountain range. The pines nod like plumes, the

ferred opening for play yesterday—and said so—but

bougainvillea blooms, and the fairways take on that

Though the club would operate with little more than the skeleton of a rudimentary staff until the fall of 1970, George’s first important hire on the golf side—Jack Gately—had been a fixture in Philadelphia golf for decades, his career intertwined with George’s since the 1930s. Friends and competitive rivals, they’d been partners in a driving range before Gately went on to several outposts around town as a head pro, including the august Manufacturers’ Golf &Country Club, his last stop being the George-designed Squires, at which Bill Elliott, Jumbo Elliott, and Jim Nolen were all involved. From the beginning, George brought Gately to Jupiter for the winters to give lessons and oversee the range. “He was a very private kind of man,” remembers Phyllis Valenti, who met Gately in 1974 when she came on to run the halfway house. “He reminded me of a man who left his identity somewhere else and restarted his life. He was a mystery to me.” But a beloved mystery, as attached to George as George was to him. “He was George’s wingman,” is the way former locker room chief Tom Horal saw it. “I never knew he had a job.” Other than play golf with George in the afternoons and be sociable to all, which he drove home on a daily basis with his standard retort of “Don’t say that at the airport” to anybody who’d greet him with a “Hi, Jack.”

W H A T ' S

I N

N A M E ?

Charley Price met George shortly after World War II when Price was struggling to make it as a player on the Tour. George took him under his wing, and they remained close until George’s death. Price wisely exchanged one golfing quest for another; he turned into one of the game’s premiere and widely read chroniclers as the founding editor of Golf magazine, lead columnist at Golf Digest, co-author of the immensely popular World Atlas of Golf, and the writer of several other volumes, including Golfer-at-Large, a 1982 essay collection—with an introduction by Ben Hogan—that he dedicated to George, “who couldn’t let me pick up.” George liked Price and trusted him, and while Price could wax poetic on the place, he could also slip into journeyman’s golfer mode to describe one aspect of the challenge instilled through George’s understanding of the land. “With so many greens built atop those hills, where the wind would be fierce,” Price readily disclosed, “it was brutal.” George would have surely enjoyed that.

pistachio greenness peculiar to Bermuda grass. In the

they’d returned the compliment, the testimonials that

morning the larks sing, and all day the wrens chirp,

began accumulating in 1970 and the Golf Digest rat-

and in the twilight you can hear an owl calling some-

ings that appeared a year later had unquestionable

body’s name. Let me put it this way: It beats down-

merit. The Hills Course came by Price’s and Barkow’s

town Philadelphia.” [SIDEBAR: CHARLEY PRICE]

grandiloquence honestly.

Oh, my… ✧

Within a year, Al Barkow, Price’s successor at the

✧

top of Golf’s masthead in 1970 and a good enough player to qualify for the U.S. Amateur on the brink

BILL ELLIOTT

of his fortieth birthday a year later, dropped by for a

again on a trip south from Philadelphia in sec-

tour, and returned to the magazine’s pages some years

ond week of 1970. “It is absolutely wonderful,” he

hence with a reminiscence and evaluation in prose as

reported to his fellow partners, “but there are some

purple as Price’s. “When Jupiter Hills appeared on the

holes that need more time, and it would be a shame to

scene, it caused a stirring in my golfing heart,” Bar-

open a course as fine as this until it is actually ready.”

kow ballyhooed. “It was then, and remains, a truly

He suggested everyone sit back and reassess the con-

outstanding example of golf architecture at its finest.”

ditioning in February. “We do not want to mislead

Going on to explain that only golf’s most resplendent

any prospective or new members about what facilities

tests retain their true grit when the winds are calm

they will have.” Which would be less than minimal

as well as when they’re howling, Barkow planted

for the time being. With no trailers yet, the parking

the Hills course in that category, then offered this

lot, adjacent to Old Dixie Highway along what’s now

mind-numbing observation: “This puts it above even

the 12th fairway, would serve double duty as a station

the famed links of Scotland,” he insisted, “which, in

for changing shoes. The staff would be spare. There

my experience, play easier when the air is relatively

would be no full-time head professional until the fall.

still.”

also played the course in December, then

Looking forward, the pragmatist in Elliott wasn’t

George had Golf magazine covered—and vice

seeing clear blue skies ahead, but the optimist in him

versa. Though he’d looked out for his friends, and

could see the sun breaking through. He was happy

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

to report that Nolen was working with appropriate

were still shaky, though by no means dire. Moe was

municipalities to square away zoning, fix the site of

working with the bank to extend or replace the mort-

the permanent clubhouse atop Conch Bar Hill, and

gage, though replacing proved impossible in the 1970

work on plans for a series of rental

economy.

units he hoped would be ready by

delay tactic presented an unex-

next season, a must, Elliott believed,

pected opportunity. Since the club

to add convenience and appeal to an

would not be ready as promised,

already good start.

he suggested that all who had ini-

“Basically,” he wrote, “I feel very good about the entire affair as the course is coming along beau-

Interestingly,

Elliott’s

tially responded—or just been con-

BY THE END OF 1969, Bill Elliott was able to do the final

tacted about membership—receive

math on construction costs. The total

a second letter with new terms that

tifully, we are very lucky to have

outlay for coaxing the Hills Course

would be applied to those admitted:

people like Don, Jim, George, and

from the terrain as George first saw

come down and play—the course

Howard with their knowledge of

it was $379,000. The single largest

will be open for you soon. But

local affairs, and once we get the

line item—$123,000—went to the

instead of the initial $660 fee for

financial affairs in proper order, I

irrigation system. George’s design

the first season, the fee would rise to

think we can proceed to build the type of club we desire.” [SIDEBAR:

fee was $40,000, roughly $3,000 less than what Southern Turf Nurseries charged for grassing. Labor and ma-

$1,000—but it would carry through for more than another full year,

terial for building bunkers and cart

until October 1, 1971. “This will

paths added just over $10,000, about

take care of our many problems,”

already wondering about how the

half the cost of the clay, peat, and

Elliott hoped. “It will give us two

club might best utilize the thirty

other amenders needed to create the

hundred selected members at this

acres of land at the north edge of the

substructure beneath the grass. The

time and will enable us to take on

property just beyond the golf course.

balance exited the property in the

additional members between now

THE FINAL COST] So, looking forward, he was

In October 1969, Moe had proposed putting together a small group to buy

pockets of outside contractors and equipment rental.

and then if we so desire.” It would certainly help shore up the coffers. Everitt reported that the idea had

the land and control the development rights; the thirty acres included what’s now the north

been well received by the first trickle of the first wave

driving range and property west of it north of the 15th

of membership. [SIDEBAR: MEMBERSHIP]

green. Though Moe was unable to go ahead, Elliott

The wave kept building. And the wonders of

was already seeing future value there to the club as a

Florida’s temporarily most spartan golf club kept

whole—“as to its development, sale or some plan for

waiting.

its future use.” His businessman’s eye was on it—with this caveat: “I do not believe there is any great rush on this, and time should work our way.”

For George, the wait seemed eternal. But it was coming closer every day. Until one day, less than a month later, when

He was right in that. And he was right in holding

everybody—George, Elliott, Everitt, Moe, and super-

back the opening, even if the hold turned out to be a

intendent Don Weber—was in agreement: Why wait

brief one.

any longer?

Delay proved to be the prudent tack. Finances

Jupiter Hills was ready for all comers.

W H A T ' S

I N

N A M E ?

Unlike George’s predictions for the course opening,

Bill Elliott’s membership forecast

turned out to be as real as it was rosy. The revised offer of an additional $340 per member, but also an additional full year of membership, found traction. By December of 1970, the membership roll had swelled to 150 with an additional dozen more knocking as of Election Day. “It appears,” wrote Howard Everitt in the club’s new newsletter, “that the membership goal of 200 will be reached during this season. The Principals of the club are confident that the balance can be filled through our present plan.” Of course, since membership was annual, not permanent, the numbers would fluctuate through the foreseeable future. And there was a privileged class of member—made up mostly of George’s friends—who would never pay dues at all.

Let the wave begin to roll in. Let the good times roll in with it.

TRAILERS USE AS CLUBHOUSE FROM CLUB ARCHIVE and maintence barn from book called approaisel book

CHAPTER SEVEN

Open Season ✧

✧

F YOU BLINKED, you missed it.

When all were in sync that this new Hills Course was in tune, the maestro beneath the white cap orchestrated the opening. Which wasn’t an opening opening, just a day on which the components seemed in harmony enough to begin chasing golf balls. [ For real. Up and down the ups and downs of Jupiter Hills. Consider… When Oakmont premiered in 1904, it rode in with some hoopla—a tournament for mem-

bers. Merion hopped on a similar bandwagon eight years later. And so have countless clubs since. So much effort and energy go into creating a club intent on passing the test of time that a commemorative moment feels appropriate. Look south to Seminole. It traces its kick-off to New Year’s Day of 1930, eight weeks after Wall Street laid its egg. There was nothing particularly fancy about it, but it was memorable for its novelty—and, as such, it was duly recorded and it survives: thirteen-year-old Gracie Amory—the daughter of one of club founder E. F. Hutton’s close friends—stepped up to hit the first drive. There was no fanfare, just a fortuitous foreshadowing; Seminole became Seminole and Gracie turned into one of its notable players, ten times a club champion, a fixture on the national scene for several years, the subject of a 1940 feature in LIFE magazine, and the wife of a future club president whose father had been dubbed by Forbes “the richest man in the south.” [GRACIE PIC] Then there’s the flip side of the coin. No ribbons. No events. No flash bulbs. No inaugural whack. No ceremony whatsoever. No nothing. That approach—the quiet announcement that OPPOSITE: ??Hills Course. IMSET: Grace Armory

T H E

F YOU BLINKED,

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

you missed it.

H I L L S

C L U B

Then there’s the flip side of the coin. No ribbons.

When all were in sync that this new Hills Course

No events. No flash bulbs. No inaugural whack. No

was in tune, the maestro beneath the white cap

ceremony whatsoever. No nothing. That approach—

orchestrated the opening. Which

the quiet announcement that we are

wasn’t an opening opening, just a day

here, where have you been?—has its

on which the components seemed in

adherents, too.

harmony enough to begin chasing

Consider…

golf balls. [SIDEBAR: A Hills by Any

C. B. Macdonald and the

Other Name]

TO BE TECHNICAL about the

For real. Up and down the ups and

nomenclature, there was no Hills

much-anticipated

reveal

his

National Golf Links of America in

Course at Jupiter Hills until 1976;

1911. The self-appointed lodestar

there was just Jupiter Hills and its

of American golf, its first national

Consider…

single golf course. But once the first

champion, and the coiner of the ver-

When Oakmont premiered in

nine holes of the second course went

bal triptych “golf course architect,”

1904, it rode in with some hoop-

into operation, the entity to the north

Macdonald, imperious from the ebb

la—a

needed a distinct identity for ready

of his hairline to the calluses on his

downs of Jupiter Hills.

tournament

for

members.

Merion hopped on a similar bandwagon eight years later. And so have

reference. So the Fazios tapped into its distinguishing characteristic and named it, appropriately, the “Hills

toes, would have nothing so crass as the kind of public display reserved

Course” as a way to easily differ-

for launching an ocean liner. No,

and energy go into creating a club

entiate it from its new companion

not at his National. To Macdonald’s

intent on passing the test of time

ensconced in its own community,

mind, what he’d brought forth from

that a commemorative moment feels

the “Village Course.” The Village

the shores of Long Island’s Peconic

appropriate. Look south to Seminole.

name has never inspired cartwheels,

Bay was America’s pinnacle of golf-

It traces its kick-off to New Year’s

and though, from time to time, the

ing art, and isn’t art best unveiled

countless clubs since. So much effort

Day of 1930, eight weeks after Wall Street laid its egg. There was nothing particularly fancy about it, but it

Board’s considered a mulligan, the idea has only once seeped beyond the board room door.

was memorable for its novelty—and,

only when it’s finished? Ah, there’s the rub: finality. When would the National ever be finished? When would every roll of

as such, it was duly recorded and it survives: thirteen-

the green and fairway hump be flawless enough to cast

year-old Gracie Amory—the daughter of one of club

in bronze? When would each bunker be so quintes-

founder E. F. Hutton’s close friends—stepped up to hit

sential in form as to wave off the occasional eyebrow

the first drive. There was no fanfare, just a fortuitous

pluck? Macdonald’s answer was clear: never. He’d set

foreshadowing; Seminole became Seminole and Gra-

out to craft a playground, not a museum piece; his

cie turned into one of its notable players, ten times a

artwork was alive and mutable, not something to pre-

club champion, a fixture on the national scene for sev-

serve and protect under glass. “During the last twenty

eral years, the subject of a 1940 feature in LIFE mag-

years,” he assured the readers of the memoir he pub-

azine, and the wife of a future club president whose

lished in 1928, “I have studied the course from every

father had been dubbed by Forbes “the richest man in

angle and listened with an attentive ear; consequently,

the south.” [GRACIE PIC]

very few of the holes have not been altered.”

O P E N

S E A S O N

It’s no coincidence that of all the artworks in all the museums in all the world, George chose Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” for comparison. Though George wasn’t especially well-educated in terms of schooling, he was a highly self-motivated learner. “He picked his way through life,” observes Tom. “He picked up from others. He was well read. He loved Italian art and the history of Italy,” particularly where it converged in the Renaissance. He deeply embraced the idea of the Renaissance man, and who personified it better than Leonardo, one of history’s supreme polymaths? George’s Italian heritage was a great source of pride. Traveling from stop to stop on Tour, Jackie Burke remembered “George would talk about the Italian Renaissance or the Sistine Chapel, anything but golf.” He would play a game with friends from other ethnic backgrounds, asking them to name ten artists, writers, composers—you name it—from their common gene pool while he named ten from his. “Nobody could get to ten as fast as George could,” assures Tom. “He loved to reel off his Italian heritage.” Charley Price saw a connection between his Italian bests and George’s approach to design. “When George switched from playing tournaments to course architecture, so it went that he was always trying to create something better than what you might compare it to.” Moselem Springs had to be better than nearby Saucon Valley, Butler National in Chicago better than Medinah, Jupiter Hills better, at least in its strivings, than Seminole down the road.

Is it any surprise, then, that Macdonald shunned

Vinci—had he needed one, he’d need look no further

a ceremonial first pitch? As the New York Herald sur-

than the world he’d known so intimately: Pine Valley.

mised presciently in 1911, “The word ‘opening’ implies

Not only had the course been adjusted over time by

completion, and the completion of the National will be

a handful of masterful hands—including Tom Fazio’s

when it passes out of existence.”

to this day—it’s very reveal to the public was an act

It’s doubtful George Fazio ever read those words,

of evolution in progress on display. In late 1913,

but he lived by the sentiment behind them. The Hills

founder George Crump went out with a foursome that

Course, like the National—like all golf courses that

included A. W. Tillinghast. In deference, Crump hit

aspire towards distinction—was conceived as a work-

the first drive. Given that there were only five holes

in-progress in perpetuity. Indeed, for the rest of his life,

in operation, was that a debut? A tryout? A safari? A

whenever he was asked about his inveterate fiddling

tour? When members began to play regularly in 1914,

with its details large and small—and George fiddled

Pine Valley was still seven holes shy of completion,

with it every day that he was in its environs—George’s

and only reached its full complement six years later.

stock retort cut the debate off cold: “It took fourteen

The National. Pine Valley.

years to complete the Mona Lisa.”

You can hear George’s wheels turning. Why not

Though George needed no reinforcement to sup-

aim high?

port the restless quest for perfection that he shared with Macdonald—and the long cultural shadow of da

✧

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

what was there to keep minutes of anyway? SO, IF YOU BLINKED,

Still, the vestiges of some essential signposts sug-

you missed it.

Nole

George Old Bo

In terms of openings, Jupiter

gest direction for the first few years,

Hills followed footprints so under-

and, indeed, the first decade itself,

stated that they left no mark. In

all of it marked by evolution, exper-

truth, the whole first few years left

imentation, and the trial and error

Or p

so few recorded footprints that try-

that infused Jupiter Hills with its

of trail

ing to retrace its steps with certainty

LIKE GEORGE, Gene Sarazen

structure, the Hills Course with its

is just an invitation down the garden

advocated fast play, and he practiced

direction, and brought forth a sec-

path. The overwhelming majority of

what he preached. Paired in the final

ond golf course and the community

whatever records were kept—mem-

round of the 1947 Masters, the two

it snakes through. While these early

bership, financials, planning, incorporation, official interactions with the state and county—disappeared

toured Augusta in one hour and fifty-seven minutes, barely enough time to smell the azaleas. The forty-

remnants, fragments, and traces might not deliver a definite narra-

five-year-old Squire shot an

tive, they at least lead toward anec-

long ago, some in a 1980 fire that

exceptional 2-under-par 70;

dotal detours that helped pave the

damaged the second floor of the

George posted a respectable 76.

way for the balance of the decade.

original clubhouse. Minutes? What-

To trace them, its best to work back

ever minutes might have been kept

towards the beginning—taking off

would have resided in George’s head, for without formal committees or an actively functioning board,

from a fixed point: February 5, 1971. That’s the date atop a “Special Notice” that

e and e from ook

pictures lers

O P E N

S E A S O N

The more it became obvious to the founding group that the real direction of the club was coming from—and would continue to come from—George, Bill Elliott, and Bill Ford, the more appealing it became to cash out. Moe and McCallum began the drip from the original tap of investors. By 1974, Jim Nolen, Jumbo Elliott, Joe Colen, Alfred du Pont Dent, and Billy Van Allen would also divest, with Ford picking up their shares, as well. That left the Core Four—Ford, Bill Elliott, Bob Hope and George—as panjandrums going forward, with Ford carrying by far the heaviest investment and George remaining the face of the operation. As for the other six, each received lifetime privileges, at least until 1984—both Colen and Jumbo had died by then—when the club’s ownership structure changed. Nolen remained a member— buying a new equity certificate in 1984—until his death in 1996.

Howard Everitt sent out to members. It begins with

club atmosphere at the new clubhouse,” swimming

a statement of fact that provides a reference, though

and tennis had been banished only on George’s wish

not a precise box on the calendar to check: “This

list; they were still on the menu as possible side dishes

week marked the first anniversary of play.” His next

to the main course. The third is that Don Weber had

sentence justified whatever early faith the members

beaten the odds; he’d survived as superintendent for

attached to the checks they wrote

more than eighteen months, and

for their $1,000 annual fees:

his

“Almost unanimously,” Everitt

maintenance of the sand traps

trumpeted,

knowledge-

and divot marks on the fair-

able in golf who have had the

ways.” How long did his tenure

opportunity to play the course

continue? The answer went up in

have proclaimed it one of the fin-

smoke—as so many other early

est.” Then he named names, and

records did—but the jokes about

it would be unseemly to quarrel

his title’s revolving-door nature

with the stellar credentials of the

began soon after.

“those

crew

provided

“excellent

first three: Byron Nelson, Gene

Continuing the march back-

Sarazen, and Tommy Bolt. Each

wards, Everitt dispatched the first

had at least one U.S. Open trophy

official newsletter to the member-

in his case. Nelson and Sarazen,

ship in December of 1970. “Our

between them, had a stylish col-

first full season of golf is upon

lection from the Masters—three

us,” he began. There was enough

green jackets—and a quintet of

news from there to fill three legal-

Wanamaker trophies from the

size pages, and one significant

PGA. Walt Burkemo made the list, too; another early

item that was not included: both Don Moe and Wally

invitee, he also was a PGA champion.

McCallum had decided to relinquish their owner-

Three more nuggets from the notice bear noting. The first is that a clubhouse was in the works,

ship stakes in October, with Bill Ford stepping up to acquire them. [SIDEBAR: EQUITY OWNERSHIP]

but not yet off the drawing board. The second is that

Everitt was pleased that temporary facilities—in

“while every effort will be made to maintain a golf

the form of Jim Nolen’s trailers—had been in place

T H E

LS ET TO RT YH EO FW JI LU DP I RT UE M R P HU I SL LS ST AC RL TU B

SIMPLY PUT, PHIL GREENWALD WAS, IN THE EYES OF SUCCESSOR BILL DAVIS, “A GREAT PRO, A PRO’S PRO”—CALM, CAPABLE, THOUGHTFUL, caring, knowledgeable, dedicated, droll, and, with his straw hat and penchant for pastels, quite a vision. “Everything was always for the members,” Davis adds. He was fifty-nine when George tapped him to join the party at Jupiter Hills. In retrospect, it would be impossible to imagine anyone else experientially, temperamentally, or in possession of a golf IQ better suited for the role. A son of the Midwest, Greenwald never left the Wisconsin clay that formed him fully behind. His Midwestern values never left him. Neither did his accent. But his approach to golf was world class. Drawn to the game early, he turned professional in his mid-teens when the head pro at Tripoli Country Club in Milwaukee elevated him from the caddie yard to an assistantship. Then John Hackbarth took over, turning three seasons for Greenie at Madison’s Blackhawk Country Club into his prep school and college. Hackbarth was a man of golf; at Blackhawk, he was the head pro, the super, and the club manager. He gave lessons and built clubs. In his spare time, he wrote one of the first volumes—The Key to Better Golf: A Mental Plan—to address the head above the swing. And Greenie let it all osmose down. By twenty, the Capitol Times had already identified him as “one of Madison’s favorite golf pros.” When he re-upped for another season under Hackbarth in 1930, the paper proclaimed his return was “bringing joy to the members, who have come to regard Phil as a cure-all for golf troubles.” It was time to bring his joy elsewhere, though; Greenwald was ready to run his own show. He moved north, to Fond-du-Lac Country Club as its newly minted head professional. There, on August 2, 1934, his game combusted spontaneously; his ten birdies— six consecutively—in an eighteen-hole match turned into news column filler for years. As a player, Greenie clearly had the skills to succeed, but he never won much more than local events. He had his flirtations with the Tour—he and George began running into each other by the early 1930s—but the romance was unreciprocated; his zenith as a competitor came in the 1941 PGA Championship at Cherry Hills when he overwhelmed Henry Picard, the 1938 Masters and 1939 PGA champion, in the first round of match-play before being overwhelmed himself in the second—by Sam Snead. Still, as a club pro Greenwald was nonpareil. When Hackbarth left Blackhawk, the club lured Greenie back to take over. Then, after World War II, he began a quarter-century run presiding over two of the Chicago area’s finest venues: the prestigious Donald Ross-designed Hinsdale Golf Club, west of the city, bookended by tours at the even-more celebrated Seth Raynor gem, Shoreacres, to the north. In 1958, Greenwald made his first extended foray into Florida, assuming the top spot at the new Paradise Country Club—later subsumed into the Plantation resort—along the gulf in Crystal River. Though new, the club had instant cachet with a membership that included reigning U.S. Open champion Tommy Bolt, Doug Ford, Frank Stranahan, and Vic Ghezzi. Built to mirror Augusta National in design and conditioning, Paradise quickly turned into an annual practice stop for pros— Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Ken Venturi among them—on the road to the Masters. And though Greenwald himself never made it to the year’s first major as a player, he—and Jupiter

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Hills—played a big role in winning one. By April of 1975, Jack Nicklaus already had four green jackets in his closet and, at thirty-five, was anxious to add to his collection, but his wedge game, never a strength, had been less than ideal that season. Greenie asked him over to Jupiter Hills. He had an idea he could help Nicklaus’s balky work from the beach. Since turning pro at the end of 1961, Jack had been wedded to the same old Wilson sand wedge; the club finally gave up the ghost in 1972, and why not—it was four decades old and wellused over the duration. He’d been searching for a replacement. In Greenie’s pro shop, he found the second coming. Greenwald had an original Wilson R-90 sand wedge that had arrived on the market shortly after Gene Sarazen came up with the idea in the early 1930s. What made this kind of club so hard to find was that its face wasn’t grooved. It was the less-produced hand-punched face with almost two hundred dots set up in eleven vertical rows, and though it was well worn, Jack swooned when Greenwald handed it to him. Then he tried it. He was in love. With Greenwald’s blessing, Nicklaus pulled onto U.S. 1 with the wedge in his bag. He took it to Hilton Head the following week— and won. Then took it to Augusta a week later—and won there, too. That was Greenwald in a nutshell. “If something needed to be taken care of,” Davis says admiringly, “Phil would take care of it.” It was a trait that followed him throughout his career and ensured that the sobriquet attached to him—“Mr. Wonderful,” earned for his propensity for describing all of his members, singularly and en masse, as “wonderful”—was no joke. “There wasn’t anyone in

the world who didn’t love him,” assures Dick Stewart, one of his former assistants, who would go on to a long career as a head pro in Michigan. Tom Horal, who ran the locker room through most of the 1970s into the early ’80s, enjoyed studying him. “I would stop and watch him late in the afternoon sitting in the corner of the pro shop,” Horal recalls. “Someone would come in, and as soon as he walked through the door, Phil had a bounce in his step, jumped up and welcomed him. He was unbelievable. He went out of his way to make everyone feel special. He made all of us who worked with him better people.” Mike Kernicki, another of his early assistants, agrees. “He would take us under his wing,” he says. “He was like a father to us. He really looked the part of the stylish golf professional who’s played with kings and queens and captains of industry.” When George called in 1969, Greenwald was ready for one last stop to hang his cap and cap his career. Even without the golf course, the area had put a spell on him. He and his wife Garna had honeymooned in Jupiter a few years earlier. “I used to peek over the State Park fence,” he would remember, “and think what a great piece of property for a golf course.” That golf course would be his home for the next fourteen years, the longest continuous stint of his storied career. He commandeered the pro shop with ease. He would play with anyone and everyone who asked—at least in the morning. The afternoons were reserved for the remarkable daily threesome of Greenie, Faz, and Jack Gately. Howard Everitt often joined them if, say, a Sam Snead, Bob Toski, David Graham, Ed Sneed, Bill Elliott, or Bill Ford hadn’t already been written into the slot, but with Faz, Greenie, and Gately, no fourth was really needed. Their game of choice was whip out, a modification of skins where players whip out their wallets and immediately pay up when a hole is won. With George in the group, they not surprisingly played by their own procedures, rarely completing a full round, and almost never following the hole-to-hole sequence in order. They followed their whims, and whim worked its way into the rules. When George found himself stymied by a tree, he could move his ball with no penalty; the name for that rule was “Fazio.” Gately was never comfortable in sand, so, when he found himself in a fairway bunker, he could, without penalty, rake his ball back onto the fairway; that rule was, of course, covered under “Gately.” Greenwald wanted no part of what he considered nothing less than capital crimes. Until… Age caught up with him, and he found he could no longer navigate himself in and out of George’s steep greenside beachheads. Rather than descend into the abyss, he dropped outside the maw with no penalty stroke assessed under the protection of the “Greenie.” Greenwald finally retired in the fall of 1983 at seventy-four. He died nine years later at his home in Tequesta.

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since the summer. As facilities go, the trailers were no

wrote. “Many golfers try to locate themselves in rela-

challenge to The Ritz, but an obvious step up from

tion to the green by taking a fix on familiar shrubs or

the naked parking lot that welcomed members ear-

trees. You can forget it at Jupiter Hills. Fazio has the

lier in the year. The southernmost

mileage clearly marked on the sprin-

of the three housed men’s and wom-

kler heads.”

en’s locker rooms, the northernmost

All of it interesting. All of

served as the golf shop and club stor-

it important. And all of it paled

age, and the one wedged between

beside Everitt’s announcement that

them was used as both the club’s gen-

THE TWO HUNDRED number cap

the gentleman George anointed to

eral offices and a snack bar offering

became an instant selling point to

oversee all things golf-related as the

prospective members. Then, as now,

club’s first head professional was a

basics and beer, the latter facilitated by Everitt stepping up to take out the license in his own name as a buffer to

most neighboring clubs with a single golf course—Lost Tree, for example— carried a roll of roughly 350, the num-

dapper Midwesterner named Phil Greenwald. At fifty-nine, Greenie

ber accepted as a sensible balance be-

was one of the most admired club

being fingerprinted and the personal

tween revenue and reasonable course

pros in the business with a swing so

intrusion of having to file financial

accessibility with moderately spaced

pure the Encyclopedia Britannica

worth statements, both requirements

tee times. But the founders weren’t

used its photographic sequence as

under Florida law.

interested in reasonable course acces-

the ideal for the volume’s entry on

sibility; they insisted on exceptional

golf in the 1950s. There was such

protect his bosses from the hassle of

Since facilities don’t operate themselves, Jack Gately, still running the range and giving lessons, now had company; the staff was becom-

accessibility: no tee times and no crowds. Two hundred provided that, and why membership today is limited

ing a staff. Bags and lockers were the purview of Joe Dominick—Dom to all—and Pat Brennan, chef and maître de snack bar, whipped up limited food service from 9:30 until 3:30. “Pat is very good with chicken and tuna salad,” guaranteed Everitt. “Give it a try.” Everitt was equally upbeat about the course’s novel placement of yardage markers. Green in color with a white center that made them easy to spot, they were strategically placed on each side of the fairway, “and will speed up play and assist you in selection of your club.” Bill Reddy, Syracuse’s pillar of all things sports for decades, was so impressed when he saw them that he’d devoted several paragraphs in his Post-Standard column to them in early May; he marveled at both their novelty and convenience. “There may be some interest in the plan introduced by George Fazio at his Jupiter Hills course,” Reddy

absence of doubt in George’s mind that Greenwald was the right man for the job that he never bothered

with a Plan B. The club’s first quartet of assistants was

Bud Herrick

Nee of Ed M

Photo and Toney

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impressive, too. One was the head pro at Biltmore For-

golf course can handle before the laws of diminish-

est in North Carolina, one was an assistant at Philadel-

ing returns overtake the free spirit of no tee times.

phia Country club, and two were hoping to play their

The number takes into consideration that not every member will show up on the same

way onto the PGA Tour.

d k

ed photo Martin

George couldn’t have been hap-

day, which George made sure of by

pier. With old friends like Everitt

pulling a large portion of that origi-

and Greenwald around him, things

nal membership from nearby clubs.

were falling into place even better

With no housing in the planning

than he’d hoped. “George had never been in a situation like this where he

o of Ed Sabo Pena

was in total charge,” explains Tom.

BETWEEN THE FIRST check he wrote for the land option in 1968,

yet, members had to make an effort to come over to play, and with no

and his stepping down from the

truly welcoming facilities, there was

“He’d found his home. The dream

presidency in 1984, Bill Ford pumped

no reason to stay once the golf was

was coming true for him.”

more than $16 million into the club,

done.

an amount that would be questioned ✧

THERE WAS

✧

one more piece of good

news. “We are on the way to being three quarters filled and since Elec-

Still, while this was—on the

in an unpleasant lawsuit during the

paper it was printed—good news, it

equity conversion. “Mr. Ford was

was also news not quite worth the

never into Jupiter Hills to make money,” stresses Ed Sabo, the club’s second pro and a witness to the conversion. “He didn’t want to make money.

paper it was printed on. In July of 1970, Bill Elliott raised the caution flag in a letter to his fellow found-

tion Day more than a dozen applica-

He used to say he had enough tax

ers. “There has been considerable

tions have been presented,” Everitt

problems.”

interest expressed in apartments,

told the members. That was a sub-

and there is no doubt that we would

stantial jump from the numbers on

be able to sell them or rent them if

October 1—ninety-nine dues-paying men, each laying

they were there,” he wrote them, “but I do not see

out $1,000 through fiscal 1971, and five women, each

how we can do it this year.” His concern was straight-

charged $350 less, barely an uptick from the roll call

forward. “It would probably be foolish for us to take

of roughly ninety reporting in during the first ninety

on additional debt at this time. There are too many

days. To aid in finding the final fifty to fit under the

unanswered questions in our whole economic pic-

optimum ceiling of two hundred, a copy of a special

ture for me to recommend that we aggressively move

Guest Card was attached to the newsletter to facili-

ahead.” He was worried about the mortgage they were

tate bringing in prospective members to show them

carrying on the land still undeveloped, and payments

around.

on the $200,000 loan that he and Wally McCallum

Both the number of members and who those mem-

had guaranteed.

bers were are significant. There was a reason George,

But he had an idea, and, taking a big picture look

working with Bill Elliott, settled on two hundred, and

toward the future, he floated it. “Personally, I think we

why that number remains essential to the well-being

should seriously consider building a second golf course

of Jupiter Hills to this day. As men of golf, they knew

on that land, which would probably work out to the

it; modern economic algorithms simply confirm what

best thing we could have in the years to come.” Then,

they knew. Two hundred is the maximum a private

“this is something that should be thought through very

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carefully.”

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and bound by little more than George’s caprice and

The thinking, though, had begun.

personal connections. With no initiation fee, memberships were dispensed for a year at a time: If a bill

✧

arrived at the start of the new golf season, you were back, if it didn’t, rest assured that there was something

came into being with a housing

about you, your behavior or comportment that had

community weaving around and through it, and the

rubbed George’s highly polished sensibilities about

UNTIL THE VILLAGE COURSE

financial and practical complexities

golf etiquette and personal deport-

of that kind of set-up began trans-

ment the wrong way. Adios for

forming Jupiter Hills from the let’s-

now. Try again later. Maybe.

put-on-a-golf-club enterprise built on

In the beginning, George, Ever-

George’s vision and Bill Ford’s will-

itt, Greenwald, and the founders

ingness to keep writing checks into the equity enterprise it began working towards in the mid-1980s, membership had a smoke-and-mirrors

GEORGE’S PROPENSITY to bless friends—golfing friends, business friends, friend friends, potential friends—with non-dues-paying privi-

invited friends in to kick the tires via relaxed rounds. (With no tournaments or official competitions, what other kind were there?) Not

quality to it. Never more so than in

leges was fine until the second course

surprisingly, a significant number

the first five years.

went in, housing sprung up around it,

of early members came from where

and membership became less fluid.

they did: Philadelphia, Detroit, and

needed time to figure itself out, and

From her perch in the halfway house,

Chicago. As George had hoped,

Ford made sure it would have that.

Phyllis Valenti heard the grumbling.

most were already in situ at other

On the one hand, Jupiter Hills

“The most important part of George’s vision—besides the vision itself,” insists Tom, “was that he didn’t have

“Members started to squawk,” she says. “It was like, ‘These people don’t pay and we have to wait for them. Why is that?’ Some told me they

clubs in the neighborhood: Lost Tree was so well represented at the onset that George decided at the end

to worry about money. He had some-

felt like strangers on their own golf

of the second year not to invite sev-

body who was going to pay for it, and

course.”to four hundred—but with

eral back, for no reason other than

Bill Ford was committed to paying

thirty-six holes to absorb it.

that as members of the same club,

for it and did. Together, they were in

they tended to congregate together.

this to create an environment for golf, a special place

The Lost Tree contingent was incensed, and made sure

for the future and a fabulous golf experience.”

Ford heard about their displeasure, which displeased

Which meant low-density membership num-

him. They helped pay the bills; and Ford, in turn,

bers and enough high-profile membership to attract

made sure George heard about that. George reversed

everyone else. And that meant that like a Broadway

himself. That time.

production papering the house in preview to build the appearance of a hit, not every high-profile member paid for his seat. Eventually, that unwritten policy created tension, but not yet.

Tales of George’s fickle finger over who was in and who wasn’t became legion over the first decade. Let Ed Sabo pick up the thread. Then an aspiring Tour player from Atlanta, Sabo, who would replace

Over the first several years of operation, member-

Greenwald as head pro in 1983, made Jupiter Hills

ship was something of a rolling carnival, free-floating

his early golfing home after Toney Penna introduced

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him to George—and the Hills Course—in 1972. “You

“George was the ayatollah,” says Herrick. “We

should let this kid come play and practice,” Penna

sweated it out. He sent bills out the first of October. If

implored. George agreed, and Sabo became a regular

you didn’t get one, you were through.” Sorry, Charlie.

on site through much of the 1970s when he was in

Jim Pilz—an executive at Timken Steel, a major

Florida; Jupiter Hills became his golfing home. “It felt

supplier to the automakers—was a top player at

like the happiest club I’ve ever been at,” Sabo recalled

Detroit Golf Club when he first thought about adding

recently. “Everyone was so pleasant and accommo-

Jupiter Hills to his golfing quiver in the early 1970s.

dating. Nobody had a personal agenda. When you’re

He asked a member what the club’s rules were. He

in the golf industry, you’re

was told there weren’t

used to people complaining.

any. “But what if you do

But nobody complained in

something

George’s day.”

wondered. “Oh,” came

wrong?”

the quick reply, “then

Because if they did,

you’re out.” He joined

exile was on the table.

anyway. And remained on

“At the halfway house,”

the rolls until 2000.

adds Sabo, “if you said there

Ohio

was too much mayonnaise

attorney

on the salad, there was a

Martin, a member at both

good chance you wouldn’t

Inverness back home and

get invited back.”

Pine Tree down the road, was

With George, you just

circumspect

never knew. Nephew Tom

in that dawn. “I really

puts it like this: “He’d come

loved Pine Tree, but we

up with whatever he decided

decided to move north,”

whenever he decided it.”

he recalled some years

Bud Herrick, a member

ago. “I’d heard about

since 1982—he served on the

Jupiter Hills, but never

Board of Governors in the

applied because I’d heard

early 1990s—began coming

about George Fazio’s pol-

down from Chicago in the first years as a guest and

icy. I figured there was no sense trying to get in if, for

still has what’s likely to be the oldest surviving filled-

some reason, I might not be asked back another year.”

out scorecard enshrining the 92 he recorded while the

But Jupiter Hills never flew off his radar, and when

trailers were still in place. Some years later, he was

policies became less capricious with the arrival of the

playing with member Charlie Leibrandt, father of the

Village Course in the late 1970s, he came knocking,

fine former Major League pitcher who shouldered the

and served from 1992 to 1995 as the club’s fourth

same name, and Leibrandt Sr. committed a sin for

president.

which there was no penance or appeal: sporting a pair of tennis shorts on the golf course. George saw him. Need photo of KV, CM and Ed Sneed mid 70s

If these tales about membership willies and George’s at times imperial approach appear to be putting the putt before the drive, they’re not here for

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Like Bill Ford, Bill Curran and Fred Kammer were longtime members at the Country Club of Detroit and regular golf partners at Seminole. Kammer was by far the best player of the three—and one of the best amateurs in the nation at one point—with one of the wildest sporting doubles to be found anywhere: an Olympic hockey medal and a Walker Cup. He starred in baseball and hockey at Princeton, then added to his letter collection with one in golf as a senior in 1934; he played in the first of his nine U.S. Amateurs a year later. Back on ice in 1936, he starred at wing on America’s bronze-medal finishers in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In 1947, he played his way onto the American squad that retained the trophy at St. Andrews in the first post-war Walker Cup Match. He went on to a successful career as an executive at the family firm that supplied Ford with electrical systems. Curran was another type of story altogether. A friend of both Henry II and Bill’s, he was often characterized as their “wingman” and all-around hail-fellow-well-met. Bill enjoyed his company immensely; together, they once won the member-guest at Maidstone on eastern Long Island, one of Ford’s several clubs. Though known more for his partying skills than managing Sports Illustrated’s Detroit offices, Curran’s position selling ads for the magazine gave him entrée to the auto manufacturers and introduced him to the Fords; it later helped secure a revenue stream for Jupiter Hills through corporate memberships. The club, after all, could be ideal for entertaining clients; Ford gently let it be known that publications relying on its advertising might do well by taking out memberships in the magazines’ names. Time-Life jumped right in with SI and Fortune. Forbes did, too. “The Ford people let us know that we—Time, Inc., through Sports Illustrated—should take out four or five memberships,” reports David Long. Then a young ad salesman at SI en route to the top of the masthead as the magazine’s publisher, he joined Jupiter Hills on his own from 1998 to 2014, serving on both green and membership committees. But back in the day, whenever George saw one of the ad force on the course, he would find a way to prod. “It wasn’t an order. It just became known that we’d have a couple of memberships for Time, Inc. We stuck with them. They were grateful.”

was beginning to take notice of. In February of 1970, its arrival was one of the talks of the PGA merchandise show, the golf world’s annual winter pilgrimage to Palm Beach. that. Rather, they’re here to affirm a tone that helped ✧

establish the early direction that separated Jupiter

✧

Hills from its neighbors. George and his reputation preceded him. And both because of them and despite

SINCE JUPITER HILLS

them, the club, from the beginning, exuded an aura of

the membership pool had no geographic perimeter.

exceptionalism in every way. Even before there was a

George was convinced that a diaspora from the north

clubhouse, before there were trailers even, there was

and Midwest stirred together with a collection drawn

George Fazio and a golf course that the golf world

from quarters closer at hand would create the best fit

was conceived as a winter haven,

Hole 15 ring of sand frpm bppk

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and fittest mix. “I think that’s very healthy,” he later

right people, so let them come and play, and if they

mused. “Not all from one area. Not all the old-fash-

like it enough—and George was sure they would—

ioned Princeton, Yale, and Harvard. Not just one seg-

they might well join, too.

ment of people.”

Take Jupiter Island’s Nathaniel Reed. He was

Intent on finding that right blend, he not only

socially prominent and politically well-connected,

relied on suggestions from the founders, he dispensed

both in Florida, where the Reeds had wielded influence

Honorary Memberships to his friends. And to Ford’s

since the 1930s, and in Washington, where he served

friends. And to Bill Elliott’s friends. And Bob Hope’s

as an assistant secretary of the interior, co-authoring

friends. And to anybody else he thought would be good for spreading the reputation and enhancing the ambience of Jupiter Hills. These were not the same kind of Honorary Memberships that would be formally inscribed into the club’s Bylaws in 1984. They came and they went; they were loss leaders, the idea being that the right people brought in more of the

As Jupiter Hills was opening, the Fazios were working on their next big project, Butler National, just outside Chicago. Conceived as the permanent home of the Western Open—which it was from 1974 to 1989—the course debuted in the fall of 1972 to immediate acclaim, the Chicago Tribune gushing that “it is to the general run of golf courses as baccarat is to recycled peanut butter jars.” I. C. Harbour, one of the club’s founders, was emphatic about why they chose George for the job. “He’s like an artist who begins painting his picture and then constantly changes it,” he told the Tribune. “He doesn’t believe in changing nature to fit his golf requirements. Instead, he fits his golf requirements to nature.” The Fazios had been on a roll since the early sixties around Philadelphia and that roll was continuing. Now based out of an office at 308 Tequesta Drive—the same space that Howard Everitt had originally leased for the club’s offices near the Old Dixie Highway entrance—they continued to work together for the next several years, though by the late seventies, Tom would take over the run of the business. “We never had an agreement or understanding,” says Tom. “It was just one day it would be my business. I call it the old Italian way. George had become more interested in Jupiter Hills than the design business.” Their design portfolio grew to include Palm-Aire Country Club in Pompano Beach, Riverbend Country Club in Tequesta, Pinehurst’s No. 6, Palmetto Dunes in South Carolina outside of Charleston, Mahogany Run in the Virgin Islands, and the National Golf Club in Ontario, perennially ranked by Golf Digest as one of Canada’s three best. Together, they’re also credited with, in the same time frame, refining some of the most impressive tracks in the nation: the Atlanta Athletic Club, the Inverness Club in Toledo, Oak Hill in Rochester, Southern Hills in Tulsa, and Winged Foot in Mamaroneck, north of New York City. Those five have staged sixteen U.S. Opens. Through his friendship with Cliff Roberts, George was brought in for a minor renovation to Augusta National in 1972. Tom began his own continuing relationship with the home of the Masters in 1986.

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So, through the first years, did George’s confreres from the PGA: golfers Cary Middlecoff, Ken Venturi, Bob Toski, Julius Boros, and Ed Sneed, whom George was coaching and mentoring; even the organization’s president, Leo Fraser. All were recurrent themes on the course. As was writer Charley Price. And clubmaker Toney Penna. And broadcaster Jack Whitaker. And Augusta Chairman Cliff Roberts. And Bill Ford’s close friends Bill Curran and Fred Kammer. And Hope’s pal Bill Fugazy, the panjandrum of New York limo services whose TV ads featured Hope claiming “Fugazy” was his middle name. And Hope’s Philadelphia lawyer Frank Sullivan—he was Ben Hogan’s lawyer, too. And Philadelphia’s Cardinal John Krol, who was a more than willing acolyte of George’s ex cathedra decrees.

As much as George enjoyed his

None of them saw Jupiter Hills as their primary

friendships with celebrities, he didn’t court them for

outpost of the game (though, naturally, other early

Jupiter Hills, but Perry Como and Mike Douglas were

members did). George just wanted their names—and

exceptions. George had known Douglas since the early

others—attached for their cachet, their auras min-

sixties when the former big-band singer relocated his daily talk fest from Cleveland to Philadelphia, ensconcing himself—and his single-digit game—at Aronimink.

gling in the atmosphere beside early paying customers like Perry Como; Philadelphia talk-show host and

Before hanging up his microphone in the early eighties,

low handicapper Mike Douglas; Jim McDonnell,

Douglas had hosted more than six thousand episodes

the McDonnell of McDonnell-Douglas; Philadelphia

of the show seen coast-to-coast through syndication.

beer magnate Bob Gretz; pickle maestro Robert Vla-

He shared his stage with co-hosts like Barbra Strei-

sic; Iowa lumberman Jim Hoak, a member of both

sand and John Lennon, and guests ran the gamut from

Augusta National and Lost Tree, and a regular U.S.

Muhammad Ali to five American presidents. In 1978, he

Amateur participant in the 1950s and 1960s; Chi-

let the game he loved briefly take over his broadcast when he introduced a two-year-old phenom named Tiger Woods to the world. With Bob Hope and Jimmy

cago construction contractor I. M. “Red” Harbour, a co-founder of Butler National, which the Fazios

Stewart looking on, Woods demonstrated his swing,

built after Jupiter Hills; Bob Fisher, inventor of the

prompting Hope to proclaim, “I don’t know what kind

modern seatbelt, who was known to arrive for a

of drugs they’ve got this kid on, but I want some.”

round via helicopter, which he’d park not far from the original third tee before the condo row was built

the Endangered Species Act. Ford, a Jupiter Island res-

there; and Forbes magazine publisher Jimmy Dunn.

ident, had known him for years and had introduced

Dunn was renowned for the way he courted corporate

him to George at Seminole. “Our chemistry was per-

titans and advertisers both with his upscale Forbes-fi-

fect,” Reed recalled shortly before his death in 2018.

nanced golfing junkets—a round at Seminole, a round

“Though we had just met, I became an Honorary

at Jupiter Island, and a round at Jupiter Hills capped

Member practically on opening day.”

by cocktails on Malcolm Forbes’s yacht when it was

Photo of cliff roberts from book or elsewhere

Robbie Hofmann, Photo of Mark Cox

Whitakier and nick from dropbox

docked in town.

he fumed, citing politics. “Seminole sits there in the

As president of PGA/Victor Golf Equipment

Top Ten and Jupiter Hills is in the third 10. I’ll be

Company in Chicago and a past president of the West-

go-to-hell if Jupiter isn’t a better course. That course has terrain.”

ern Golf Association, Mark Cox visited the club with several other attendees of

Everitt’s migration from Oakmont

that 1970 PGA show. “When I first saw

brought several members of the club

the terrain I was astounded,” he later

with him led by Jack Mahaffey; chair of

recalled. “Only a guy like George Fazio

the 1969 U.S. Amateur and 1973 U.S.

could visualize how to use this terrain

Open Championships, he went on to

for golf.” He joined in 1973 when he

the USGA’s Executive Committee and

relocated to Florida to become the

the presidency of Oakmont itself. Mer-

PGA of America’s executive secretary

rill Stewart, commander of the club’s

and, in 1989, the club’s first secretary

fabled three-day-a-week competitive

under the new administrative set up.

institution known as The Swat, came,

His allegiance to the quality of the golf course took

too. Ultimately, the Oakmonter imported by Ever-

on all comers. Assessing Golf Digest’s 1977 ratings,

itt who turned out to be most intrinsic to the Jupiter

With a soft spot in his heart for all living things George made sure the alligators residing in the 15th pond were well-nourished. He fed them hot dogs on his morning rounds. When word got out, it established a trend. Throughout the 1970s, members would stop by, bang their carts to try rousing a gator from the pool, then leave crackers and cookies on the bank. By the early eighties, at least one had grown large enough to be deemed a formidable natural hazard; it was caught and safely relocated. History does not record precisely which alligator it was that outside man Gar Garfield captured, tied to a golf cart, and drove up to the pro shop, almost sending Greenie off to greener pastures prematurely, but history—at least the oral kind—has recorded and passed down the event.

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Hills weft and weave wasn’t a member at all, but a

Six did. “It wasn’t really finished,” he recently

teddy bear from the caddie yard with some forty years

recalled. “They were operating out of trailers.”

of toting experience named Garfield Goddard—Gar

George introduced himself, and they went out for nine

to everyone who met him. From the time he arrived

holes together. “He wanted to play with me to see if he

before the new clubhouse opened until his departure

wanted me in the club. He saw that I didn’t have two

in the early 1980s, Gar was the outdoor face of Jupi-

heads or anything, so he said, ‘You’re in… ’ ”—with

ter Hills, the first to greet members

a caveat. “If you get a bill in Octo-

when they pulled up in their cars and

ber,” George told him, “you’re in

the last to bid them farewell when

for another year. If you don’t, you’re

they left. In between, he made sure

not being asked back.” Six always

their carts were loaded to their sat-

got his bill—until 2007, when, at

isfaction before he started them on their rounds. Interestingly, George so wanted Perry Como—the most recognizable

THE LIST OF THOSE whose first take on the course includes some variation on the theme of “This

eighty-seven, he retired his membership while maintaining his house in the Village community. Whatever

doesn’t look like Florida,” is a long

continuity and stability George was

celebrity in the area—to be part of the

and illustrious one, beginning, of

looking for in members, he found it

Jupiter Hills character that he offered

course, with George and Bill Ford

in Six—and Benz, who remained on

Honorary Membership to him sev-

themselves. When Bob Hope saw the

the rolls until his death, at eighty-

eral times before the opening, but

finished product, he raved, “If you

nine, in 2014. [PICS OF SIX AND

Como kept refusing. He already had his share of honorary memberships. “He wanted to be a real member

blindfolded me, put me on the first tee, and spun me around, I couldn’t tell if I was in New Hampshire or not.” A decade later, a teenager from

BENZ] Among the other identifiable faces working their way up the

Wisconsin got his first view of the

hills and down the valleys were two

insisted on paying. George would

course when his parents, Jack and

belonging to a pair of Villanova

fight about it with him.” It was one

Lee Kelly, drove in for a look. The

undergraduates who would make

of the few early fights at Jupiter Hills

family had spent several seasons

the trip together during breaks—

that George engaged in and lost.

in Naples, and their son had gotten

Tom Elliott, Jumbo’s son, and his

at Jupiter Hills,” recalls Tom. “He

Don Six came in via the most traditional route—as a dues-paying member introduced by a golf buddy. The club’s first vice president

the lay of the landscapes north and south playing junior tournament golf. To this day, that kid, Jerry Kelly—a multiple winner on both the PGA and Champions Tours—can’t forget his

in 1989, Six ran a construction com-

initial impression: “It didn’t look like

pany in Ohio when the phone rang

Florida at all.”

one morning in the winter of 1971.

roommate from Pittsburgh, Robbie Hofmann, who, like his father before him, joined the club—in 1996—and became president in 2019. “It was so laid back,” recalls Hofmann. “Tommy and I would play at least eighteen holes a day

It was John Benz, a developer he’d worked with and

when we were there together, jumping around some-

played golf with in Chicago. “Hey, Donny,” came the

one in front of us, which was rare. The course was

voice. “I found a place for us to play in Florida. Just

generally so wide open we’d even play cross-country

a great golf course. You ought to come down and see

golf, making up our own holes from this tee to that

it.”

green. And then you could be talking to somebody

USE 11 abd 14 photo any here from book

Need Toski photo

O P E N

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on a very informal basis, and he turned out to be the

playing at a forbidden place and discovering secrets

chairman of AT&T.”

proscribed to others.”

Elliott will never forget the specific moment that

Every private club has its sense of privilege. Jupi-

Perry Como decided it would be an especially oppor-

ter Hills’s original sense of privilege was a privilege in

tune time to talk to him. Elliott had come down on

itself, the rare opportunity to experience golf, unen-

his own and was staying with Fazio at his apartment

cumbered by trappings, in its simplest form, a little

near the Jupiter Lighthouse. “Uncle George had taken

primitive but, for a dedicated foot soldier in the Royal

me to the course and driven me out

to one of the lakes”—the big one at

pristine.

Ancient

parade,

appealingly

15—“and given me a bag of balls to ✧

hit.” Which he was doing. When sud-

✧

denly he heard a very familiar voice coming from off to the side. “It was

BRITISH OPEN champion—and

FOR GEORGE,

just so slow and smooth,” Elliott

architect-in-the-making—Tom Weis-

like a dream passing quickly, as if

remembers. “He was telling me not

kopf was an early devotee of Jupiter

one day the golf course was a golf

to move.” The kid and the crooner

Hills, stopping from time to time

course in waiting and the next day

locked eyes, and Como’s glance led Elliott’s toward something more menacing than any of the course’s bunkers: an alligator. Elliott stood

in the early years both to play golf with George and have George look over his game. To this day, whenever Weiskopf runs into nephew Tom, he

this must have all seemed

the Hills were alive with daily play, sparse as it was. Given his impatience, that’s understandable, and,

always asks about the 18th hole: “Is it

as it turned out, worth the wait, for

frozen. For an eternity. With Como

still a 2-iron from a downhill lie to an

what he kept hearing from the golf-

reminding him—smoothly—not to

uphill green?”

ers washing up in the first waves had

move. Finally, the alligator turned

Yes, it is. The Fazios have always liked it that way. “If we were building

back to the lake. It wasn’t the last time the alligator appeared on the golf course to observe what its brain must have

this golf course in New York, New England, or North Carolina,” Tom concedes, “we’d probably lower this green by fifteen feet. But this is

his ears aflame. Though not every name coming through—as guests of George’s or a paying member’s—had marquee value beyond their own households, many did in the club’s

South Florida. There is no other golf

first two seasons, and they were

in some otherworldly activity, for in

hole like it. It’s one of the unique and

dazzled.

the beginning, there was something

special holes in golf.”

translated as alien beings engaging

otherworldly about the landscape, of course, but, just as remarkable,

Cliff Roberts, who knew some-

Use 18 rsiing photo use Larry L photo

thing about good golf courses having presided over Augusta National

the vastness of its feel, the openness

since its founding, was atypically

of its space, how uncongested its

unrestrained in his initial assess-

fairways were, and how understated the entire facil-

ment. “It shows a degree of artistic ability beyond any-

ity was in the years before the clubhouse was built. It

thing I had hopes of seeing,” he raved. “The views on

had, as Golf Digest’s Cal Brown, a writer with deep

several holes are breathtaking, nothing short of mag-

ties to both George and Tom—he wrote the club’s

nificent. I cannot imagine anyone not being excited

twenty-fifth anniversary volume—put it, “a feeling of

here.”

Piny17 if needed

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Necessity is the mother of sequencing as well as invention, amd the work a-in-progress nature of the Hills course in its beginnings called for a variation on the Fazio’s original intent. Until the first permanent clubhouse atop Conch Bar Hill opened in the fall of 1972, with an entry off U.S. 1, members drove in off Old Dixie Highway and parked in a lot adjacent to the three temporary trailers that were installed in the summer of 1970. The start from there was on what’s now the fifth hole, then onto the present sixth, then the first before moving on to the first hole of what’s now the Village Course—and on from there, as per the map that George, who insisted there be no signage on the course, made sure was clearly marked on the reverse of the original scorecard. The front nine ended on the current fourth hole; the back nine began on 13 and worked its way up the dune ridge before finishing back near the parking lot on No. 12. When the clubhouse opened, the sequencing reverted to the routing on the topo map Tom Fazio drew in October of 1969. It changed again in 1976 when the new seventh, eighth, and ninth holes officially came into play and what had been the second, third, and fourth holes of the Hills became the first, second, and finale of the Village. Ed Sabo strongly believes that the original eighteen-hole routing may have played as much as five shots harder.Score card first routing phohoto i took

Jack Whitaker seconded that. “I loved it,”

feature on display on the unmatched terrain, for what

remembers broadcasting’s bard. “There was nothing

visitors also found was what George had put in. They

like it in Florida. It didn’t look like Florida. It didn’t

discovered eighteen holes brimming with variety, no

play like Florida.”

two alike. They discovered multiple tee boxes offering

Gene Sarazen, a veteran of golf around the globe

a miscellany of length and alternative lines of play.

both as a player and host of Shell’s Wonderful World

They discovered greens as rakishly angled as a fop’s

of Golf on TV, echoed the sentiment. “I expected

fedora, some with multiple tiers. And they found

another Florida course,” he confided years later. “I

quandaries in the shrewdness with which George

told George he forgot to take out the hills.”

made use of Florida’s prevailing winter breezes off the

George, indeed, forgot to take out the hills. But

ocean; the more challenging the hole itself, the more

remarkable topography wasn’t the only remarkable

likely it played into the teeth of the wind. [SIDEBAR:

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UNCHANGING 18TH] George could not have cared

AS GEORGE AND HOWARD EVERITT

brainstormed through the

less that those winds switched around in summer;

1969 fall of the grow-in, they kicked around a series

Jupiter Hills, as originally conceived, was never sup-

of ideas—some better than others, some not so hot

posed to be open in summer anyway.

at all—that they recorded on a sheet of legal paper

What they also found was a course that while

beneath a preliminary chart of hole-by-hole yard-

technically ready—everything was where it was ini-

ages from four sets of tees. The forward reds would

tially supposed to be—was still in rehearsal. George,

run a compact 5,600 yards; the heroic golds would

being George, began tinkering with

expand to 7,228, with the middle

the design even before it opened.

reds and blues ranging from 6,197

Big changes would come down the

to 6,520. The original scorecards

road when George would bring the

told a different story, for there

northeastern-most dune ridge into

were three different versions, one

play as the seventh, eighth, and ninth holes. Until then, the course that members first encountered included three holes—the fourth,

WHILE GEORGE was firm about no formal tournaments like a club championship, member-guest, pro-am or Tour

for women, one for men, and one marked championship, all playing to a par of 72, each with yard-

stop that would close the course to his

ages on one side and a map of the

fifth, and sixth that would eventu-

just-pull-in-and-play directive, he was by

course on the other, a must given

ally form the start and finish—the

no means averse to friendly organized

George’s insistence that there be

first, second, and 18th holes—of

competition. The first Saturday morning

no signage on the course.

the Village Course. The original

Men’s Day was staged on December 12,

sequencing would feel so disori-

1970, which then turned into a regular

enting that visitors from the present heading back in time would be advised to bring a roadmap and

Saturday morning scramble. By then, the club’s Women’s Golf Association was already on its way. The Palm Beach Post that June reported on the inaugural WGA

The

“Ladies”

scorecard

offered “Regular Yardage” from the red tees and, in the next column, “Long Yardage” from the new orange tees: 5,613 and 6,004,

lantern along to guide them safely

tournament, won by Bea Tillman in a draw

respectively. The gentleman’s ver-

through. [SIDEBAR: ROUTING

with Lois Johnson and Arlene Anholt, all

sion, beneath the heading “Reg-

AND REROUTING–WITH MAP]

tied with a net 75. Jo Purvis and Lila Moe

ular—Professional Score Card”

The sequence of play, the

stood a stroke behind, with Purvis’s 92 ty-

displayed a pair of options. The

lack of facilities, and the paucity of

ing for gross honors beside P. D. Wasson.

“Regular” whites had replaced

staff notwithstanding, the members and prospective members coming through in the first months—the

That is the first record of both a competition and a competitive score posted on the Hills Course.

what had first been designated blue, and had grown almost one hundred yards, to 6,284. Under

first years, really—stumbled upon

the rubric of “Professional,” the

something else that subsequent tides of golfers would

yellow route added almost five hundred yards—to

find, as they continue to find to this day: a golfing

6,732.

place to call home.

As for the behemoth golds, they were nowhere to be found, but they were in the ground and on their

✧

own card recast as blue, which seemed fitting given the despair they could dish out. Their full journey covered

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Unfortunately, Arnold Palmer’s on-and-off-the-course commitments prevented him from prevented him from stopping in that first season Jupiter Hills was open. George and Palmer had played together often through the years, and George helped Arnie with his game from time to time. But it was George’s first bit of assistance that cemented their relationship. It was early 1949, and The King was just a serf standing by the side of U.S. 1 in northern Virginia with Wake Forest teammate Bud Worsham, younger brother of 1947 U.S. Open champion Lew Worsham, golf bags in tow, thumbing a ride back to campus. “This big, black

the last two were scrapped in the moment, but would

Cadillac went by us, slowed down, stopped and backed

surface again. As for tees, two would suffice nicely for

up,” Arnie recalled. “It was George on his way to Florida

men, and another two for women, unless, in George’s

for the winter.” He didn’t know them, but George saw

wiliness, you happened to be, say, Byron Nelson.

the golf bags, and asked where they were headed. They told him. “He told us to get in the car. George climbed in the back seat and let us drive the car all the way to Wake Forest.” George was always thinking a step ahead.

Still, it’s the ninth and final item on their agenda that emits the cagiest vibration of George’s thinking as it spoke directly to his insistence that Jupiter Hills be a golfer’s club, a talked-about golfer’s club, and a club worthy of the spotlight: “Get Arnold Palmer

twenty more yards than those George had originally

to play and testify.” By the fall of 1969, Palmer was

intended, every one of which George insisted his old

golf’s Pied Piper; where he went, his Army followed,

Tour friends—and everyone else—travel, at least on

as did the buzz, the cameras, the newspapers, the mag-

their first visit. At least at first. In time, the torturer

azines, and the dreams of the wannabes in their alpaca

within was abated; by 1978, when

V-necks with cigarettes dangling in the

George finally consented to open his

shadow of their visors. An endorse-

tournament-free domain for a benefit

ment from the King was the gold stan-

pro-am, he’d beneficently knocked

dard dipped in honey with a magnetic

the champions’ route to a shade

force field capable of pulling in the

under 6,900 yards, with the lon-

entire golfing universe. George and

ger men’s circuit dropped to a more

Arnie had known each other for two

sociable 6,500. [SIDEBAR: ORGA-

decades, and Everitt was instrumen-

NIZED PLAY]

tal in introducing Arnie to his wife.

Some of the ideas George and

Despite their open invitation, Palmer,

Everitt spitballed that fall were the

alas, never made it. [SIDEBAR: RID-

location of a halfway house, where

ING WITH THE KING]

to put restrooms, how many tees there should be, and

But, as Everitt’s 1971 note to the membership

whether any thoughts of a swimming pool and tennis

crows, others did, none bigger in the first season than

courts should go further. The first two were tabled and

Nelson, followed by Sam Snead the next. [SIDEBAR:

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George didn’t confine his search for perfection to the Hills Course. He was just as open to morphing the Village after it opened. Take the sixth hole, the most arresting short par 4 on the property at barely 280 yards, a compact dogleg left with a small pond at the corner. If that doesn’t ring a bell, it wouldn’t anymore. One day early on, Bill Ford was playing with his pal Fred Kammer, the former Walker Cupper. As they left the fifth green, Ford explained the challenge ahead to Kammer, who hadn’t played it yet, explaining the ideal line was down the right side. Kammer followed the advice perfectly. But instead of a clear approach to the green, he found himself stymied by a large tree. George had, in his mind, improved the hole by filling the pond and relocating the green well to the right, a surprise to Ford—and to the chagrin of his trusting guest.

HIGH PRAISE FROM A TOUGH CRITIC] George

George reveled watching great players approach

understood the power of word-of-mouth advertis-

the course’s riddles. How they tried solving them

ing—the only real advertising the club employed—and

became an integral tool for George’s constant striving

he also understood the lure of free golf. And so out

to improve the layout. George was always studying

went the invitations, trusting testimonials would fol-

how the Hills was played.

low. The pros came. The golf writers

One Fazio diktat was inviola-

came. The writers’ writers came. Cel-

ble; whenever someone new arrived

ebrated novelist James A. Michener

to play for the first time, George led

joined George for a walk one day

him to the tips announcing, “We’ll

through Jupiter Hills’ peace and natu-

play from here.” Didn’t matter

ral splendor, then rolled their odyssey

IT’S NOT HARD to understand

whether you were Harry Hacker or

through his novelist’s interpretation.

the appeal of the Hills’s terrain to

Byron Nelson. Indeed, when Nel-

“When I went over it with him,”

Sam Snead, associated as he was

son, half a year older than George

Michener said, “I had the feeling that

with two of golf’s more oscillating

at fifty-eight and twenty-four years

I was looking at something that had

terrains—The Homestead in Virginia

past his retirement from the active

been created by one man, and very imaginatively.” “George was such a good pro-

and The Greenbrier in West Virginia. Sophisticated as Pine Tree, his Florida golfing home in Boynton Beach, was—Ben Hogan deemed it “The

grind of competition, arrived with Bob Toski for their inaugural spin that first winter, George pointed

moter,” says Tom, “and very much of

greatest flat course in the world,”

them to the tips and joined them

a promoter. He knew how to build the

and the operative word in the assess-

on the journey. At Jupiter Hills, the

bridges to make things happen.”

ment is still “flat.” Walking off the

rules were the rules, and the rules

And when the right things hap-

Hills, Snead once observed, “I never

were what George deemed them to

pen, what happens is history. Attach

realized there was that much gravity

be.

names like Nelson’s and Venturi’s

in Florida.”

and Middlecoff’s and Snead’s to the

Toski remembers how engaged Lord Byron was from first tee to

property and—poof!—history doesn’t need time to

final putt. At the 11th hole—14 on today’s program—

develop, it sprouts instantaneously. It’s hard to imag-

George had managed to bulk up an additional thirty

ine George, the lover of Italian history that he was, not

yards to its designated “Professional” playing weight

thinking that way and not planning for it.

of 215, then, to add even more distance, installed the

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pin at the back of the green, adjacent to the pond,

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he collected that day. He shot a 67, and walked off

which then hugged the whole left

singing the Hills’s praises. “It’s one

side of the putting surface. “What

of the finest golf courses I’ve ever

do you think of this hole?” George

played,” said the Lordship who’d

inquired innocently. Nelson thought

played most of them—from Cypress

about it before reaching into his

Point to the fairways of St. Andrews.

bag. “I think I’ll use my 3-wood,”

THOUGH HOWARD EVERITT’S

he replied. Nelson’s ball flew high

responsibilities as club manager kept

son,” says Toski, “George couldn’t

toward certain liquid death, took

him off the golf course more than

have gotten a better testimony.”

a gentle bend downrange to the

he would have preferred, the time

Toski’s own assessment of the archi-

right, and parachuted purposefully onto the putting surface, stopping four feet from the flagstick. George

he found for himself on the course kept his game well-tuned. In April of 1972, he entered—and, riding a hot

“Coming from Byron Nel-

tecture arrived with his customary up-front flair: “Miss the fairway on

putter, won—the American Seniors

some of those holes, and you’re in

turned to the small gallery following

Golf Tournament at PGA National,

the Ardennes Forest.” He had some

the match with a face that couldn’t

defeating the defending champion

spicy thoughts on the architect, too:

mask the acceptance that despite his

in the match-play final. What was

“The land offered greatness, all

best efforts his hole—and his think-

his secret. “Well,” he told the Palm

George had to do was not screw it

ing—had met its match. “Well,” said

Beach Post, “I leave work and try to

up.” Then the poetry of deep appre-

George with an explosive grin, “he is Byron Nelson.” Nelson’s ensuing birdie con-

arrive here 45 minutes before I play and then after it’s over I go back to work.”

ciation set in. “The way George contoured the ground and the slopes and the greens and the fairways,” he said recently, stopping for a long pause.

tributed unexpectedly to the aviary

“There was a rhythm and grace. That was George.” ✧

THE RHYTHM AND GRACE

✧

that had seeped into George’s golf-

ing nature had shifted in the way it consumed him. “Whenever I go to bed now, I never think about the golf swing anymore,” he mused some years later. “Sometimes I can’t go to sleep, thinking about the land. It plays in my mind. How can I orient that green? How can I angle this fairway? Every piece of ground has a personality,” he insisted. “It gets to me.” Did it ever. Over the first several seasons, a variety of patterns established themselves on and off the course at Jupiter Hills. The bulk of play was in the late morning and

O P E N

S E A S O N

early afternoon. George was an afternoon player. So

a frequent visitor, was in the midst of a conversation

was Bill Ford, who never arrived before 2.

with George late one afternoon when, well, let him tell

And everything else was at George’s discretion,

it. “As we were talking, suddenly George rushed from

especially the golf course, though to hear others talk

the clubhouse and vanished. The next morning, so

about it “discretion,” as a descriptive, was every bit

had a group of trees that had been blocking the most

as capricious and personal in his approach to the golf

marvelous sunset view of the dramatic tenth hole—yet

course as it was to membership and rules.

another master stroke by a master designer.” Tales of the Hills Course’s

Here, too, the pattern was in

mutability began to snowball.

place even before Day One. The morning was George’s time,

Especially after someone extracted

as it would be at Jupiter Hills for him

a brief modicum of revenge by, say, blowing by a bunker on the way

for more than a decade. With the air quiet and the fairways clear, he would hop in his cart and tour the property, mulling over possible improvements. What would make the course

KEN VENTURI may have been the first to play the Hills in anticipation of the Masters, but he was by no means the last. In 2019 alone, Charles Schwartzel, Louis Ousthuizen, and

to recording an eagle. Or even a birdie. Members actually wagered among themselves what changes would come next. Consider the aftermath of one

more attractive? What would make it

the eternal Gary Player were among

more challenging? Where was another

the late March-early April influx

of Howard Everitt’s more stream-

tree needed? Was a green in its ideal

on their way to Augusta, drawn by

lined moments on the golf course.

position? Did that bunker need to be

the course’s elevations, its visually

Playing

moved? The wheels were always turn-

intimidating bunkering and its fast,

champion Henry Picard, Everitt

ing. Superintendents dreaded it; con-

challenging putting surfaces.

ditions deemed less than ideal were a

with

former

Masters

overwhelmed the almost 500-yard par-5 17th hole—the 14th hole

hanging offense. His daily inspections were his path to

then—by reaching the green in two with—gasp!—a

perfection. What could be made better? What could

5-iron. Granted, the wind was at his back, and the

be made more interesting? Where could he exact more

course, playing firm and fast, helped turbo-charge his

bite? How could he make the route more visually

shots along, but that didn’t matter to George. What

thrilling.

did was the 3 written down on the scorecard. Picard

“George Fazio was an ‘eye’ man,” explained Ken

knew what was coming, and sighed, “There goes that

Venturi. “He relied on his vision to frame the hole and

green.” He was right. When George heard about Ever-

frame the shots, just as the old masters did. If it didn’t

itt’s feat, there went that green. He shoved it twenty

fit the eye, he wouldn’t force something artificial onto

yards closer to the railroad tracks and angled the

the land.” So he continued to put those eyes to work

approach to it more acutely.

daily. “Over the years,” Venturi stressed, “George

When Jupiter Hills opened, Venturi, who had

was very receptive to changes that would fit the eye

traditionally played Seminole with Hogan as they pre-

better.”

pared together for the Masters, switched allegiances to

And give a boost to his strategic intentions and the setting’s overall aesthetics. British golf writer and commentator Ben Wright,

practicing with George on the Hills. Before the course became well known, friends would ask whether he’d played it. Indeed, he had, he’d reply, but quickly

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cautioned, “You better play it quick before George

what it is now, more technical with fewer personal

changes it.” Years later, he had tuned that observa-

variables; instead of a panel, the magazine relied

tion to a perfect pith: “George changed his mind so

heavily on USGA Course Ratings with human input

often on the design of holes that the only way to see all

from top amateurs and professionals, golf writers,

the holes the same twice was to play the course in the

and association officials across the land weighing in

afternoon one day and the morning the next.”

on such intangibles as aesthetic appeal—“a distinction

Take what’s now the first green. George relocated

of line or form that satisfied a man’s yearning for nat-

it four times in the first decade. When old Tour cro-

ural beauty,” wrote the editors—physical and men-

nies displayed a predilection for reaching it in two, he

tal demands, and the variety of shots required. And

simply yanked the putting surface back … and back

rather than ordering courses numerically from top to

… and back—eventually a quarter of a football field

bottom, the magazine broke its results into tiers of

back—and perched it higher on the hill.

ten, with courses listed alphabetically in each. Pine

He added three tiers to what was once the flight

Valley, Augusta, Merion, and Oakmont were in the

deck of the tenth hole, then palliated the severity by

first tier; Seminole, Winged Foot, and Riviera in the

removing one.

second; Shinnecock, Pine Tree, and Oak Hill in the

Never thrilled with the straight shot off the tee

third. Jupiter Hills, remarkably, was tapped for the

on the 11th, he drilled the menace of the pond deeper

fourth along with Scioto, Peach Tree, and Congressio-

into the golfing mind by dropping a set of tees in closer

nal. With a birthdate listed as 1970, Jupiter Hills was

to the western boundary line.

the baby of the collection and one of thirteen added

George was just getting started. Not all the part-

since the previous compilation in 1969.

ners were happy, though. “There was a lot of bick-

Bragging rights, to be sure, for a growing mem-

ering,” recalls Tom, “because George kept changing

bership beginning to gather for the 1971-1972 season

things. They felt it was costing too much money. But

on the high tide of such good tidings. Their club was

Bill Ford didn’t care.”

being nationally acknowledged. Their club had joined

Ford kept his check-writing hand well-oiled. The changes continued.

select company. Their club had definitely arrived. The elation was short-lived. On the Saturday night before Christmas,

✧

thieves—perhaps attached to the white van spotted in the vicinity that night—slipped in off of Old Dixie

ministrations reaped an unexpected

Highway, broke a window in a door of the trailer

dividend that paid out handsomely in pride and

serving as golf shop and storage, and stole more than

swagger.

$30,000 worth of equipment, including forty sets of

GEORGE’S CEASELESS

For a club not yet two years old and still operat-

clubs belonging to members, as well as bags, balls,

ing out of a trio of trailers with a minimal staff, Jupiter

clothing, and shoes from Phil Greenwald’s shop. Gre-

Hills boldly invaded the top half of the latest edition

enwald told police that he valued the members’ clubs

of Golf Digest rankings, newly reconceived as “The

at about $350 a set.

100 Greatest Tests of Golf,” when the November 1971 issue arrived at newsstands and in mailboxes. The methodology for anointment was different from

Thankfully, hope had already begun to appear on the horizon. Literally.

By 1973 Jupiter Hills had climbed up the Golf Digest ratings to the third tier of ten and was there again in 1975. When architecture editor Ron Whitten took over the list in 1985, the compendium was redubbed “America’s 100 Greatest Courses” and its methodology changed: Panelists now assessed courses on a variety of criteria, assigning each a fixed rating and rank. The Hills Course arrived that year in forty-second position, flew as high as twenty-third in 1987, then slowly descended over time to ninety-six, before jumping back to sixty-four. It fell off the list in 2005. In 2019, the Hills inched up from 130th in the previous ranking to 125th. With an aggregate of 60.3 rating points, the course is roughly half a point from returning to the Top 100. As a point of reference, Pine Valley stands alone with just over seventy-two points. Tom Fazio is credited as one of its three architects. Tom, indeed, looms large here, for, in addition to the paucity of panelists that have weighed in on Jupiter Hills over the last fifteen years, Whitten attributes part of the disappearance from the Top 100 to half a century of competition—much of it from Tom himself. “He alone generated more than a dozen one hundred greatest that squeezed out many of his own and his uncle’s earlier works,” explains Whitten. Corral the Digest’s Top 200 and Tom’s imprint is staggering. With thirty-three—thirty-three!—in the mix, he easily outpaces runner-up Donald Ross’s fourteen, Pete Dye’s and Jack Nicklaus’s twelve, and A. W. Tillinghast’s eleven. When Whitten joined Tom in 2014 for his first round on the Hills in years, he left impressed with how much the course had evolved under Tom’s guidance. “If you analyze the course in the terms of our analysis—shot value, design variety, resistance to scoring, memorability, aesthetics, conditioning, and ambience—it’s one of the strongest in Florida.” The magazine’s panelists confirm that: The Hills has never been out of the state’s Top Six and jumped back into the Top Five in 2019. Golf Digest hasn’t been the only publication to heap laurels on the Hills Course. Over the years, it’s been up and down the ratings in Golf and Golfweek magazines. As impressive as any ranking, the course was included in the 1976 first edition of The World Atlas of Golf. Subtitled “The World’s Great Courses and How to Play Them” and penned by a foursome of the game’s elite scribes—Pat Ward-Thomas, Herbert Warren Wind, Peter Thompson, and Charley Price—the volume pays homage to the Hills’s exceptional topography and what George did with it. “It is impossible to pick the best hole,” the Atlas rhapsodizes. “Even Fazio cannot make up his mind.”

To the east. There, past intervening fairways, tees, and greens, atop Conch Hill, the highest point of the property, a permanent—and far more secure—facility was beginning to rise, like a cake, layer by layer. There, on September 16, 1971, ground had finally been broken for the new clubhouse on schedule to open in less than a year.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Growth & Development ✧

ORGET FOR A MOMENT

✧

he factors of fun and friendship that were already paying Bill Ford

returns on his initial investment. Fun and friendship: How can you put a dollar sign on that anyway? Which is not to say that Ford was plowing ahead with no focus on the bottom line. He wasn’t. Which is why he needed something more substantial than the good feelings Jupiter

Hills was engendering to keep the tap lubricated and the pen he wrote his checks with filled with ink. [WE SHOULD USE DOCUMENTS TITLE PAGE AND ASSESSMENT—THE FIRST TWO PAGES OF THE HOLDEN REPORT—AS ART] Seeking the expertise of outside counsel, Ford enlisted the highly respected appraisal firm of S. F. Holden in Riviera Beach to perform a soup-to-nuts evaluation of the venture—as it stood and as it projected out going forward. Samuel Holden’s report came back in late June of 1971. Whatever doubts that might have crept into the perspicacity of what could have been interpreted as a wealthy man’s golfing folly with his friends were laid to rest in its pages. In Holden’s considered opinion—and his opinion was considerable; he’d compiled an impressive set of bona fides in New York and Florida extending back before World War II—Jupiter Hills, as an investment, had legs. Solid legs. The kind of legs that only figured to strengthen over time. The document that Holden submitted was comprehensive and detailed to the penny when it came to assets and debits and lines of latitude and longitude when fitting together the jigsaw puzzle of how Jupiter Hills sat within its surrounding environment. More than seventy pages long, it burst with charts and graphs and figures galore, maps and before-and-after photographs of the golf course, even the architectural renderings and specs for the clubhouse—inside and out—that would begin to rise on Conch Hill by fall. Excluding the almost 182 acres under mortgage that would one day spawn the Village Course and housing, he put the approximate market value of the almost 184 acres already developed—the golf course and its immediate surrounds, the proposed clubhouse, and the hills that would later give birth to the seventh, eighth, and ninth holes—at $1,374,500, roughly the cost of the land swap itself, before adding that “portions of the property will be improved with high-rise

ABOVE: Dummy copy OPPOSITE: Dummy copy

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Past, however, was only prelude; the crescendo swelled on the high notes of what Holden projected. If this corner on the southeast end of the park wasn’t quite the Promised Land, it wasn’t too far from it. As a pocket for potential growth, Jupiter Hills sat in the sweet spot of a Jupiter-Tequesta-Hobe Sound habitat that was waking up and bracing to bulge. Population was exploding. The climate was inviting. The school system was highly rated. The banks were flush. Top-flight recreational facilities—from golf and fishing to sailing and “just plain beachcombing” abounded. Palm Beach was a drive and a wedge away.

and visitors.” Can’t you just picture Bill Ford pirouetting on his

“Jupiter-Tequesta residents,” Holden assured, “are

parquet, whistling a happy tune? The report had con-

the fortunate few in the world who can live and play in a

firmed Bill Elliott’s prognosis—and so much more. There

peaceful community, out of heavy traffic, but only a few

was no need to rush. They were already sitting on what

minutes away from all the facilities of the city.” Thus,

they knew was a superb golf course with room to grow

he predicted, “It is logical to conclude that a steady, bal-

when they were ready. They had time to figure things out,

anced growth will continue at or above the present rate,

and time, for as far as they could see, was on their side.

and as a result real estate value will remain strong in the ✧

face of the increased market demand.” Better still: “It

✧

is evident that the Subject Property is located in an area which will continue to develop as a high-type recreational and residential complex, attracting well-to-do residents

EVEN SO,

they had figured out a lot by then.

The clubhouse, for instance.

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They knew where it had to go.

clubhouse that was welcoming, but one that discouraged

And they knew it had to be something less imposing

members and their guests from hanging around. Was he

and less costly than the one proposed in the design that

trying to defend against the George Lows of the golfing

Jim Nolen drafted in 1970.

galaxy? [SIDEBAR: A NEW LOW]

With its large spaces and ambitious facilities, Nolen’s conception was impressive, and, for George,

He drove into Palm Beach to meet with architect Gene Lawrence.

that was a problem. What his fellow founder had come

From the office he established on Worth Avenue in

up with was too impressive. George didn’t want a place

1965, Lawrence created a practice that helped modern-

where people would gather and linger for hours before

ize the look of Palm Beach with structures like Sloan’s

rounds, after rounds, or whenever the urge hit. He didn’t

Curve on the waterfront, the snaky Regency condos on

want a clubhouse fit for a country club. He didn’t want

the Intracoastal overlooking Lake Worth, and The Espla-

a country club. He didn’t want to worry about having to

nade shopping plaza. The Regency was a distinct shot

serve dinners. He wanted a clubhouse with an empha-

across the bow of traditional Palm Beach design and still

sis on golf—its play and support—not wining and dining

eye-openingly new when George explained to Lawrence

and socializing. And no card playing ever! He wanted a

what he was looking for.

Though George Fazio didn’t have George Low in mind when he imagined his ideal clubhouse, he might as well have. Low was one of golf’s classic scalawags, a rogue and a mooch proudly credited with the existential reflection, “Show me a millionaire with a bad backswing, and I can have a very pleasant afternoon.” Low grew up at Baltusrol, in New Jersey, where his father had been head pro, and became a head pro himself—at Plymouth Country Club outside of Philly, where George got his own start as a caddie—and played on Tour on and off from the 1930s to the 1950s. He was far less known for his competitive achievements than for his genius on the greens—“He could two putt Rhode Island,” observed Pulitzer Prize-winning sports columnist Jim Murray—and the distinctive flanged putters he designed. But the bulk of his earnings came through hustling. Which is not to say his legitimate talents weren’t legitimate—and even brilliant— they just didn’t convert as easily into cash. As an instructor, he counted Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, and Lee Trevino among his putting protegees: Palmer directly credited Low’s help for contributing to his victory in the 1960 U.S. Open; Gary Player won the 1961 Masters with one of Low’s Wizard 600 model putters; and Nicklaus claimed fifteen of his eighteen majors with the 600—and his sixteenth with a replica. But it was through his golfing adjuncts that Low reached the apotheosis of his reputation. Dan Jenkins described him in a 1964 Sports Illustrated profile on him as “America’s Guest”—and

stuck. With old compadres like Leo Frazer, Tommy Bolt, Sam Snead, and Ken Venturi showing up at Jupiter Hills through the early years, America’s Guest was sure to follow, relying on their hospitality and, of course, George’s. George even graced Low with honorary status—at first. But, by 1975, enough was enough. Assistant pro Dick Stewart remembers Low taking advantage of a good situation by showing up for lunch and, de-

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Lawrence translated that into a building that the

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They missed the mark by nine months.

members—given its perch and parameters—dubbed Fort

Construction was slated to begin when the course

Apache. It was anything but a traditional-looking club-

closed for the season later that June, but the process

house. Budgeted at $525,000, what Lawrence devised

didn’t go smoothly, at least not at first. Though Lawrence

was as stunning as it was singular: a square glass space

had put together a detailed plan for grading the site and

capsule with a flat wood roof nestled on a first-stage

its surrounds, the Conch Hill location had engineers and

booster rocket made of French River travertine marble.

contractor Tom Sawyer stymied. Part of the challenge

Fourteen thousand square feet of building overall with

rest in the sugar sand; fabulous as it was as a foundation

an additional 4,300 square feet of cart storage beneath

for a golf course, it was less than optimum for holding up

the bag room.

a two-story building.

The upstairs 3,364 square feet, with views to the

Engineers spent July into August testing soil, emend-

south, west, and east from the dining area, would operate

ing it, and bringing in truckloads of rock to solve the

as a dining room with a centrally placed kitchen—$32,813

issue. Time consuming as that turned out to be, the more

budgeted to equip it—all opening out onto a surround-

complicated test revolved around how best to maintain

ing promenade. The downstairs housed its golfing guts:

ideal views in all directions from the second-story win-

reception area, board room, offices, pro shop, bag stor-

dows while creating the necessary access to Conch Hill

age, and men’s and women’s locker rooms, each equipped

for construction vehicles and a parking lot for the mem-

with showers and attendant’s station with a series of

bers without destroying the natural growth that George

octagonal-shaped locker bays on their perimeter, six for

insisted on preserving. By late August they had their

men, three for women, each holding twenty-eight indi-

answers.

vidual full-sized cubicles for the members. Lawrence’s

Ground was broken on September 16th.

plan was detailed to the point of including the dimen-

Two weeks later, the golf course opened for its sec-

sions and appointments of the lockers themselves—with

ond full season and third overall. As members returned,

a golf shoe, spikes and all, included for perspective. Some

watching the building progress became a part of every

$26,000 was allotted for spike-proof carpeting through-

round. “Anticipating the use of our new clubhouse,”

out. [WE’VE GOT DESIGN DRAWINGS AND CON-

Everitt concluded his note, “we have every reason to

STRUCTION PICS do a collage.]

justly predict that we will have one of the finest facilities

Everitt, who knew something about clubhouses

for golf in all of Florida.”

from his tenures at Shawnee, Lost Tree, and Oakmont,

By the fall of 1972, the clubhouse was open for

was delighted with its potential, and on June 4, 1971, he

business. Like most projects of this sort, it took a little

shared his enthusiasm with the members in a letter with

longer than expected and cost more to complete than the

plans and drawings attached. “Utilizing a ‘total vision’

$525,000 budget Lawrence presented, but the final tally

idea,” he wrote them, “we will have a view overlook-

remains part of the puzzle of the club’s past that went

ing the Intracoastal Waterway, Jonathan Dickinson State

up in smoke in the 1980 fire. What’s unquestionable is

Park and our beautiful golf course from the dining area.”

how it was paid for: Bill Ford tore pages from his check-

(What they couldn’t see was the ocean, a design pecca-

book. It was money well spent for its time. [SIDEBAR:

dillo that would contribute to its demise three decades

A NEW ORDER] And though it was markedly differ-

later.) While there was no definite completion date set

ent from other clubhouses in Florida at the time, Ford,

yet, he assured members that “every effort” will be made

though never a great fan of the building, was fine with it.

to open it by the coming Christmas.

“He wasn’t trying to reproduce Seminole—or any other

G R O W T H

club—in any way,” explains Peter Morse.

D E V E L O P M E N T

the featured central staircase. The flooring for the patios

Theatrically looking down on the golf course from

and entryways was made of blocks taken from the part

the highest point in Florida south of Hobe Mountain,

of the Chatahoochee River that forms the southern half

the clubhouse had presence; Gene Lawrence didn’t shoot

of the Alabama-Georgia border and a piece of Florida’s

for the obvious. His structure was sleek. It was modern.

border with Georgia.

The exterior would feel contemporary today. Its primary

Upstairs, the dining room was capped with a ceiling

finishes were organic, their natural hues distinctively

inlaid with cork from Portugal. The furniture was Indi-

earthen, inside and out. The façade above the glass-walled

ana oak. The lockers, built in Lake Worth, were made of

second-floor dining room was hewn from dark Mexican

ash with ample ventilation to combat mildew. The atten-

wood. On the first level, the travertine marble wrapped

dant’s station allowed for rudimentary food and beverage

around the exterior of the pro shop and locker rooms

service. George insisted it never be referred to as a bar.

areas before migrating indoors to form the focal point for

With the new clubhouse came a new entrance to the

When the members returned in the fall of 1972, they not only found a new clubhouse, they also found a new sequencing: The Hills Course finally played as the Fazios intended, beginning with the curtain opener from beside the clubhouse and proceeding on to what’s now the 18th hole of the Village Course. To make use of the dramatic new setting, the first hole was lengthened to employ the maximum elevation and its par redesignated from 4 to 5. To keep the overall par at 72, the then second hole, now the Village finale, was compressed from 515 yards to 430, and a digit subtracted from its par. As players progressed down the first fairway, they would have seen something else they hadn’t seen before, something they certainly couldn’t miss, though preferably not with a golf ball: the new pond at the far end of the range nestled between the approach to the first green and the beginning of the second fairway. Back then, the practice tees sat on the clubhouse end of the range with shots flying towards the pond in the distance; today, the flight pattern’s been reversed. The new pond was there for a reason. From the point of aesthetics, it provided a nice break in the view looking down from the clubhouse. “It brought color and texture to the panorama,” explains Tom. From the point of practicality, the sand that came out of the ground provided the fill needed to complete the pad the clubhouse sat on. To help orient members to the new order, placemats awaited on the dining room tables for them with a map of the holes and their new order of play. [THIS SHOULD HAVE THE SCHEMATIC OF THE COURSE THAT APPEARS ON p. 107 OF THE OLD BOOK]

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club. The timing couldn’t have been better. Since U.S. 1

Elliott’s notion that the best course of action began with

was in the midst of its own expansion from a single lane

a second golf course and spread out from there. But then

in each direction to two, it was a snap to veer an access

what? And how?

road from the southbound lane to join the new entry road

So much had already been batted around. High

winding up the hill through the new parking lot to the

rises. Condos. Single homes. A blend of them all. Once

bag drop. Unlike today, the entrance itself was spartan.

the possibility of simply selling off the land to the high-

Landscaping would come in due time. So would a guard

est bidder had been taken off the table, anything was

house. Meanwhile, the original way in—the section of

still possible. They briefly considered the idea of a joint

Old Dixie Highway along the railroad tracks—became

venture with an outside developer, but that evaporated

the route to the maintenance yard. The trailers remained

when Ford agreed to underwrite the clubhouse. “That,”

in place, relegated until their disappearance a year later

remembers Tom, “is when George let his dream evolve

from temporary clubhouse status to pit stop and snack

beyond the golf course into developing the real estate.”

bar.

With George installing himself as the developer. As they looked forward, the potential seemed ripe. ✧

✧

Looking back on it from less than a decade down the road, this decision turned out to be the act of hubris that

Bill Elliott, Ford, and George

changed Jupiter Hills and George’s relationship to it.

directed their collective brain power toward the land

Though George had invested in real estate in Pennsylva-

waiting for attention to the south. The more they thought

nia, this evolution of his dream would, in time, evolve into

about what to do with it, the more they kept returning to

a whole other kind of challenge, one that transformed

AS THE CLUBHOUSE TOOK SHAPE,

G R O W T H

D E V E L O P M E N T

George into an Icarus flying too close to the sun. But not

one of the nation’s preeminent land planners, and no

yet. Hopes were high. Given how everything had gone so

stranger to the Fazios. George had used Stone on previ-

far, there was no reason for them not to be.

ous projects and Stone had brought them in to consult on

From the get-go, the founding core understood that

golfing developments the firm worked on. In the summer

a second golf course should be a different animal from

of 1972, the club retained EDSA to produce a prelimi-

the Hills. Though it sat on similar land, and though the

nary land plan, and Tom began meeting with Stone and

Fazios would design it, it would have to spring from con-

his associates in a waltz that danced on through the bal-

ceptually different roots. The more the trio thought about

ance of the decade with a pause for the recession that bit

it, the more they began to see it as the development next

into 1973–1975.

door that shared a common border. Like Lost Tree and

During that first summer, Tom met with Stone and

Tequesta Country Club, it should rise as a golfing com-

his team at their offices and on site. They toured the prop-

munity, not just a golf course, a place to live rather than

erty. They studied it. “I told them what George wanted,”

just come and go.

he says, which was low-density and high quality, some of

George did the calculations. By reserving one hun-

it, by necessity, attached housing to get to that 250 num-

dred acres for development with an average of two and a

ber he coveted, with roofs capped at two stories. “George

half units per acre, Jupiter Hills could have roughly 250

insisted on nothing remotely like the way so much of

members living on property. Add 150 non-residential

South Florida was being developed.” In translation: no

members and he’s got his magic number: four hundred

high rises.

for two golf courses. But how would two courses and a

In early September, EDSA submitted its first inter-

community around one of them conceptually fit together?

pretation of those wants and numbers. Overlaid onto a

Would they even have to? Details would be determined

copy of the same topographical map prepared by Nolen’s

later.

firm that Tom had drawn the routing for the Hills, the “In George’s mind,” says Tom, “there was never a

plan was bold and it was colorful. “It was a concept more

fixed plan. He didn’t deal in that world. He wasn’t a fixed-

than anything,” Tom recalls. “They fill the spaces logi-

plan guy. He wanted to figure it out in the field.” Which

cally.” [USE PICTURE OF THE LAND PLAN]

works fine for golf, but not so hot for houses. It’s easy to

Logic doesn’t necessarily insure good golf.

move a green if you don’t like where you put it. It’s not so

What Stone had envisioned was a golf course work-

easy to move a foundation once it’s been poured.

ing its way south from those stunning hills north of the

Naturally, then, George needed someone to help

clubhouse that George had set aside for condos to the

him navigate his way forward and knowledgeably address

north end of Tequesta park, veering south along the

the pesky details he certainly faced. Like the roads that

park’s border in a cluster of holes before heading back

needed to be built. The utilities that had to be brought in.

north to finish by the hills where it began. Stone’s holes

The permits that must be attained. The houses that had

were place holders, not holes per se, created to maximize

to be sited. The golf course that had to be found (though

the use of the rest of the land for the ninety-nine housing

George could do that part as well as anyone.)

lots EDSA wedged in between what would be the Village

Enter Edward Durell Stone, Jr. Nobody handled those kinds of particulars better. [SIDEBAR: ED D. STONE JR.]

Course and the Hills with just over five acres reserved for condos. When Tom handed the draft to his uncle, he did so

Based in Fort Lauderdale, Stone’s firm, Edward

with a caveat. “I told him if we put any development there,

Durrel Stone and Associates—aka EDSA—was already

even if it’s good, we can’t get a road over to the village. It

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182 acres into more like two hundred, they were stymied.

Unlike Edward Durell Stone

One possibility briefly raised—and scrapped—was

pére, the architect behind the iconic edifices of Radio

an executive layout. Both sensed that such an abbreviated

City Music Hall, the General Motors building in New

journey wouldn’t cut it beside the Hills.

York, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.,

So, then, what if…

Edward Durell Stone fils found his calling outside, shap-

And what if…

ing open spaces. He backed up his degree in architectural design from Yale with a master’s degree in landscape architecture from Harvard, and, after exploring the wild blue yonder with the U.S. Air

And what if… By 1974, they still hadn’t cracked it, though they hadn’t been digging into it full time either. Time, as Bill

Force, established the EDSA

Elliott had impressed, was on their side. The club was

firm in 1960. Teaming with his

doing fine. Besides, the Fazios had been busy, out and

father, he conceived the out-

about imprinting the golfing landscape in Arizona, Con-

door surroundings for the GM

necticut, Massachusetts, South Carolina, and sixty miles

building and Kennedy Center,

south in Pompano Beach, though Tom was now the real

the first projects to put him and his firm on the map. EDSA went on to plan environments near and far—from Euro Disneyland to the PGA National com-

road warrior of the two. Once Butler National had been completed, George, for all practical purposes, became ensconced, at least through the winter golfing season, in

munity in Palm Beach Gardens. Richard Nixon appointed

Florida. “His main interest was here,” says Tom. “He

him to the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, a seat he held for

would be here as much as he could.” Though the club, as

interior of

four terms through reappointments by Gerald Ford and

it then was, was primary, the club, as it would one day be,

ing room photo

Jimmy Carter. Stone, who died in 2009, liked to say that

still gnawed at the back of his mind.

11 jh video cpat

he designed with an uplifting eye for imagining “an idealized place, what the environment would be if everything were right in the world.”

would be blocked by the entry at the clubhouse.”

So, what the heck to do with all of that undeveloped property just beckoning? They kept taking stabs at it.

Clockwork

Finally, it hit Tom: What if he took whatever boxes they’d

of Peter Morse

been boxing themselves into and teleported their thinking

Jim take photo

well beyond them? What if they borrowed a smidge from

So the Fazios went back to the land. They walked it.

Peter and turned it over to Paul? What if they moved three

They searched for the solution they knew had to be there.

holes from the Hills over to the Village? Then they’d only

The more Tom thought about how to do this, the

have fifteen holes to fit into a space they’d been struggling

more he kept smashing into the same wall: There simply

to fit eighteen, and that would give them ample room.

wasn’t enough room in those 182 acres to build a housing

And what, then, if they restocked the Hills with three

development and a championship golf course, and they

brand new holes carved out of the best golfing turf on the

couldn’t skimp on the houses; the second club would need

property, the hills north of the clubhouse that George had

the revenue to finance and pay for itself. Mastering the

shied away from? The land he’d deemed so valuable for

A-B-Cs of figuring it fell to Tom. “George would have an

its beauty and the stunning views from its apex that he’d

idea a minute,” he says, “but he was never into details.”

held it as grounds to grow residences? EDSA had placed

And this was a detail job, far more so than the blank can-

condos there. What if golf grew there instead?

vas of the Hills, unencumbered as it was by technicalities

Bingo!

like houses and a road system. They would bounce ideas

Tom pictured it so clearly. “The property was kind

off each other, but until they could figure out how to turn

of a triangle,” he explains. “It was hilly and unique. But it

G R O W T H

was so obvious how the holes fit together there.”

D E V E L O P M E N T

Everyone learned to expect that golf was to be

Bingo!

played at one pace—briskly—which is less of a challenge

George was sold. “He went out the next morning

than it might sound given what golfers encountered.

and began staking,” says Tom. “The minute the idea was

Wide.

out there, we built them.” They still didn’t have a fixed

Open.

plan yet for the Village, but they had three new holes,

Spaces.

twenty-one in all. When the holes that would eventually

“We were a spartan staff for most of the seventies,”

fit into the puzzle of the Hills as its seventh, eighth, and

remembers former assistant pro Dick Stewart, “but we

ninth were completed in late 1974, they were known as

could do it. There were usually only maybe twenty to

simply “The Practice Holes.”

twenty-five people on the course a day, and little play in

They wouldn’t find their way onto the scorecard

the late afternoon. Fifty people and we’d have consid-

until the six new holes needed to form the first nine-hole

ered ourselves slammed. It was so quiet we used to pick

route for the Village was completed. The Fazios would

the range by hand.” [SIDEBAR: DICK STEWART AND

get to them in due time, and with EDSA’s continued back

MIKE KERNICKI]

and forth, they’d find the community model through

The new dining room, which only served lunch, was

which the new nine would be interwoven.

about as packed. In the first half decade after the club-

When the economy picked up.

house opened, it was rare to see more than a scattering of

In due time.

tables occupied, but at some point, George would mate-

f old din-

rialize to meet and greet and ask about what the mem✧

o? chapterr

✧

ture

bers were thinking. He liked standing up by the room’s great windows and pointing out the different trees on

Jupiter Hills was finding its rhythm and the

the course to members; George loved his trees. He also

membership began to tune their own rhythms to vibrate

had a habit of personally removing the hats of members

have

with it, a symbiosis that kept refining itself over the

who’d avoided the task themselves. Under new manager

if not.

course of the decade.

Jim Adamson, Sunday brunch buffets began in 1973, and

MEANWHILE,

k-Photo

With no need for tee times, members came and

on occasion, George might host a small dinner upstairs,

members went. They learned what to expect and what

though George and his friends were more likely to gather

not to.

in the evenings in Jupiter at The MET Club or The Flame

They learned to expect an uncrowded golf course and an attentive staff. They learned not to expect any structured play beyond an occasional informal Saturday scramble set up by the pro shop. Women learned this was a club that never restricted their presence: show up and put a peg in the ground whenever.

in North Palm. “There wasn’t a whole lot of entertaining at the club,” says Stewart. “It was just a place to play golf.” Besides, it was more fun to grab a bite at the halfway house. [SIDEBAR: PHYLLIS VALENTI AND THE HALFWAY HOUSE] Cards, of course, remained strictly verboten in the Georgian reign, but there was at least one recorded indis-

They learned not to expect a block of time reserved

cretion, mercifully nipped before hell broke loose. Cardi-

just for them or anything so formal as an organized group

nal Krol, perhaps the club’s most distinguished honorary

of nine-holers—unless it was part of the larger area-wide

member, sent a foursome of fellow Philadelphia clerics

Women’s Golf Association.

down as his guests shortly after the clubhouse opened.

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Or with friends from Seminole or Jupiter Island. Or with George and Greenie. But mostly alone or in a pairing with George. Some found him aloof, but he wasn’t, really; he was just preternaturally shy. “He was friendly with the membership,” say Morse, “but he didn’t really know the membership.” He knew his friends and he stuck with them. Besides, he never saw his role as glad-handing members or joining them for a quick nine followed by some post-round locker room bonding. No, what Ford enjoyed was the

PECKI

role he ascribed to himself and was pleased to

ORDER: Vid

After completing their communion with the golf course,

take on: providing them with a superb environment for

of george exa

they commandeered a table in the new locker room and

the game.

course in cha

ordered beer from attendant Joe Dominick, who had

In his prime, Ford had been a fine player with a

moved inside from the trailers to operate the sanctum for

single-digit handicap and a single pack-a-round cigarette

the first couple of years. When one of the priests pulled

habit. He rarely practiced and took few lessons—hab-

out a deck and began dealing, Dominick swooped in to

its he perpetuated at Jupiter Hills—but when he played

prevent their clerical error from escalating into a cardinal

with George, he took notes. George generally had a tip

sin. Convinced that Jupiter Hills answered to a Higher

or two to offer, and Ford, always looking for an on-ramp

Authority, they repented. [SIDEBAR: CARDINAL

towards improvement, methodically wrote them down.

KROL]

But he had no filing system. “He’d stash them in his

Cards aside, the locker room was a comfortable

bag,” remembers Morse. “He’d find the one he was

place, though dallying beyond a post-round libation—

looking for about a year later.” [SIDEBAR: BILL FORD,

maybe two—was simply not done. Unless you were with

UNFILTERED]

Bill Ford. Though Ford sought no special privileges,

On the course and off, George and Ford were quite

courtesies were extended. His locker was in the first bay

a pair. “Bill loved needling him,” says Morse. He so vexed

beside George’s and Bill Elliott’s.

George with his constant—and prodding—hosannas for

When Tom Horal [SIDEBAR: TOM HORAL] took

the faster green speeds at Seminole that George not only

over as its commandant in 1974, he was surprised how

relented, he retaliated: when he knew Ford was coming,

sparse the traffic was and how early the locker room

he’d make sure the greens, already rolled in the morning,

cleared out. “Everyone was gone by 4:30,” he recalls.

were rolled again in the afternoon.

“We’d lock up, tee it up, and get five or six holes in before dinner.”

Fast, faster, fastest—whatever the green speed, Ford was unflinchingly proud of the place he helped create. He

Unless Bill Ford was there that day.

enjoyed bringing friends up from Seminole and over from

When Ford came to play, he’d arrive, like clockwork,

Jupiter Island. Horal remembers him teeing it up now and

at 2 in the afternoon. “Bill was a night creature,” says

then with pros like Sam Snead, Julius Boros, and Tommy

son-in-law Peter Morse. “He never showed up anywhere

Bolt. “They’d come play with Mr. Ford,” says Horal,

in the morning. He loved being able to show up at Jupiter

“and that was the only time we stayed late. They’d be

Hills in the afternoon and play a few holes by himself.”

sitting around the little locker room bar of mine. At 8 or

ING

G R O W T H

D E V E L O P M E N T

9 at night we’d still be serving. But nobody else was ever

and Penna were in business together. Hope preferred

here late. Just Mr. Ford, his guests and myself. Telling sto-

entering the clubhouse through the bag room, never the

ries. Killing time.” Over time, Horal’s version of a Vodka

front door. [SIDEBAR: GOLF TIPS]

Stone Sour became as much a part of his locker room’s fabric as the spike-proof carpet.

Compared to Perry Como, Ford was an early bird. Como tended to appear at about 3:30 for a nine with

While Ford came to play regularly—at least once a

Penna or two or three holes on his own or with Mike

week and often twice—and Bill Elliott was a fixture for

Kernicki. “While you’re playing with him, he might be

extended stretches in season, Bob Hope sightings were

whistling or humming a tune,” Kernicki remembers. “He

rare. He would stop in when he was touring for a few

was just so smooth, like, ‘Why should I ever hurry?’ His

days once a year, sometimes twice, to play with George,

swing showed that. He had a really good golf swing.

Greenwalt, and, more often than not, Toney Penna; Hope

Julius Boros had nothing on Perry as far a soft, smooth

deo stills

aming golf

ater 11

Dick Stewart and his sidekick Mike Kernicki, a couple of ambitious assistants from Michigan, both served solid apprenticeships under Phil Greenwald before returning home to make their marks as long-serving head professionals at prominent establishments. Stewart had met George briefly in Massachusetts in 1974. A year later, he reintroduced himself to George one afternoon at Palm-Aire while out on the edge of the fairways as a ranger. George had brought Jack Gately down to Pompano Beach to play his new course. George mentioned he needed an assistant pro at Jupiter Hills. “I didn’t know Jupiter Hills from Mars,” Stewart conceded. But he learned. And he told George about his friend Kernicki. George was interested. “He can change cups for me.” Stewart called him, and Greenie had another new assistant. “This is where we really got our start,” says Stewart. “It forged a long career for me in the golf business.” For both of them, really. Though each was tapped for the top job at prestigious clubs back in Michigan by the late 1970s— Stewart at Kalamazoo Country Club, where he remained for forty years, and Kernicki at Bloomfield Hills—each returned for several winters into the 1980s. For both, it wasn’t just what they learned at Jupiter Hills that helped them move on, it was also the contacts they made. Stewart used Bill Ford and Perry Como as references for the opening at Kalamazoo. Kernicki, it seems, had half of Jupiter Hills in his corner. “There were a lot of Bloomfield Hills members at the club, and they’re all calling up for me. George was, too. One Saturday, Mr. Ford comes in and asks, ‘Hey, Mike, you get the job yet?’ I told him I hadn’t. On Monday, he sent a letter to Bloomfield Hills by courier that said basically to hire the guy. On Tuesday, I got the job.” He later added Indian Creek in Miami to his portfolio. Over time, Kernicki became something of a short-game guru, in part because of what he’d picked up at the feet of golf’s maestro from seventy-five yards and in, PGA champion Paul Runyan, who frequently visited to play with George at the club. In 2005, Kernicki assembled all he’d amassed on the subject in the highly successful instructional volume Golf’s Short Game for Dummies. Stewart was the book’s technical consultant. The two still stop in at Jupiter Hills every winter. It’s hold on them is that strong, in part because of what they took from the club as young golf professionals, but also because of a personal bond that was forged behind the scenes. “Both George and Phil treated Dick and I like we were their kids,” says Kernicki. He remembers one Christmas in particular. “George had the super cut down a small jack pine from the property, and he invited over his extended family”—of which he, his wife and Stewart had become a part. “It was such a nice thing to do. George knew how to take care of us.”

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swing.” Golf was an essential element of the Como daily

for George. Yes, it was his laboratory, the place that

routine: it marked the interregnum between whatever he

gave physical form to his deepest credo and convictions

had to do earlier that day and fishing.

about golf, but even that doesn’t approach how visceral

Penna, on the other hand, was all business. “He

the connection between person and place became. Make

would regularly bring clubs over for us to try out for

no mistake, Jupiter Hills was a proving ground, a place

him,” says Kernicki, including a prototype of what would

for George to prove himself, an extension of his restless,

evolve into a hybrid that he made especially for Green-

renaissance self, a place where he could serve as a phi-

wood. “Jupiter Hills was his testing ground.”

losopher-king in spiked kilties and a da Vinci in soft cap simultaneously. Put that all in the blender and the mix

✧

becomes something richer: Jupiter Hills, in the end, was George’s nation-state and his canvas, and George strove

TESTING GROUND doesn’t approach what the club was about

for the nonpareil on each side of that tricky balance. He never stopped fiddling. First thing every morn-

Cardinal John Joseph Krol,

ing, he would drive over from his condo overlooking the

Philadelphia’s archbishop from 1961 until his death twen-

ocean at The Regency on the south end of Jupiter Island,

ty-seven years later, inscribed Jupiter Hills into his annual

arriving at 7, seven days a week. His eyes picked up every-

book of days beginning the weekend after Christmas for

thing. “If he saw a cigarette butt, it was, ‘Hey, pick that

the bulk of the 1970s, usually arriving with his secretary,

up. Why did you miss that?’ to whoever was closest,”

who later became a bishop, and two monsignors. His first stop was the pro shop, and his first question was directed at Phil Greenwald: “Phil, have you got my clubs ready?” The Cardinal would call ahead each year and buy a new

says Kernicki. “There was no pecking order. Things had to be perfect.” By 7:20, he’d fired up his golf cart to begin his daily tour, hole by hole, editing as he drove. Superin-

set of irons custom made for him by Toney Penna. “He’d

tendents, never sure what to expect, came and went. But

pull out a wad of cash, peel off some bills, and give them

George was George; he believed to his core that a golf

to Greenie,” remembers Mike Kernicki. “It was always

course was an evolving creature. “It’s organic,” he would

quite a moment.” “George worshiped him,” remembers Dick Stewart. Krol’s own worship of the game was featured prominently in his obituaries. He was one of the anointed few George

insist. “It changes all the time. It’s alive. From one day to another it changes. You want to keep abreast. You’re not just looking up at the sky all the time. You’re looking at what you have. You might as well do something.” Which George was thrilled to do. So the pattern propagated itself. Kernicki often accompanied George on his morning

entertained for dinner in the clubhouse, but Krol’s

rounds. “Riding around in that cart with George was an

favorite meals at the club were whatever Phyllis Valenti

education,” he says. “It was like he invited you in to see

happened to be serving at the halfway house that day.

his vision of the world, his vision of golf, and he was

“He always came by,” remembers Phyllis. “He looked so different when dressed for golf.” As a token of his appreciation for Phyllis’s cooking—and the sympathetic mid-round ear she proffered for consolation and confession—he presented her with an offering: a keychain with

OK with you asking him any kind of questions.” George would have him take notes. “He was, ‘I’m gonna put a tree here, I’m gonna move this green there.’ He was always dropping balls to test the greens. I wish I’d kept the notes.” (He’s not alone.) Ford took George’s refining in stride and good

G R O W T H

D E V E L O P M E N T

IT TOOK A COUPLE OF SEASONS FOR THE HALFWAY HOUSE THAT APPEARED BEHIND THE 10TH TEE AFTER THE CLUBHOUSE OPENED

OLD HALF WAY HOUSE?

to hit its stride, but once Phyllis Valenti arrived in 1974, it be-

halfway house. “The members were amazing. The halfway house

came a quintessential ingredient to the club’s overall flavor. Part

had to carry us for a whole season.” Post-fire, the screens were

of that was Phyllis—her forty-one years of service made her a

replaced with sliding glass doors and air conditioning blew in.

reliable and welcome presence, like the sun rising in the east, and

Before heading off on his rounds each morning, George made

also Jupiter Hills’s longest-tenured employee. And part of that

a point of stopping by for coffee, and maybe some hot dogs for

was the muted charm of the place itself.

the alligators. He’d return later in the day, too, when he played.

Phyllis had been working at the Tequesta Country Club when

“It was really the greatest place,” insists Ed Sabo, Greenwald’s

Jupiter Hills poached Hugh McVicar, its chef, to take over the

successor as head pro and a frequent presence at the club while

new clubhouse kitchen. “Good luck with that,” she remembers

on the Tour in the 1970s. “She made the best chicken salad. [Her

telling herself. “There was such a big turnover there, it was

secret: “Just keep it simple. That way you please everybody.”]

scary.” A year later, the scare hit home; McVicar asked her to

Nobody would eat in the clubhouse. Carts would be stacked up

run the halfway house. She demurred—firmly. He called again

there eight deep. It was one of the best parts of the club. Really.”

in 1974, this time with an offer the young mother thinking of

For Jerry Kelly, a winner on both the PGA and Champions

her kids’ future couldn’t say no to: beyond her salary, she’d take

Tours, the halfway house turned into a second home. As a teen-

home 15 percent of everything she

ager, he was so intent on honing his

sold. “You mean every time I open

game to join the big boys that he’d

a soda can or a beer or serve a tuna

practice and play from dawn to dusk.

sandwich I’m gonna get 15 percent

He knew where to find sustenance

of that?” she asked. She thought he

when he needed it—in more ways

was joking. He wasn’t. She was in.

than one. “Phyllis cooked for me more

As a house, it was more half-

than my mother did,” he remembers.

baked than halfway at first, just a

“She fed me twice a day sometimes.”

spartan kitchenette, a screened-in

Sensing how hard he was working

patio, a few tables and chairs, and

and how elusive his dream might be,

a rest room on either side. Phyllis

“I always tried to pump him up,” she

dispensed drinks, snacks, steamed hot dogs, and a tiny array of

assures. “I knew how lonely he was. I tried to give him some good

sandwiches, but no hamburgers yet; she had no grill. “But I built

words.”

a business,” she says proudly. “The dining room was struggling. I was kaboom!”

In the mid-nineties, Phyllis left her familiar post for an office in the clubhouse. She’d been going to night school for several

Her popularity grew. The halfway house grew with her. In time,

years to study accounting. “I was tired of smelling like hamburg-

the place came to be known as “Cafe Phyllis ”; a group of her

ers and hot dogs everyday,” she recalls. When the club’s book-

regulars even had a sign made up that she proudly displayed. “I was

keeper decided to retire, Phyllis was offered a ninety-day trial—

so surprised that they took the time to do that for me.”

and retired two decades later. It was not unusual for members

She added items to the menu: a variety of sandwiches, soups,

to stop by to tell her they missed her chicken salad. “You don’t’

and with her new grill, burgers. “Once you get to know the mem-

realize you’re creating memories for people when you’re at the

bers,” she says, “they have demands.” By the late seventies, the

halfway house making sandwiches.”

patio was extended, and more tables and chairs appeared. A

For more than a decade, the halfway house hung on without

ceiling fan was installed, curtains were hung, and a phone was

her, an update here, a patch job there, but it became a casualty of

put in on the ninth hole so golfers could order ahead. “Once we

the 2006 restoration when Tom Fazio lengthened the 10th hole

got the Village Course and families, it went crazy.” And when

through its heart. “I knew the decision would be unpopular,” he

the top floor of the clubhouse burned in 1980, it went crazier

concedes, “but golf needed to come first so it had to come out.

still. The entire dining facility operated from a gas grill at the

The hole, its shape, and playablity had to change to accommo-

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The only major domo of a locker room ever profiled in Sports Illustrated, Tom Horal already had a PGA card in his pocket when he decided he wanted to master everything about the golf business. Originally from Michigan, he brought his family to Florida to scope out potential, found an ad in one of the Palm Beach papers, and picked up the phone. “Jupiter Hills needed a locker room manager, and I needed a job,” he says simply. He met with George and signed on to begin a solid tour running the club’s inner sanctum from December of 1974 into the early eighties. In 1976, he began splitting seasons between Jupiter Hills and Butler National—with George’s blessing, Jupiter Hills member and Butler co-founder Red Harbour personally tapped him for the post—then, at the urging of Butler member Jack Vickers, Horal moved on to Eldorado Country Club in the California desert at Indian Wells for the winter of 1983 en route to the new club Vickers founded south of Denver: Castle Pines. When its clubhouse opened in 1984, Horal was there. Though officially retired, he’s still there. In 1999, SI turned its lens on Horal during the annual PGA Tour stop the club used to host. “Horal’s alphabet skips straight from m to p,” the magazine assured. “He doesn’t know no.” Jack Nicklaus put it more personally. “Tom really goes out of his way for you. He knows how to make you feel at home.” That’s a skill he perfected at Jupiter Hills, and a skill picked up seamlesslessly—and augmented—by his two successors over the past thirty-five years: Babe Cosentino and Bryan Rost. Indeed, the can-do attitude SI ascribed to Horal was an attitude George insisted on from staff. “Don’t ever say no to a member,” is something Director of Outside Services Kirk White, who arrived in 1981, remembers George stressing to him. “He used to tell me, ‘If you can’t do it, find someone who can.’ ”

humor—with his needle ever sharpened to a point. When

remembers Tom, “touring the holes and creating new

asked by friends at Seminole how the course was doing,

ideas. He’d rush to the telephone: ‘Tom, come up here.

his stock reply was, “How would I know. I haven’t seen

I want you to look at something. I’ve got an idea for the

what holes George moved since yesterday.”

seventh hole.’ Or, ‘Help me find a place for the dirt: I

George continued to show no mercy in the devil-

want to put a lake on the first hole.’ Or, ‘We need to

try behind his alterations. He was known to move tee

lengthen the tenth hole and change the dogleg; too many

markers and pins in the middle of the day. When George

balls are rolling down the hill.’ George never hesitated to

felt a hole was in peril—even from his closest friends—he

make changes, because his only interest was to make it a

struck back.

better golf course.”

Consider the chain reaction Leo Fraser unleashed

And, aesthetically, a more captivating one. He con-

when he basked in the glow of his drive on what’s now

stantly searched for interesting plants to add to the pal-

the fifth hole. Given that Fraser was in his mid-sixties and

ette. “If you have to play the best hole in the world every

he’d just blown his tee shot past the bunker on the inside

day, it would be boring,” he insisted. Boring was some-

of the dogleg, his button-bursting seemed justified.

thing George had to make sure Jupiter Hills would never

Not to George.

be. [SIDEBAR: LOCAL GREENS]

The next morning, in a stunning display of deus ex

In George’s mind, the environment surrounding the

machina, George swooped in and dropped a second bun-

golf course had to be just as just so as the course itself.

ker just beyond the first. “George was just kidding with

There were specific axioms he subscribed to and applied.

him,” assures Tom Horal. The punchline, regardless, was

Like American primacy. In cars. He liked them.

this: Fraser never dared cutting that corner again.

He’d sold them. His benefactor produced them. Hence,

George’s changes were manifest.

he instructed valets that only automobiles with American

“I can still see George out there in his golf cart,”

birth certificates could be left in front of the clubhouse.

G R O W T H

D E V E L O P M E N T

Drive up in a Mercedes, a BMW, a Rolls Royce or any other vehicle that crossed the sea in a boat and they’d be

Through the years, Bill Ford’s

quickly shunted out of sight.

handicap may have climbed but his smoking habit

And American pride. While George, on the one

remained constant. “He always came in with a sport

hand, was happy to help South African Gary Player get

coat and a Chesterfield,” recalled longtime lead profes-

his legs back under him after a dispiriting dry spell, he

sional Tom Roberts not long before he died. “Whenever

was not above relitigating World War II, even though his Navy combat was confined to the fairways. Still, given the tenor of one of the most famous anecdotes from the

he drove in, there’d be a ripple through the place that Mr. Ford was here.” Kirk White can attest to that. George would always let the staff know when Ford was coming, but they

club’s first decade, you’d think he’d crawled through the

already knew. “There’d be no cars in front of the club-

mud on Iwo Jima.

house. We’d park Mr. Ford’s in front of the pro shop.”

Fast forward to not long after the front nine of the

Over time, that car would sometimes be a Ford—includ-

Village course opened in 1976. The new nine drafted

ing a T-Bird in Detroit Lions blue—sometimes a Conti-

George’s Practice Holes into service for real—as the final

nental, and when Ford took over the company in 1999, a

third of the opening nine of the Hills. A group of Japanese journalists walked into the pro shop one afternoon requesting to photograph the most picturesque hole at

Jaguar. But the cigarettes stayed the same. “Non-filtered Chesterfields,” says White. “He always kept them in the center arm rest of his car. Even when he wasn’t sup-

Jupiter Hills. Greenwald got on the radio system that George had found for the club [SIDEBAR: GOVERN-

observes Bill Davis, who took lessons from George at the

MENT INTERFERENCE] and asked him what to do.

club in the early 1970s long before the idea he’d return

“Send them to the ninth hole”—the par 3 in the dunes—

as its third head professional ever occurred to him. “He

George barked through the static. Greenie thought about

liked to teach the intricacies of the game. That’s why he

it. “Okay,” he replied, considering the labyrinthine lay-

was such a great player. He loved the intricacies.”

out, “but they might get lost.” George never paused—or

Ed Sabo, the club’s second head pro, fell into

thought the visitors might be listening. “They didn’t have

George’s orbit in the early 1970s, as well. “Some of the

any trouble finding Pearl Harbor, did they?”

things he would say about what you should do to control a golf ball,” he recalls, “were pretty far out.”

✧

As an instructor, George was decidedly old school, at least in Davis’s educated eyes. “He was stern, but he

a more effective ambassador to the

was very smart when it came to golf, both in the golf

golf community than a tactful diplomat with the foreign

swing and course management.” He liked taking his play-

press. He basked in his reputation as one of the game’s

ers out to see if they could repeat on the course what

most knowledgeable instructors, and while teaching the

they’d worked on together on the range.

GEORGE WAS CERTAINLY

members in the early years fell primarily to Jack Gately

Here and there, he’d lend his expert eye to the

and Phil Greenwald and, occasionally, Greenie’s assis-

swings of two-time Ryder Cupper Gardner Dickinson, a

tants, George reserved his time for his fellow profession-

pretty good teacher himself, schooled in the fundamentals

als and those with enough game to potentially enter the

by Ben Hogan; [SIDEBAR: JUDY DICKINSON]1981

fraternity.

U.S. Open runner-up George Burns; and U.S. Open and

“If you were the kind of player who just wanted to

PGA champion David Graham. He helped Gary Player

go from shooting 100 to 95, George wasn’t your guy,”

through a dry spell on the way to his second PGA title.

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While under George’s thumb, Jupiter Hills was an old-school tipping club, and George, the former caddie, tacitly encouraged a generous flow. Most members got the hint, but just to make sure, at the end of each season, he would ask staff to identify the worst tippers. Relying heavily on input from Gar Garfield on the outside and Tom Horal and later Babe Cosentino in the locker room, George would identify the pinchpennies and banish them—and their tight fists—for the following year. That tradition did not apparently extend to founders. Emil Belanger, the veteran monarch of the Medalist’s locker room, began as an assistant under Horal. One day, PGA champion Dave Marr had come by to play. He asked Belanger whether Bob Hope had ever offered him a five-dollar check as a tip instead of cash. Hope was infamous for the practice, knowing the outcome: Hope-signed checks were framed as souvenirs, not cashed. Some weeks later, Hope came in. Sure enough, he asked Belanger if he’d mind taking a check. “I was twenty-one at the time,” Belanger explained, “so you will have to excuse me for being not too bright when I answered, ‘Sure, no problem.’ ” But he matured instantly. Before Hope was out the door, Belanger called to him. “You will get this one back,” he told the entertainer. “I collect cash, not autographs.” Hope turned back with a wry eye. Touché!

He worked with Tom Weiskopf, though begrudgingly;

very much in what he saw in Hogan’s golf swing,” says

George didn’t approve of his gnat-like search for an edge.

Sneed. “He talked to me a lot about what Hogan did in

“I’m not gonna give you lessons,” he once told the 1973

his swing.” [SIDEBAR: AMERICAN MADE]

British Open champion. “You take lessons from every

In addition to George, Sneed had another instructor

cab driver on Tour.” Still, Dick Stewart used to marvel at

at Jupiter Hills: the golf course itself. “I never shot low

watching Weiskopf on the range. “He’d hit 1-irons that

scores on it,” he admits. In fact, he couldn’t break 80 on

looked like pitching wedges. Every shot would land in

it his first outing, though he got better over time, once

an area the size of a blanket.” George also worked with

even managing a 67. “In terms of difficulty, it was like

Peter Jacobsen at Jupiter Hills.

the first time I played Oakmont or Firestone,” he says.

The player George worked with most consistently

“If you shot a 72, you walked away feeling pretty good.

through the 1970s and into the early 1980s was Ed Sneed,

It was a championship course in every way. The courses

a four-time winner on Tour best remembered, sadly, for

on Tour felt easier, which was a big boost psychologically.

the one that got away—the 1979 Masters. He had been

It’s just an ideal place to practice the shots you need to

an assistant at Scioto when Jupiter Hills opened, and

play good golf.”

played the first winter with a couple of Scioto members

Every word of that would have resonated through

who had joined the new club. They briefly introduced

George’s brain and body like a Verdi chorus at full throt-

him to George. Over the next several winters, he’d play

tle. Yet, from the day it opened, he had to process so

the course when he was in the area. George liked him.

many remarkable plaudits about the Hills. Rest on his

When Palm-Aire opened, he became its touring pro.

laurels? Not George, and certainly not when his eyes still

George made him an offer: come up to Jupiter Hills and

ingested an empty canvas just to the south.

I’ll help you with your game. Sneed did. He would work with George, practice, even play with members if George asked him too. He had privileges at the club for several years. Together, he and George worked on creating drag in his swing, lowering his ball flight and hitting to the best parts of the green so the ball bounced forward toward the hole. “George believed

With 1976 on the horizon, it was time to fill it. It was time to build another golf course. The due time they’d been waiting for had come.

G R O W T H

D E V E L O P M E N T

FOLLOWING A COUPLE of good seasons on Tour, Ed Sneed treated himself to a BMW. George rode him mercilessly about it. “He said UNTIL HER MARRIAGE to Gardner Dickinson in 1985, Jupiter Hills teaching professional Judy Dickinson GEORGE HAD a soft spot for gadgets and fell hard for a two-way radio system. He picked up one unit for the pro shop, one for the superintendent, and, naturally, one for himself. “He just bought them and started using them,” recalls Phyllis Valenti. “He didn’t think a thing about it.” The local authorities did; they briefly knocked George’s little network off the air almost immediately after he

competed on the LPGA Tour as Judy Clark. She played the tour for twenty-two years, won four tournaments,

I should have an American car,” recalls Sneed. Sneed kept his BMW, but heeded the admonition. When he would drive into Jupiter Hills, he’d be behind the wheel of his other car: a—fittingly—Ford station wagon.

posted top-five finishes in each of the women’s majors, including a runner-up finish in the 1985 U.S. Open, and served as the Tour’s president from 1990–1992. She was bathed in the finer points of the swing by a couple of pros who knew something about it: her husband and Ben Hogan.

With its long, spiny leaves thick with soothing gel, aloe vera was one of the more eye-catching and versatile plants growing around the property. It thrived in the sandy soil. On the weekend that Tom and Sue Fazio married in 1975, George invited Rick Rutter—Tom’s best man and one of his oldest friends from Philadelphia—and his wife to his condo for a drink. Barbara Rutter had spent the afternoon at the

bought it for violating a pair

beach; her skin was hot and red and beginning to pucker.

of standard FCC regulations:

“George called over to the club and had some aloe

He wasn’t sticking to his

plants brought up to take care of her,” Rick recalls. “He

approved channels, and he

applied it himself.” She was in good company. “George

wasn’t using proper radio

always used aloe to help people with sunburn,” says

lingo. And sometimes the

Tom. “There was so much of it around the golf course.”

lingo he was using turned colorfully blue.

George was so enamored of trees that before he was through he planted twenty thousand of them between the Hills and the Village. Looking ahead, he created a

Gene and George photo with

nursery beside the maintenance building where he grew

radio in hand

nearly five thousand trees from seed. The moment a seedling was sturdy enough, George found a home for it on the golf course. Wedding photo from TF Look in drip box for grow in photo

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PCUTRE OF 1 , 18 or two of Village

CHAPTER NINE

A New Challenge ✧

✧

O GOLF COURSE, not even St. Andrews, builds itself. Which is not to say that landscape

doesn’t offer hints of what might emerge from its golfingly dormant existence. In terms of its potential for the game, the undeveloped half of the property making up Jupiter Hills beckoned daily—and with good reasons.

First, it was just over there. Second, there was so much to recommend it. There was plenty of movement to the land—not

the grand drama of the dunes on The Hills, but more than enough to increase the volume on its possibilities to full-throated delivery. This was still South Florida, after all, and the land in South Florida is supposed to be flat. This wasn’t. Third, it was time. The overall vision for the club required a second course built into and through a residential community and the revenue it would generate through both membership and housing sales. Plans that seemed reasonable enough when Tom Fazio began meeting with the land-planning firm EDSA in 1972 had hit an economic wall when oil prices spiked in 1973 and the world’s economy was thrown into turmoil—and recession. But the recession was winding down. Oil prices had stabilized. Interest rates were returning to earth. The stock market was rising. Watergate was in the rearview mirror. If happy days weren’t quite here again, the cloud over the nation’s spirit was parting. The economy was ticking up, ever slightly to be sure, but beginning to grow, nonetheless. It was a time for George—and Jupiter Hills—to look forward and plan ahead. ✧

WITH THE SO-CALLED

✧

“practice holes” up and running by 1975, one of the conundrums that had been

confronting the Fazios wasn’t such a problem anymore. The practice holes were positioned perfectly to slide right into the rotation of The Hills. They fit so well, in fact, they looked like they’d always been there. And, if, in hindsight, they should have been there from the start, well, better late than

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Holes 7 and 8 LCL Hills

never.

the ninth—they circled back to reconnect with the golf

As a threesome, they would one day cap the rese-

course a stone’s throw from the tenth tee.

quenced front nine with an exclamation point. The tri-

Like they’d always been there.

angular shape of the land dictated what could be drawn

Each of the three holes had its own character and

from it; and what George drew from it formed a per-

flow. The seventh, a sharp left-swinging dogleg par 4 that

fectly rational detour into the northern reach of the prop-

kicked off the odyssey, cleverly linked old to new as it

erty. Beginning off the edge of the sixth green— which

crossed the no-man’s land of sandy waste that immedi-

had been performing its duties splendidly until then as

ately conjured images of Pine Valley, and, indeed, these

In any serious discussion among knowledgeable golfers of the galaxy’s most memorable par 3s, the ninth hole generally works its way into the conversation. Former Golf magazine editor George Peper featured it among his one shotters in The 500 World’s Greatest Golf Holes, a weighty coffee-table tome he assembled with the magazine’s editors in 2000. “George Fazio must have thought he was George Crump,” they wrote, “because this hole would have looked right at home at Pine Valley.” The provocative architect and critic Tom Doak includes it—along with the seventh at San Francisco Golf Club; the fourth at Riviera, which Hogan identified as the greatest one-shotter in golf; the 15th at Cypress Point and the ninth at Pinehurst No. 2—in his Honorable Mention list of great par 3s in the latest winter-destination edition of his famed Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, published in 2015. This is something of a mulligan for Doak given that in the first version of his Guide from the 1990s, he’d deemed the hole “too severe even for George Crump’s taste.” In Golf’s Finest Par Threes, Canadian Michael Bartlett sorts the one hundred ne plus ultra one-shotters in the world by category—Links, Drop Shot, Coastal, Pond, etc.—then splits the hundred in half, with the top fifty given Gold status and the second fifty classed as Silver. Jupiter Hills’ ninth leads his Golden list of Sand and Dune Holes, which also includes the unforgettable 10th at Pine Valley, the 16th at Royal Melbourne (West) and the 17th at both Sand Hills and Seminole. Bartlett’s key observation of number nine? “It best illustrates the marriage of nature and design achieved by Fazio.”

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Once the reputation of the ninth hole as a true beast of the game was established, a television crew came out to tour it with George for a film on Florida’s toughest tests of the game. George led them to the back tee where he explained—as the script asked him to—the design and strategy. “It calls for a nice little fade with a three iron,” he said, then turned toward the green, and with his three-iron, hit a nice little fade that trickled toward the flagstick. Couldn’t have been better save for one exasperating detail: The camera wasn’t rolling. The producer had George try it again. And again. And again. After a dozen or so takes—none of which cleared the bunker—they packed it in, opting, instead, for a shot of George swinging, which then cut to a shot of a ball landing on the green. Given its beauty and drama, the Hills Course was as natural a setting for golf on film as Monument Valley was for John Ford’s westerns. Bob Toski starred in a Golf Digest instructional video at the club and Ken Venturi and Ben Crenshaw were both featured in TV commercials shot on site. So was Ed Sabo. With an interesting co-star. In 1984, Wilson contacted Sabo, then Jupiter Hills’s director of golf, about filming an ad at the club for one of its new balls. They brought out an Iron Byron hitting machine and ensconced it on the 16th tee. “The hole was playing about 330 that day,” says Sabo. “Byron could knock it up on the green. His shots went dead straight and forever.” Hitting beside it, Sabo couldn’t

are the holes that shifted the Hills’s genetics from Pine-

right, especially the challenging duet on the right—since

hurst’s, which they were born with, towards Pine Valley.

consolidated into a no-less unsettling solo—forces all but

Utilizing the land’s natural heave, the hole wanders from

the bravest golfers to shun its risky straight-line challenge

its inception within Pinehursty confines down into a val-

by heading left and lengthening the route.

ley beyond the hell’s quarter acre of sand before ascend-

Memorable as they are, seven and eight are preludes

ing to a narrow green angled against the line of play and

to the front nine’s main event, a daunting and haunting

LCL no 9 Hiils

par 3 that intimidates on first sight. And on second sight. And on third sight. And on every sight thereafter. [SIDEBAR: NUMBER NINE] Because whether on first sight or quadrillionth, what sears the retina from the perspective

perched atop a hill with bunkers staunchly guarding.

of the deepest tee box tucked into a path hacked through

Like seven, the eighth hole, another par 4, drops

the wilderness is the image of a Herculean golfing labor.

from high land to low before another hard climb resolves

Though the number on the scorecard shouts its yardage

its path on a green fiercely protected by a circle of sand.

as 192, it’s just a number— its shout drowned out by the

Unlike seven, its line from tee to green is as true as a

task ahead: a first shot from a lofted tee to a green even

Midwestern interstate, but it teases the eye into thinking

higher. That there’s no shot like it in Florida makes it

otherwise. The bulge in the fairway and bunkers left and

memorable, but it’s what connects tee to green that ups

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they were not born in a vacuum; their formation created

After playing the revamped 16th

a ripple that forced the Fazios to significantly rethink

hole for several years, Nathaniel Reed finally yielded to

the 16th hole already in place since it shared a chunk of

his yen for its bunkering in 1980, and George agreed to

dune with the new seventh. Actually, this was George’s

create a facsimile for him at the Jupiter Island Club after

third overhaul of the design at 16. Before the course was

the season ended in June. On the agreed-upon morning

even finished, he’d found an alternative pad high in the

of construction, Reed had a couple of front-end loaders and a team of workers in place on the fifth hole by eight o’clock—“But no George,” Reed remembered shortly before his death. “No George at eight. No George at

dunes to drop in a second green, giving players two distinct versions of the par 4 to play. The reboot was a short but acute dogleg right with a brazen uphill pitch to the

eight-thirty. No George at nine.” Concerned, Reed got into

putting surface. The original companion route was sig-

Jupiter

his car, drove to his office, called Jupiter Hills, and heard

nificantly longer; though its dogleg was more benign, it

island

the news: George had just returned from heart bypass

dug deeper into the dune as it climbed to its elbow before

surgery in Houston and was still in bandages, resting. Reed

continuing the uphill march beyond it to a green sited

proceeded back to his fifth fairway and instructed the

in the dune’s nosebleed section. Once the clubhouse was

5 at

foreman to move enough dirt around to get a head start for George when he again felt up to it. “Suddenly,” Reed says, “at ten, a bright red Ford comes driving up the fairway. It was George. In bandages. He took complete charge.

completed, George erased the shorter option. To make the practice holes fit, the path of the new seventh hole swallowed up the bend of the 16th. To make the practice 16th Hills Bunkers

He traced some outlines, waved his hands around, got

holes work, George had no choice but to straighten LCL it,

them going—and stayed in the car to oversee the work.

and though he pulled its tee boxes, originally a few steps

He took a one-hour break at noon, and we were finished

off the 15th green, well back toward the lake behind it,

by mid-afternoon. That’s what I call friendship.”

this revision arrived almost one hundred yards shorter

And heart. But George was only following suit. Bill Ford underwent similar surgery in May—at about the same time that Phil Greenwald had a pacemaker installed.

than its predecessor. Shorter? Yes. Easier? No. For bite, both strategic and visual, he brought the edge of the smaller, forward lake into direct eyeline off

the experience to unforgettable: perdition, if those three

the tee shot—it previously loomed in the periphery to the

syllables can be defined as a precipitous descent into a

left—than ate into the business end of the fairway’s sharp

hostile no man’s land that opens onto a rising, gaping

ascent with a string of five gaping bunkers down the left

sea of sand as unnerving as Normandy’s beachhead. Golf

side, so forget just whacking away; nothing but a pre-

magazine’s George Peper wrote that “it may as well be

cisely placed tee shot would do. The bunkering blended

a chasm to nowhere.” There are no safe misses in any

easily with the series George used to surround the left

direction; doom calls out from all four corners around

and rear of his small hilltop putting surface; the way

the putting surface. A series of more forward tees hardly

George shaped and positioned the bunkers so enthralled

mitigates the menace, but tradition, no longer strictly

his friend Nat Reed that Reed commissioned George to

enforced, insisted that a guest’s introduction to the hole

cross the Intracoastal to duplicate them on Jupiter Island.

must commence in the hinterlands and be played from its

[SIDEBAR: JUPITER ISLAND]

full expanse, which can play today as long as a hefty 227 yards. [SIDEBAR: PRODUCTION VALUE] Though these three holes arrived on virgin territory,

✧

STILL,

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the Fazios faced decisions. Working with EDSA, they carved out a new path

for the golf course and a new template for eventually locating the houses. George had finally figured it out in the field. “The ideas were George’s,” says Tom. “EDSA was implementing them. George was gonna make it all fit somehow.” Actually, that responsibility would fall to them both; each would be making it fit in their own arenas. On the golfing side of the scales, Tom would pull the cart as lead horse from hereon. “George’s focus was on the Village as the village, “as the community,” says Tom.

housing as it had been on the 1972 concept plan. Con-

“The golf course obviously was involved, but George’s

ceptually, the new plan embraced the very notion of com-

mind was on building and selling houses.” It’s not hard

munity; the game and the neighborhood that would one

to imagine why. George had built golf courses. He’d even

day sprout there were braided strands of a single sense of

built golf courses in developments. He’d just never devel-

place, the golf encouraged to weave through the develop-

oped the development himself before. This was a new

ment to refine them into a unified field.

challenge. And a possible perpetual pay day that if done

But where to start?

right could carry him comfortably through the rest of his

The three practice holes that gave the Fazios the breathing room needed for their southern strategy pre-

life. The dilemma was where to start.

sented a choice. Which three holes will they ask to secede

No one was rushing them, but all involved agreed

from the original union to create an overall more perfect

that the first step was the golf course. Finances and prac-

one? “We knew we had the option of moving one of two

ticalities together dictated that it would rise in stages:

three-hole segments to the other side of the property,”

nine holes now, and nine holes after the development plan

Tom says. The second, third, and fourth holes were the

received final approval from the county, with Bill Ford

most obvious. But Tom lobbied—at least briefly—for

funding the bulk of the course construction together with

the other: the three that followed, which were then five,

Bob Hope and Bill Elliott. The latest working land plan

six, and seven on the scorecard (today’s two, three, and

gave the golf aspect a wider, more engaging berth; its path

four on the Hills). Logic dictated that if the first hole on

was no longer confined to corridors east and south of the

the new course was a repurposing of what had been the

George was especially fond of the hole that was born in 1969 as Number Seven on the Hills, was resequenced to Number Five when the clubhouse opened and, since 1976, has performed it’s assigned duties as Number Two. He liked telling anyone who’d listen that every great golf course has at least—at least—four great holes. Since George never hesitated in his assertion that the Hills is a great golf course, the question begs itself: What’s his anointed quartet? He might as well have etched his reply in stone because it never varied: “Two is always a great hole,” he would say with certainty. Before revealing the accompanying trio, he’d post his caveat: “You first have to tell me which direction the wind is blowing, then I’ll tell you what the other great holes are on that day,” with “on that day” the operative loophole that shrewdly brings the entire golf course into play. It also reinforces the imperative he ascribed to the breezes; “If it’s nae wind,” as the Scots insist, “it’s nae golf.” SECON LCLD HOLE HILLS

SECTTION COURSE PHOTOS 4-6 pages LCL

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into the terra incognita beyond for six still undiscovered

What exactly would the second

challenges that would return at some point to the fourth

golf course and Village community be and how exactly

hole, repositioned, in its role as the terminus, to settle all

would it relate to the Hills Course and the Jupiter Hills

bets on its go-for-broke par-5 design? What Tom envi-

Club? That’s something of a loaded question. George,

sioned was the allure of a second clubhouse and range

Bill Ford, and Bill Elliott had their ideas, but at this stage,

inserted onto this quadrant of the land to establish the

though nothing was certain, this much was clear: The founders wanted the new course to be its own separate club, an equity club with initiation and dues. The Hills Course would continue forward as a golfer’s club with annual memberships under the stewardship of the founders. The Village’s fees would keep its side of the oper-

Village course as not just a different golf course, but, as the founders envisioned, a club of its own with its own governance, membership, and rules to go along with its separate facilities. [SIDEBAR: TWO BECOME ONE] Until George nixed it. “I may have been naïve about how this would have

ation humming, while its real estate sales within the

worked,” Tom admits. “George wanted these holes to

community would eliminate the mortgage on the land

stay on the Hills not because they were harder or stronger

and pay back the investors—which were now just the Core Four. To give the Village side a leg up, the founders proposed that for the first ten years of operation, a Village membership would carry with it privileges on the

than the three that moved to the Village. He thought the holes we moved were closer to the clubhouse, and that’s what he wanted.” One clubhouse. Two golf courses side

Hills, and a right of first refusal on purchasing the kit and

by side. “It made for better continuity.” Besides, another

caboodle outright if the four partners opted to cash in

clubhouse meant another expense, and while George was

on their investment and walk away.

no skinflint, as a developer, this was an outlay he had no

As it turned out, slower than expected Village sales— both in houses and memberships—and the awkwardness of separate clubs sharing a single clubhouse turned the original concept into an impractical one. Two years after the Village Course was completed, the two clubs became one under a single ownership—Ford, Elliott,

intention of laying out. Tom now had his starting point, and that starting point dictated direction. With the head start of three holes, Tom went out to find the other six. “At that point there was no housing,” he recalls. “There were no prop-

Bob Hope, and Fazio—with a single membership. This

erty lines staked. There was just a plan,” and EDSA’s plan

new version of the club began its promenade into the

offered some wiggle room. Common sense suggested the

future bearing the name that had sat atop the letter-

six holes be corralled into an area that wove naturally through the housing while not wandering too far off into the wilderness; there were nine more holes to build

second on the Hills, then there’s a natural flow to the

someday.

par-3 third as the second, and from there head out into

There was also this to consider: The practical

no man’s land for six holes before returning to link up to

demands of integrating holes and houses assured that the

what was the fourth hole on the Hills as the new finale.

routing of the new course would in no way mirror The

So, what then about lopping off these three south-

Hills. The Hills had the luxury of open space to find its

western-most holes along Old Dixie Highway? What

way, hence holes could parallel each other. To maximize

about raising the curtain on the Village with today’s sec-

the housing potential, the new course would have to be

ond hole on the Hills, [SIDEBAR: THE SECOND HOLE]

linked, like sausage, end-to-end with the occasional sud-

segueing to the one-shot third hole, then marching off

den turn of direction—like three and four and later 10

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and 11—allowing for the genial peek over to the action

THOUGH THE ORIGINAL

on the adjacent fairway running side by side. Houses

nine homes built by George

along the perimeter also dictated tighter fairways, which,

on SE Village Drive—formal-

in turn, would put a higher premium on accuracy off the tee in the service of neighbors’ windows remaining intact and their tempers held in check. Tom discovered his pathway quickly, and with

ly designated as Phase I of the Village development— were separate cottages, they were tied together in the original zoning agreement as

George’s approval, dug in. Using today’s hole demarca-

condos with a Condominium

tions, the journey went like this—one, two, three, four,

Association established to

five, 15, 16, 17, and 18. They opened for play in the fall

maintain common areas. The

of 1976.

agreement was amended,

The balance of the holes working their way south to Tequesta Park before taking a sharp right turn around the pocket park’s eastern edge began taking shape in 1977, with limited play commencing in the fall of 1978, and its

the association dissolved on October 22, 1985, and the cottages—considered individual lots from then on— were folded into the growing

fairways and greens open to all right after the 1979 New

Jupiter Hills Homeowners

Year.

Association.

By then, under George’s command, the Village community was sprouting up around and between them. Both the cottages—a condominium community of nine homes until they declared technical independence in 1985—on SE Village Drive and the first estate homes on SE Village Circle were taking shape, and in January of 1980, the

TOM FAZIO WILL ADD A LONG SIDEBAR ON THE VILLAGE SIMILAR TO WHAT HE WROTE FOR THE FIRST BOOK ON THE HILLS WHICH

first resident moved on site when he and his wife were

WE CAN RUN WITH NICE

handed the keys to the houseat 11882 SE Village Drive,

LAMBRECHT ART

prosaically designated in the Martin County plat book as Lot 9, Jupiter Hills Village Phase I. [SIDEBAR: PHASE I] Their names: George and Barbara Fazio.

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CHAPTER TEN

Continued Developments ✧

OW DIFFERENT This

✧

must have felt.

The golfing life for someone in the business is, by nature, a peripatetic one, a ceaseless trek from place to place and here to there. The long, boring car rides. The gin joints and greasy spoons. The motel rooms. Everything looks the same. Everything feels the same.

Everything tastes the same. First as a tournament player and then as an architect, George had been living the unrooted golf life since the late 1930s. How different this must have felt, this dropping anchor in a place to call home. His dream wasn’t just a dream anymore. He was ensconced in the middle of it. In a new house, decorated by his new wife—he’d been introduced to Barbara, an interior designer, by Bill Elliott a few years before they married in 1977—George was embedded in a new world, and it was a world largely of his own devising. He had given it direction. He presided over it. [SIDEBAR: TITLES] This beautiful and ordered new world he had envisioned in an overgrown patch of Florida scrub and then willed into existence was evolving into a community before his eyes. He had a home, a real home, and a real partner in Barbara. With her eye for design and detail, she was turning the cottage at 11882 SE Village Drive into their haven. She would later put her stamp on the interiors of the other condos and the clubhouse when it was first built and after the 1980 fire. How different this must have felt for him. “It was a great time for George,” says Tom. “Jupiter Hills was his dream. He was very, very happy with Barbara. He had good friends around him. The life he wanted was coming true.”

✧

THESE WERE GOOD YEARS, indeed,

✧

for George, these last years of the seventies and first years of the 1980s.

The design business was flourishing, and with Tom taking it over—it was fully his by 1979—George could keep his focus close to home. [SIDEBAR: OTHER FAZIO PROJECTS] He kept his game sharp enough to partner with Jimmy Demaret—and credibly perform—in the Legends of Golf tournament,

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the annual reunion of the old gang in Austin: Gene Sara-

While the club—meaning Bill Ford, Elliott, and Bob

zen, Sam Snead, Jackie Burke, Paul Runyan, Cary Mid-

Hope—was happy to create the kitty that would fund and

dlecoff, Bob Toski, Gardner Dickinson, Julius Boros, and

operate the new golf course, the development itself was

Tommy Bolt highlighted the field every April. He was

to be the responsibility of the developer, and the developer, at George’s insistence, was George.

proud to add the designation of developer to his mixed bag of job titles: pro, teacher,

WHILE GEORGE

He didn’t have a purse deep enough to do

architect, builder, operator, co-owner,

was the accepted tsar of

the job on his own. He needed his partners

co-founder, and tsar. And he relished tak-

Jupiter Hills the way John

to back him. He was willing to shoulder

ing anyone who’s backbone could with-

Arthur Brown was the

the risk. His partners, favorably bent as

stand the shocks and shimmies for a tour

accepted tsar of Pine Valley,

they were to George and his imaginings,

of the untamed landscape he was intent on shaping into a neighborhood. The rides— like those he piloted when he built the

Bill Ford was still the titular president. But George was in both title and fact the president of the Jupiter Hills

still needed convincing. In May of 1976, P. V. Heftler, one of Ford’s attorneys in Detroit, completed

Hills Course—could be harrowing. Phyllis

Village development,

the transfer of the Land Trust—meaning

Valenti remembers closing up the halfway

as clearly delineated in the

the land south of the Hills—from Charles

house one afternoon when George con-

incorporation papers.

Herring, the attorney originally tapped to

scripted her to join him for a teeth-chatter-

This was spelled out just as

oversee the property, to Lloyd Fell, one of

ing drive across the property. “He was so

clearly: Barbara Fazio was

Heftler’s partners, who was now repre-

excited,” she recalls. “He had me all over

the corporate secretary.

the place, up and down, up and down, I

senting Ford, Hope, Elliott, and George in the transaction as their trustee. “The

thought I would get sick. But he had such a vision for the

transfer will make things much easier in the future,”

Village. It was amazing. He was seeing houses. All I could

wrote Heftler to Ford on May 13, because they now fully

see was trees and rocks.”

and legally controlled the trust. His letter makes clear

Coaxing those trees and rocks into a community would not be inexpensive.

that a red flag or two was flapping on the horizon and Ford, as Heftler’s letter also makes clear, was not blind

In the second half of the 1970s, the Fazios teamed on designs for several new courses in the neighborhood—including Riverbend Country Club and Jonathan’s Landing—as well the sixth course in the collection at Pinehurst. Renovation work led them down the road to the Everglades Club and farther afield to toughen a series of U.S. Open sites, including Toledo’s classic Inverness, which sprouted into one of the absurdest—and absurdist—architectural boondoggles in U.S. Open history. George was blamed. He was innocent. And his alibi holds; he wasn’t there. The culprit was the USGA. George had rejiggered four holes in approach of the 1979 event, and while players had some unkind cuts to offer even before play began, design complaints from Tour players is nothing unusual. Then, in the opening round, Lon Hinkle came up with a clever alternative for the par-5 eighth hole: He pounded his tee shot over the surrounding treetops into the adjacent 17th fairway, truncating the distance and outwitting the hole’s strategy. In the eyes of the horrified, par-protecting Solons of the USGA, his real felony was making birdie that way. They installed an enormous spruce overnight to deter a reprise. It didn’t work. But it generated bile. “They should have planted George Fazio instead of a tree,” barked journeyman Mike McCullough. “Then we could all have taken shots at him.” Jack Nicklaus ground his ax, too. Asked if he’d mind another architect sprucing up his Muirfield Village a century or so down the road, Jack snipped, “I’d sure mind if the guy’s name was George Fazio IV.”

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D E V E L O P M E N T S

to it. “This transfer,” Heftler went on, “does not commit you yet to going ahead on Fazio’s development plan. That

Now a retired attorney in

plan is on a shoestring, and from my talk with you of a

Delaware, Neal Howard distinctly remembers the

week or so ago, I gather that you were beginning to be

moment that George surprised him one afternoon in

concerned over the wisdom of going ahead just as Fazio

the locker room. The room was empty, as it often was,

has proposed (and with good reason for your concern, in

and spotting Howard, then in his early thirties, George

my opinion).” Heftler wasn’t finished. “Meanwhile,” he went on, “[Fazio] will probably be after you for money and perhaps for a formal decision on the plan.” No doubt George was. What exactly were the concerns Ford aired to Heftler? Affections aside, this was an

approached. “You’re John Howard’s son?” George asked. Howard nodded that he was. “Then,” George affirmed, “you come from good stock.” For Howard, the observation, out of the blue as it was, felt intense and dramatic. For George, it was understatement.

enormous undertaking, and given George’s knacks for

Neal’s father, John C. Howard, was a close friend of

spending and amending, who could blame Ford for a few

Bill Elliott’s, and after retiring as Bethlehem Steel’s vice

trepidations? It’s likely he just held George at bay until

president of transportation in 1975, he joined the club.

he, Elliott, and Hope could take a series of deep breaths and convince themselves that proceeding with development presented minimal risk to them. Ten and a half months later, they exhaled—and pulled the trigger. On April 4, 1977, Ford, Elliott, and Hope agreed to

John’s relationship with Elliott put him on George’s good side; George so liked and trusted him that he put Howard on the admissions committee, the only operating committee before the birth of the hospital Pro-Am, and George installed him on that committee, too. But it was John C.’s own father, John J., who rooted the family in George’s heart. An original member of Phil-

sell George the hundred acres of development land they

adelphia’s Cedarbrook Country Club, John J. approved

held commonly in trust for $20,000 an acre, $2 million

the club’s hiring of George as its playing pro in 1941.

all told, through an instrument drawn up by Fell. In hindsight, Tom considers the price “not too high and not too low, but reasonable for the time. It turned out to be better than reasonable over time.” Beyond a generous sale price, here’s how their attachments to George seeped in. First, the document spelled out that it would be the club’s responsibility to ensure that the golf course was

The move not only plucked George from an obscure posting—as head pro at a blue-collar nine-hole course about to be repurposed for housing—it offered a foothold in the game’s upper echelon on a course that both Tillinghast and Ross had left their mark. The Inquirer noted the appointment—and George’s “rapid strides toward the top in Philadelphia.” Two years later, Pine Valley called. In its way, Cedarbrook was life changing for George; he never forgot who helped get him there.

completed, and that failure to do so would be a contractual breach—but everyone knew that going in. [SIDEBAR: NEAL HOWARD]

passage: The key reason for entering into the agreement

Second, and the only way this was possible for

in the first place “is that George Fazio, Golf Course Archi-

George: No money changed hands. Rather than write a

tect, remain and be a principal,” went the legal language,

check for the land, George signed a note to the club—

“and that George Fazio be in a position of authority in

again, meaning Ford, Elliott, and Hope. The note was his

charge of and responsible for the development.”

promise to pay them back as the individual lots began to

With that note in hand, George sought—and received—a loan for half of its value from Barnett Bank.

sell. Third was the implicit vote of confidence in this

The club, in his corner, agreed to subordinate its claim to

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the bank; should George default, the bank would take

That was one hurdle down. Several more stood in

the land. Elliott signed off on the idea—and signed the

the way of the housing development, though the golf side

papers.

was moving along nicely with work on the back nine hav-

In the flush of the moment, default was the furthest

ing been underway since July. The commission stamped its

thing from anyone’s mind. George’s only intent was suc-

imprimatur on the zoning agreement on March 7, 1978,

cess—for himself and the friends behind him. “George

and approved the Planned Unit Development papers in

was always doing the right thing for the club,” stresses

August. If all went according to schedule, the first of the

Tom. “He didn’t want to put the club into any financial

nine envisioned condominium cottages would be ready

difficulty.”

for occupancy at the beginning of 1980—and they were,

With the wherewithal to go forward, George imme-

followed closely by the first handful of estate homes on

diately put the money to use. There was a survey to pay

SE Village Circle; forty-three single-family lots had been

for, and construction maps, amended plot plans, and the

approved. The condo units beside the clubhouse, reduced

high start-up costs of infrastructure: roads, power and

by the zoning board from twenty-one to fifteen, were on

phone lines, clean water in and waste-water out, and

track to break ground later in 1980, as were the tennis

assembling the paperwork needed for a panoply of per-

courts—yes, tennis courts—north of the entryway where

mits. Land-planning firm EDSA remained on board to

the lower parking lot is today. [SIDEBAR: I GOT YOU

pay attention to details, expedite the process, and navi-

BABE]

gate George through the shoals, and, of course Ed Stone

All around him, George’s dream was in bloom. These were good years

and his associates had to

indeed.

be paid for their consider-

Why

able services, too.

not

throw

party?

By spring of 1977, George hit a snag signifi-

✧

cant enough to find its way

✧

into the papers when the Palm Beach Post reported

NATURALLY,

on the Martin County

big.

Commission meeting of

George thought

He’d

June 14. According to

thinking

been about

quietly throwing

the paper, “Water problems apparently will be a major

open the doors to show off the facilities for some time.

stumbling block for developers of Jupiter Hills Village,

Have some friends over. Play some golf. Make it so good

a mixed bag of single and condominium homes designed

that everybody comes back for more the next day. Then

to form the southernmost ‘gateway’ to Martin County.”

make it worthwhile.

While the commission applauded Jupiter Hills Village’s

Hence the birth of the first Jupiter Hills Charity

low-density “mixed bag,” it questioned the proposal’s

Invitational Pro-Am to benefit the Palm Beach-Martin

provisions for a potable water supply, citing “saltwater

County Medical Center over December 8 and 9. It put a

intrusion problems.” The chairman wanted a guarantee

cap on the annus mirabilis of 1978.

that the issue be addressed “without an adverse effect on

Wait. A tournament? At Jupiter Hills?

anyone else” by the commission’s next meeting two weeks

George opted to amend his taboo.

hence, which it was—through the village of Tequesta.

“He thought it was a good idea for the club,”

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D E V E L O P M E N T S

At first, George conceived of the condo units beside the clubhouse as short-term accommodations for members and their guests. That idea didn’t survive their construction. By the time they were completed, their status changed to permanent residences. Meanwhile, construction brought new faces to Jupiter Hills; one of them turned into a Jupiter Hills institution of three decades. It belonged to a former appliance salesman from New York named Dominic Cosentino. Nobody called him Dominic. Everyone—immediate family included—knew him as Babe. Before his apotheosis in the locker room, Babe enlisted as a carpenter in 1980, where his work ethic on the condos caught George’s eye. He asked Babe if he’d like to switch to clubhouse maintenance. Babe was curious: Why him? Wasn’t he the runt of the crew? Not in George’s eyes. “A lot of carpenters are prima donnas,” he explained. “You’re not. Whatever you had to do, you did. That’s why I want you up there.” One of his first assignments was a brick wall near the entry. “We had to take it up two times,” Babe remembers. “George wanted it changed. But that was George.” Then George asked him to set up a simple restroom on the far end of the range—one side for men, the other for women. George quickly asked for add-ons. “By the time I was finished,” Babe says, “the five-by-seven shed was big enough to hold golf carts. You never knew what was gonna happen with George. But if he liked you, he loved you.” He loved Babe.

explains Tom.

beginning in 1977. Both the Outpatient Surgery Depart-

It was.

ment and the 120-bed Convalescence Pavilion were in

In so many ways.

operation by the end of that year; the cornerstone of the

And George could count them all.

campus, the 156-bed hospital, would open in February of

“He saw it as a good entrée for the club to do some-

1979. The entire project was led by orthopedic surgeon—

thing good for the community,” Tom continues. “He saw

and Jupiter Hills member—George L. Ford Jr.[ SIDEBAR:

it as a good way for him to bring his friends in and get

GEORGE L. FORD]

the course tested and get more feedback. There was never

So, George entered into this idea of a tournament

gonna be a PGA event played on this course, but here was

for all the right reasons—and then added a few more.

a chance to bring in well-known names for a good cause

“He thought it was a good idea for there to be a Jupi-

and give Jupiter Hills more credibility.”

ter Hills wing on the center someday,” former assistant

And it did.

Mike Kernicki remembers George telling the staff. [SIDE-

It raised the club’s profile in so many positive ways,

BAR: HOSPITAL DEDICATION] He also thought it was

not the least of which was its contribution to good works.

a good idea to make friends with the hospital given its

The first event netted $84,000 for the hospital. Located

proximity and connection—through George Ford and

just south of Toney Penna Drive, the facility—which was

others—to the club; over time, members would be using

transforming what had been a retirement community into

it.

a state-of-the-art medical center—was unveiled in stages

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$2,000 each for the privilege. Pros played for $40,000 in prize money; each was guaranteed $1,000 for taking part.

wanted nothing so splashy or intrusive as

The low two-day score would earn its poster $7,500, and

a PGA Tour stop that would take the course out of com-

to keep things interesting, an additional $1,000 would

mission for a week, a pro-am would work perfectly. Pro-

be handed to the pro who piloted the winning amateur

ams arrived with a certain cachet. If Seminole and Pine

team each day. To keep things more interesting, amateur

Valley put on versions bathed in prestige, Jupiter Hills

teams would be joined by a different professional each

THOUGH GEORGE

day. The welcome party on the eve of the

could, too. George’s address book would insure nothing less. He went to work, forming an execu-

GEORGE FORD

event was penned in for the club’s night

—could a Jupiter Hills

spot of choice, The MET Club.

tive committee with a pair of Medical Cen-

convergence of first and

ter board members and a local banker to

last names be more ap-

begin the planning. He appointed George Purvis, one of the club’s first members and its national membership chairman, as the tournament’s chairman and Golf Digest’s

propriate?—was an early member of the club and one of George’s own doctors. After medical school in St. Louis, Ford trained in his

As December 8 approached, George worried that his baby might not withstand the kind of assault that the Tour’s buccaneers—particularly

the

young

bucs—might fire at it. He needn’t have. Even at 6,870 yards from first tee to

Cal Brown as tournament director. Then,

specialty at Duke Univer-

finalflagstick—a 400-yard impingement

as he’d done at Cobbs Creek almost twen-

sity and Shriner’s Hospital

from its most robust—the average score

ty-five years earlier, George picked up the

in South Carolina before

for the two dozen pros was a begrudging

phone and began dialing.

moving to Florida in the early

76.9, with several scores in the 80s, two

Sam Snead said yes. So did Tommy Bolt, Julius Boros, and Gardner Dickinson. Bob Hope was in. Jack Whitaker was in. Jumbo Elliott was in. Mike Douglas was in.

1960s. He became the founding chief of staff at Palm Beach Gardens Hospital, then led the drive to create and fund the Palm

by future back-to-back U.S. Open champion Strange alone. Four players never bothered to turn in their cards the second day. The 11th hole alone played 37-over par for two days; 18 played 25 over.

Architect Pete Dye was in. Bill Ford and Bill

Beach-Martin County

Elliott were in the field, too. By the time he

Medical Center, now vastly

was through, George also garnered commit-

expanded and known, since

assistants were pretty much running the

ments from star-quality names of the new

1993, as Jupiter Medical

tournament,” he says, “and I’m looking

guard: Curtis Strange, Hubie Green, Ben Crenshaw, Peter Jacobson, Jim Simons, and a quartet he’d extended his golf course— and his knowledge—to: Ed Sneed, Ed Sabo, Tom Weiskopf, and Frank Beard. The format was designed to produce as much revenue as possible for the hospital

Center. He served the hospital—which was originally named George Ford Hospital—as both its first president and its second

Kernicki, for one, had a blast. “The

down the range and there’s Crenshaw and Strange and Sam Snead and Bolt and Boros. If you were a young guy like I was, you’ve got stars in your eyes. And

chief of staff before retiring

they were all here because George asked

in the mid-eighties. He died

them.” [NOTE: WE HAVE A PIC OF

in 1993.

KERNICKI AND CRENSHAW]

and as much fun as possible for those tak-

Peter Jacobson recorded the lone

ing part and observing. To keep play zipping along at a

eagle of the two days—on 17—on the way to shooting

pace George would consider appropriate, he limited the

70 the first day, one of only two rounds under par in

field to twenty-four professionals, each joined by a trio of

the event. The 68 that Jim Simons, a Tequesta resident

amateurs, with those seventy-two amateurs ponying up

who’d triumphed at the Memorial earlier in the season,

C O N T I N U E D

D E V E L O P M E N T S

scratched out in the opening round established a com-

is truly a memorable event and a very proud moment for

petitive course record that withstood challenges for forty

us all.” For George, especially. “He was very happy,” recalls

years. [SIDEBAR: UNDER PAR FOR THE COURSE] Disparity in scoring—and the grumbling that rides

Tom. “The hospital did well. The players all thought the

with it—is nothing new in golf. If we can believe Bobby

course was strong. It created another level of recognition

Jones and Alister MacKenzie, the wizards who conjured

for George in his architectural phase of life. It pleased

Augusta National, it’s a sign of a course’s overall quality,

him a lot.”

an indication, really, of both its challenge and its fairness.

With that kind of takeaway, a reprise was a gimme,

Jones fully believed that superior courses can and should

though when the event returned the next year, the for-

be taken—but only by a superior round. “It is our feel-

mat had changed. George reduced the field to twenty-two

ing,” he once said of Augusta, “that there is something

teams to keep congestion down and the pace up, short-

wrong with a course which will not yield a score in the 60s to a player who has played

ened the course another ninety-five yards,

ALTHOUGH GEORGE didn’t get a wing dedicated

and divided the professionals into separate

well enough to deserve it.” MacKenzie fer-

to Jupiter Hills in the new

divisions—The Senior, an off growth from

vently supported that. “It is no criterion of

Palm Beach-Martin County

how much George had enjoyed playing the

a good course that the record is high,” he

Medical Center, the hospital

Legends of Golf with Demaret earlier in

once wrote. “This is usually an indication

was so grateful for the club’s

the year, and The Touring. The star-power

of a bad course, and only too frequently means that the putting surfaces are untrue, the approach unfair, and the greens small and blind. On the contrary, if the average

efforts in raising money that it put up a plaque in November 1979 when the new hospital building in the complex opened. With

burned brightly in both. Bolt, Boros, and Dickinson were back for the geezers, and they were joined by some familiar new—if seasoned—faces: Ken Venturi, Bob Toski,

score is high but the record is extremely

George on hand to bask in

Mike Souchak, Paul Runyan, and Gene

low,” he maintained, “it usually means

the glow, the third floor was

Sarazan. The flat-bellies, as Lee Trevino

that a first-class player gets full reward for

dedicated in the name of the

referred to them, were again led by Cren-

accurate play.”

“Jupiter Hills Invitational

shaw, Simons, Jacobson, Strange, and

Hence, Simon’s lone 68, almost nine

Tournament.”

strokes below the field’s average. With a

Sneed. Future U.S. Amateur champion Nathaniel Crosby flew in from California

72 to back it up, his two-day total of 140 outperformed

to join in as a guest. Capt. Gene Cernan, another guest,

Weiskopf by three strokes. Simons graciously handed

flew in from the moon—as commander of Apollo 17 in

back $1,000 from his winning purse to the hospital as

1973, he was the last man to leave his footprints there—

a donation. Member Peter Makris, the “M” of the MET

though his less celestial address was Houston.

Club, accompanied by a pair of guests, won the amateur

In leading all Seniors, Dickinson tied Simons’s

crystal; the star-studded trio of Pete Dye, Jack Whitaker,

course mark of 68 with an astounding finish to his sec-

and Jupiter Island’s Nat Reed edged their way into a tie

ond round. Venturi was the leader in the clubhouse with

for third.

a 144 total; Dickinson, who’d begun the round on the

“We are deeply grateful to those who have made all

10th hole, was a stroke back when he stepped onto the

this possible,” Frank Griffith, the Medical Center’s chair-

tee of his final hole, the ninth. A birdie—and birdies

man—and a member—told the assembled afterward,

on nine have always been few and far between—would

“particularly the Jupiter Hills Club and its superb golf

move him into a tie. The flagstick was partially obscured

facility and its extraordinarily generous members. This

behind a swale to the right, but Dickinson could see just

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enough of it to take dead aim with his 7-iron. When his

loss. Despite no entry fees being billed, participants sent

shot stopped rolling, it dropped into the cup. For an ace.

in almost $17,000 in contributions. “With all the heart-

And the victory. And the $4,000 check that came with it.

aches caused by the fire,” the medical center noted in a

Boros was two strokes further back for third with Toski

report the next year, “this generosity was doubly appre-

right behind him.

ciated.” [SIDEBAR: THE MODERN INVITATIONAL]

hospital. The Medical Center was the biggest winner

JUPIE R After the insurance claim was settled, the club hadT some $780,000 to plow into rebuilding, but when theM E D outside bids came in, the number on the bottom line wasI C L L almost double that. George figured he could do better—CENtER much better—by using his own construction companyFROM

once again, adding $75,000 to its coffers. CRENSHAW

already at work on the Village. Though never a great

SIDEBAr

fan of the original clubhouse, Ford gave George the OK

Crenshaw, courtesy of his 72-69, captured the Touring crown—and its $7,500 prize—over second-place finishers George Burns and Jerry McGee. Crenshaw also piloted the first day’s low-scoring amateur team, earning him another $1,000, which he promptly donated to the

The clubhouse wasn’t a total loss either.

The engines were revved and ready for the event’s

to rebuild it the way George wanted to: as it was. “Bill

third edition when those plans went up in smoke at

didn’t want to be bothered by details,” says Peter Morse.

roughly 3:15 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, 1980. From

“He was willing to let George be George and let things

a window of his house on County Line Road, a firefighter

like that float.”

from the South Martin Volunteer Fire Department spotted

George began work in late September and, with

flames and smoke rising from the clubhouse. He called in

Barbara in charge of interiors, had finished by early May

the alarm. The department responded quickly, but the fire

of 1981 at a cost—$685,000—of less than half of what

had already spread. “I got to the scene around 3:30,” said

the bids were and below the settlement itself. He’d even

Bill Bartlett, the department’s assistant chief, “and even

managed to enlarge both the upstairs dining room and

before I got out of the car, I could see it was a big fire.”

kitchen.

He immediately called for assistance from the Hobe Sound ✧

and Jupiter-Tequesta departments. “We initially knocked it

✧

down and brought it under control in about 20 minutes,” Bartlett added, “but the cleanup was another three hours.

WHEN 1981 WAS ETCHED IN THE BOOKS,

It was a mess.”

on the line reserved for the Charity Invitational Pro-Am,

there was a new entry

Thankfully, no one was injured, but the second story,

which returned to the club in early December. On the

Bartlett told the Post, was “pretty much destroyed.” The

contribution side, the four-year total had swelled to more

glass walls had blown out. The upper floor and its con-

than $250,000. As for the golf, it was as entertaining as

tents—the dining room and the kitchen—were casualties.

ever.

The damage extended to offices on the first floor—and

Participation increased to twenty-six teams, up two

with it a cache of club documents and records. As for

from 1980; the Senior and Touring Divisions each had

the courses themselves, they werespared. “The game

thirteen foursomes led by thirteen professionals. Sam

didn’t shut down,” George proudly emphasized. “There

Snead was back after a two-year hiatus and Roberto DiV-

was play the day of the fire. There was play the morning

icenzo signed on as a rookie recruit. So did Phil Green-

after.” There are, after all, priorities.

wald. Veteran Walker Cupper Jay Sigel, the 1979 British

That there are. Thanks to the benevolence of the membership, the unplayed 1980 pro-am wasn’t a total

Amateur champion who’d soon add the American crown to his collection, participated as a guest.

C O N T I N U E D

D E V E L O P M E N T S

Don January won the Seniors by seven strokes over Art Wall; John Cook, a newbie to the pro-am, prevailed among the Tourists, edging out Ed Sneed by a stroke. Both victors shot identical rounds of 69 and 74. Ken Venturi, captain of the winning foursome on Day Two, handed his $1,000 check back to back to the Medical Center. And in the most touching moment of the second-day’s closing ceremonies, George presented his old pal Snead with a photograph of the Slammer in his younger days to commemorate his many contributions to the game. There is one more participant to note, a Jupiter Hills member making his first appearance in the pro-am. He was from Houston. The program lists his home clubs as Jupiter Hills and Pine Valley, but his golfing quiver held Chapter 10 Sidebar on Crenshaw several more. His name was John Philip Diesel, though

he was known around campus—and everywhere else—as The Ben Crenshaw of the late 1970s

Jack.

wasn’t yet the acclaimed master of

Through the balance of the 1980s, he would chart

course design that he’d become in the

a new course for Jupiter Hills, replace Bill Ford as presi-

nineties with partner Bill Coore, but his

dent, and steer the club in a different direction. curiosity about the craft was already The sailing wasn’t always smooth.

keen. During one of his visits to the course, he eagerly accompanied George Fazio for a ride across the Hills Course that turned into an advanced seminar. “He talked about what a golf course should be,” recalled the two-time Masters champion, “what it should do for the golfer.” He emphasized the idea of ebb and flow. “I remember,” Crenshaw went on, “we stopped 150 yards off the tee on one hole

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THOUGH THE 68 THAT JIM SIMONS RECORDED ON DECEMBER 9, 1978, WAS A STROKE SHY OF THE 67S ALREADY IN BY BYRON NELSON IN 1970 and Ed Sneed in a casual round some years later, those 67s

Amateur in 2013. Kelly made five birdies on the first eight holes

weren’t forged in the heat of tournament conditions. Simons’s

and lipped out a birdie putt on the next that would have sent him

was. “The truth is,” as Bill Davis, the director of golf from 1989–

out with a 29 for the front nine. He settled for a 30, the second

2007 explains, “there are not many competitive records at Jupi-

competitive 30 posted there—two-time U.S. Amateur champion

ter Hills because there have been so few competitive events at

Jay Sigel preceded him at the 1987 Amateur.

Jupiter Hills.”

Those marks, it turns out, were place-holders for the remark-

There’s this truth, too: So much went unrecorded—or went

able 63 shot on the Hills by Paul Scaletta, then a thirty-seven-

AWOL—from the early years. Any number of the game’s elite

year-old assistant at The Bear’s Club in the opening round of the

could have done something extraordinary and thought noth-

South Florida PGA Section’s Southeast Chapter annual champi-

ing of it because the rounds were relaxed and the numbers only

onship on July 17, 2012, an event, a date, and a score that had fall-

meaningful to each other and, perhaps, their wallets. George cer-

en through the cracks until their recent resurrection. “I was just

tainly worked to maintain the course’s luster of difficulty and its

hitting it close and leaving it in the correct spot,” Scaletta says.

air of informality. The quality of experience was what counted,

Everything kicked in for him on the fourth fairway. He remem-

not the scores. So, might there have been a few friendly 67s—or

bers standing over his ball and visualizing the flight he wanted for

better—in the first decade that then pulled out of the parking lot

his approach to the green. “It just came right out of the picture I

without hoopla? We simply don’t know.

imagined. I thought, ‘I need to stay with this.’ ”

That said, there was Nelson and there was Simons and there was Sneed. Ed Sabo equaled Simons’s standard while playing with

He did. He nabbed two eagles and five birdies on the day, as bountiful an avian yield as the Hills has ever served.

a member during his tenure as the club’s director of golf in the

“He just blitzed the course,” recalls fellow competitor Bri-

1980s, then bested it with a 65 on the Hills, also in the company of

an Boushie, Jupiter Hills’s director of golf from 2007–2017. “I

a member. He once shot a 30 on the back nine, too. Sabo shrugs

know the course was shortened for the event”—to about 6,800

those numbers off. “I always putted out,” he says, but insists, “For

yards—“but it’s still a spectacular feat.”

a course record to be legitimate, it really has to be a competitive

And one that stands alone—a record, competitive or other-

course record with scorecards handed in and checked. That way

wise, Scaletta had no idea was his until 2019. Though it’s been

you know it’s for real.”

challenged, it’s unmatched.

Like Gardner Dickinson’s 68 in the 1979 pro-am.

Later in 2012, Luke Donald, playing a friendly round with for-

And like Mike Podolak’s. The 1984 U.S. Mid-Amateur champi-

mer British Open champion Ian Baker-Finch, joined Sabo in the

on matched Simons’s and Dickinson’s competitive standard in

non-competitive glow of 65, and in 2017, twenty-two-year-old for-

the second round of medal play at the 1987 U.S. Amateur.

mer Florida State star Joe Maguire equaled them, though his 65

Davis lowered that by two strokes in an informal round in the

was recorded in one of golf’s most grindingly cut-throat compe-

early 1990s, in the company of Mario di Federico, the club pres-

titions: a U.S. Open Regional Qualifier. After a 73 to start his day,

ident who’d hired him. Over the next decade, a pair of his assis-

Maguire changed putters and rolled his way to Chambers Bay.

tants—Tom Dyer and Kevin Johnson —also recorded non-competitive 66s on the Hills.

In 2018, Patrick Cantlay split the difference between them and Scaletta. Playing with fellow Tour pro and former U.S. Amateur

In the third round of the 2008 Florida State Amateur, Univer-

champion Peter Uihlein and their host, member Wally Uihlein,

sity of Central Florida’s David Johnson dropped the competitive

Peter’s father, Cantlay, once the top-ranked amateur in the solar

standard to 67, but his reign as King of the Hills was brief. In the

system, harvested a non-competitive 64 from the other-worldly

final round the next day, Florida Southern’s twenty-year-old Jude

Black Tees, which can extend just beyond 7,300 yards.

Eustaquio vaulted to the championship on the wings of a five-

Fittingly, the two Village marks of longest standing were es-

birdie-one-bogey 66. “This is definitely one of my best feats,” he

tablished by two of the club’s own. Former club manager Howard

said proudly. That 66 was matched by South Carolina’s Sean Kel-

Everitt matched his age with his 65 in 1981. A decade down the

ly—another twenty-year-old—in the opening round of the State

road, multiple Tour and Champions Tour winner Jerry Kelly—he

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Need photo of Hume 2008

virtually grew up at the club—brought that number down to

Tampa’s Tim Hume set it in the opening round of the 2008 State

63 playing with Davis, his teacher at the time. That 63 survived

Amateur. Jude Eustaquio continued his mastery of Jupiter Hills

unscathed until 2018 when South Africa’s Charl Schwartzel, the

by equaling it on the next. And in 2013, Thad Hudgens of Long-

2011 Masters champion, squeezed three strokes more from the

wood pulled beside them both in the State Amateur.

course, carding a magnificent 60.

And then there’s this. In the late nineties, Bill Davis went out

Given how tough the Village Course plays in competition—in

on the Hills with a trio of senior members—all 75 and up—and

the neighborhood of a stroke higher than the Hills—it’s no sur-

knocked down a 62. A 62! His overriding takeaway from it? “Playing

prise that there’s plenty of air between those non-competitive

from the green tees,” he says with some nonchalance, “I didn’t

standards and the competitive mark. No one’s ever bettered 68

help them a single stroke.”

on the Village in the crucible, though 68 has been hit three times.

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Photo of Tadeo and Marty Dietrich

USE 17078 and 1981 hotos from Jeffs dropbox

Club house burn down and rebuild photo afgter its burned.

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The club’s relationship to Jupiter Medical Center remains as strong as ever, though the annual charity golf event would be unrecognizable to George and the first participants. In 1982, the format changed to an all-Senior to-do, as it remained through 1984, it’s last year at Jupiter Hills for more than a decade. In 1985, the Medical Center took the show on the road, before instituting an entirely new format in 2009. From thereon, play would take place on two—then three—sites simultaneously with both local PGA pros and celebrity golfers leading the participating teams. Jupiter Hills remains unwavering in its support and commitment. “We live in this area,” says former club President Joe Taddeo, the chairman of the Medical Center Foundation’s board. “We want to support this hospital in ways that we can. This is the only golf event like it that we do.” As it’s been so enshrined by the club’s Board of Governors since December of 1990, when they approved bringing the proam back once every five years. Though the 1991 event had already been booked for Lost Tree, the Medical Center agreed to return to Jupiter Hills in April in an abbreviated rendition. It came back for more in 1996, 2003, and 2009. Specifically acknowledging George’s role in the pro-am’s genesis, the Board reaffirmed its commitment in 2012, and agreed that the club should host more frequently, and the club has—in 2012, 2013, 2016, and 2018. As Jupiter Hills entered its fiftieth anniversary season, former club President Marty Dytrych was named the new chair of the Medical Center’s board of trustees and Taddeo continued to chair the Foundation and serve on the board. Tom Fazio has been the tournament’s Honorary Chair for more than a decade. Former pros Bill Davis and Brian Boushie have led foursomes under the PGA Pro/Celebrity Golfer format, as has their successor Kevin Muldoon, as well as members—and Hall of Famers in their sports—Bob Griese, Bobby Orr, Billy Cunningham, and the late Rollie Massamino. “The golf tournament has been filled with great memories from the beginning,” says Tom Fazio. “I believe in the hospital. I will continue to support it. It’s another way for me to keep George’s dream going.”

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

Diesel Engine N THE SURFACE,

Jack Diesel was precisely the type of member that George Fazio had been reaching out to since

Day One. As president of Tenneco, the Houston-based industrial conglomerate, he was the kind of businessman who made things happen, got things done, and pushed back against any “no” when the answer he was looking for was “yes.” He was a golfer, and a good one, which was always a plus for George, as was this: He

arrived with no shortage of prestige memberships elsewhere. [SIDEBAR: JACK OF CLUBS] His entrée to Jupiter Hills came through the most impeccable channel: Bill Elliott. In 1967, Tenneco began its long courtship of Elliott’s ever-expanding Philadelphia Life Insurance Company. Nipping at its heels, Tenneco had picked up almost 25 percent of the company by 1977, when it decided to go all in. The takeover was completed in March of the following year. By then, Diesel was well ensconced in Tenneco’s executive suite—and on the Jupiter Hills roster, as well. “He would come out and play quite a bit of golf here,” recalls former assistant Dick Stewart. “He was always hosting captains of industry. He became a good friend of George’s.” Born in St. Louis in 1926, Diesel flew the Pacific with the U.S. Navy in World War II before graduating from Washington University in St. Louis with an engineering degree in 1951. Several corporate postings later, Tenneco tapped him in 1973 to run its shipyard, the world’s largest, in Newport News. His tenure there was both contentious and profitable; he played chicken with the navy over contract terms—and won. Tenneco named him an executive vice president over-

seeing natural gas pipelines and farm equipment with a seat on the board in 1976; he moved to Houston a year later and added chief executive officer to his titles in 1978. In 1979, he was named president. “George latched onto him because he was a big-time corporate honcho,” says Tom Fazio. “For George, that added credibility to Jupiter Hills.” As impressed with the man as he was with his resume, George genuinely liked Diesel. “They were like two peas in a pod,” remembers Ed Sabo, who knew them both well. “They played a lot of golf together. They really got along.” So much so that when George was building the nine cottages on SE Village Circle, he reserved the largest plot—at 11812— for Diesel and his wife Jan. [SIDEBAR: GOOD NEIGHBORS] The more George came to know Diesel, the more valuable he thought Diesel could be. Bill Ford was impressed with him, too, and Elliott, of course, was Diesel’s champion from the get-go. With development of the Village consuming him, and with less and less time available to keep eyes on the Hills, all three agreed that George needed an understudy. “He couldn’t wear both hats,” says Tom.

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There was an added complication to that. By 1981,

assumed, a friend willing, in the end, to take direction

George and the Bills had accepted that their earlier plan

from him and answer to him. Ford and Elliott were

for two separate clubs was a pipe dream. Housing sales

on board with that; both were ready to detach from

were falling behind expectation, and with that, so were

the responsibilities of decision-making going forward.

equity memberships in the proposed Village golf club.

George was about to turn seventy. Elliott was in his late

The financial realities dictated that the Hills and the Vil-

seventies. And though Ford, in his late fifties, was just a year older than Diesel, he’d been pres-

lage would have to be folded structurally into a single, equity-membership creature.

JACK DIESEL’S

ident since 1969, and writing the bulk

Looking ahead, it was clear to them that

portfolio of memberships

of the checks since 1968. They all saw

they would need someone to take control of

extended to both sides of

the future and understood the message

navigating what promised to be the complex

the Atlantic and included

it held: The Jupiter Hills Club they’d

and testy shoals they knew would attend the

Seminole, Cypress Point,

helped found and give direction to was

club’s passage into its next phase. For Ford, as much as the decision to begin the process of turning the club over to

Houston Country Club—his home base in Texas— Sunningdale, Royal St. George’s, Prestwick, and the

on the verge of a new chapter that would bring with it a sweeping alteration of the original vision that they’d shared.

the members made sense, getting there took

R&A. In 1982, his twen-

The laid-back era of let’s-put-on-a-golf

some soul-searching. The moment the origi-

ty-foot putt for birdie on the

club, of one-man rule, of a semi-relaxed

nal investors winnowed to four, he’d assumed

final hole at Pebble Beach

attitude about money was over; equity

the quartet would remain in place for as close

vaulted him and partner

membership meant hundreds of owners

to eternity as they could make it. This was,

Mark O’Meara to victory at

to answer to. Together, they had had

after all, more than a partnership for them— part middle-aged madness and part gift to George, who’d brought Ford, Elliott, and

the Crosby, giving him and George something else to bond over. Diesel served on the USGA’s Executive

their fun, and could have plenty more still, but new directions carried new burdens. Let someone else shoulder them.

Bob Hope together. Reality changed that.

Committee from 1984–1991,

In Diesel, they’d identified the

The economic reality. George’s health did,

and he proved instrumental

leader of the club’s next generation, the

too; as the four contemplated a new future

in bringing the 1987 U.S.

man they thought was the right man to

for the club, George was diagnosed with the

Amateur to Jupiter Hills.

negotiate the transition that would turn

cancer that ultimately claimed him. “When George became ill,” Ford said

what had been an enterprise owned and controlled by the Core Four over to its

in approach of the club’s quarter century, “we felt it was

members. Ford agreed that he’d give up his title, bestow

time to turn it over to the members. George never let

the presidency on Diesel at the end in 1984—Diesel

the course mature because he kept changing it, but the

assumed the role, if not the title, in 1983—and take on

changes cost money. It was time to operate the club like

the largely honorary mantle of chairman of the board. He

a business. Some of the members offered to purchase the

also agreed to compensate Diesel financially for the effort

club, but we felt it should be sold to all the members, not

he was about to undertake and the headaches that would

just a small group.”

accompany the assignment. Elliott retained the office of

George identified Diesel as the ideal member to

secretary/treasurer.

facilitate the sale, the proxy he could trust to stand in

The one thing they all overlooked when they

for him as presumptive potentate. Diesel was someone

weighed their plan and opted to go forward with it was

of obvious stature, authority, and acumen, and, George

that Diesel—the seasoned businessman who’d gone

1.USE TIT 2. George a 3. Du 4. Elli 5. Eve 6. Clubh 7. House

TLE Car amd Bill unn iott erett house e built

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toe-to-toe with the U.S. Navy and consumed the institu-

club entirely—in something like self-imposed exile.

tion Elliott spent decades building—was constitutionally

But that’s not at all how 1983 began.

incapable of being anyone’s proxy.

So much happened quickly.

Not when he could carve out a power base and com-

So much so quickly that it took on a life of its own.

mand from it. ✧ ✧

✧

AS DEVELOPER, IF THE LATE 1970S

✧

and first years of the eighties

tossed up George’s salad days, 1983, which

George was selective about picking the immediate neighbors who joined him

TO HELP SPUR

both housing sales and mem-

berships—both of which were lagging with too few of the former and barely 250 of the

began with great promise, devolved down-

in the cottages as the first

latter—George brought in a film crew at the

ward for him, spurred by both what he

residents of the

beginning of 1983 to shoot a promotional

could control and what he couldn’t. On the

Village; all shared the kinds

video of the golf courses and the homes

couldn’t side of the equation, George was

of bona fides George

taking shape along SE Village Circle. The

now seventy and his health was declining. He’d been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1981, and though it was in remission, he was not the same George. [SIDEBAR: TOM BRANCHES OUT]

admired. Besides the Diesels, they included General Motors Vice President Tom Darnton and his wife Sue, Acme United

raw footage was primitive, and the final version that was assembled went nowhere but a file cabinet in the old clubhouse, but the elements that came together for it were

President and CEO Henry

significant. The story it tells was how much

Wheeler and his wife Phyllis,

George’s friends remained behind him,

and in its way, more tragic. It could have

St. Regis Paper executive

how much they wanted to remain by him,

been preventable. Instead, it swelled into a

Henry Fales and his wife

and how much they wanted to help him

The “could” side is more complicated,

drama Euripides might have sketched; it’s elements—promulgated by hubris, propelled by overreach, and punctuated by decline and fall—were that timeless, that

Dorothy, and Canadian financier and real estate developer Robert Campeau, the one-time owner of Bloomingdales and Brooks

succeed. Bill Ford, always shy in a camera’s vicinity, sat down with George beneath the cathedral ceiling of George’s living room

human, and that catastrophic for its main

Brothers through his pur-

on SE Village Drive to reminisce about how

character. When the curtain came down,

chase of Federated Depart-

George found the land, how Jupiter Hills

George’s reign—and free rein—at Jupiter

ment Stores, and his wife Ilse.

was born, and how pleased they both were

Hills was over, the ties to two of the abid-

with how far it had all come. Ford’s wear-

ing friendships he’d built over half a life-

ing aqua slacks and a pink shirt beneath a

time were breached, and he headed north—away from the

blue blazer; George is also in a blue blazer—with white

With the golf courses in place, Tom Fazio became less of a presence at Jupiter Hills by 1980. He and his growing family were still living nearby, but he was largely on the road growing the business he took over from his uncle on his way to becoming a design institution. In 1985, the family moved to Henderson, North Carolina, and, other than coming in to touch up the two courses he’d helped his uncle create, he was largely absent from the club until 2000.

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shirt and khakis. What he’s not wearing is his white cap;

enter awkwardly—it’s all quite staged—and that’s that.

that cap was such a piece of his persona that seeing him

The Elliotts just disappear inside, never to be seen again.

without it is, frankly, jarring, like Churchill sans cigar.

The camera doesn’t follow them in or cut to intercept

Sitting on sofas catty-corner from each other, George

them when they cross the threshold. Which probably

with his arms folded across his chest, Ford with an arm

pleased Elliott to no end; like Ford, he eschewed the lime-

resting on his sofa’s edge, the two come across as a pair

light. But to help George, he’d show up and hit his mark.

of old soldiers who’d lived their share of adventures, old

And there’s Howard Everitt whacking shots on the

friends with a happy tale to tell.

course, his swing still silky in his late sixties. And there’s

“We’ve come a long way, haven’t we?” asks George.

Jimmy Dunn, the publisher of Forbes, stepping off the

They sure had.

17th tee of the Village Course to offer a testimonial. “I’m

“I think we really achieved what we set out to do,”

in constant amazement and happiness with the place,”

Ford says proudly. “Two great golf courses, good land

he avers. “The appeal of Jupiter Hills is the seclusion.

development, a wonderful place to live.”

It’s a marvelously private golf course.” He’s just getting

George nods. “I guess it’s a dream come true, but

started. “The whole ambience of the place, the condo-

usually dreams do not come up to expectations, but I

miniums, the various homes that are being built on the

think it’s fair to say”—his voice almost cracking here—

course, just makes an excellent place for the kind of liv-

“this one over-exceeded it.”

ing that I like—quiet, uninhibited, ideal for golf. You

In another section of footage, the tall, gaunt frame

don’t have starting times at Jupiter Hills. You don’t have

of Bill Elliott strolls with his second wife Muriel—Mar-

men’s scrambles at 9 a.m. You don’t have 9-holers at

jorie Elliott passed away in 1977, a year short of their

9:30. There’s never a starting time. There’s never a wait-

Golden Anniversary—up to George’s front door. They

ing time. It’s the perfect place to play golf.”

Photo of range today large

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And there’s George driving around the Hills in a cart making daily rounds. And there’s aerial footage of both

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on Phase I construction, there was never going to be a money-shot view to the ocean.

courses from a helicopter. And beauty shots of the flora

Nor was there enough choice in the models that had

and the ponds, images of home-building and the old club-

been designed to appeal to a discerning base of potential

house with a few members having lunch as the waitstaff

buyers.

self-consciously walks in and out of frame. And down-

And then there was this, exemplified by Don Six.

stairs, at the front desk, a helpful receptionist works on

When he bought his SE Circle Drive lot overlooking the

plane reservations for a member; as actors, they may be

third fairway, he opted to leave it vacant for the time

synonyms for wood, but there is no mistaking their mes-

being. “George changed the rules every Monday, Wednes-

sage: What a perfect place to live; what a perfect place to

day, and Friday about what a house could look like,” he

play; what a perfect place to be part of.

says with a laugh. “You never knew what you could build

What survives has a rushed and amateur quality to it, but it had purpose. It was an attempt to keep George and the development going. Because this much

and what you couldn’t.” Hence, sales had fallen behind, but costs and payroll hadn’t. George was struggling to meet both.

is also clear: More than five years after the development

Yet, when he’d learned in 1982 that Dickinson State

agreement had been approved by the county, not enough

Park wanted more land abutting Trapper Nelson’s and

homes had been sold. Not enough homes had been built.

was—again—willing to make a swap, this time for the

Beyond the cottages and the condominiums beside the

thirty-acre slice running between Highway 1 and the rail-

clubhouse, SE Village Circle in that extant footage looked

road tracks just north of the Hills course, George was all

as wide open as the Dakotas.

in. He financed his end of the transaction with another

Yet, George soldiered on. When the first homes went up, he’d reached out to a professional—as so many through the years had reached out to him—by enlisting the Jupiter Island firm of Fenton and Lang, Martin Coun-

loan from the bank—this time for $400,000. [SIDEBAR: NO HOMES ON THE RANGE] The accountant was apoplectic. Bill Elliott was apoplectic. So was Bill Ford.

ty’s leading real estate brokers, to marshal the sales office.

Still, George proceeded. But when he went back to

Then he mis-stepped. He believed he could do better with

the bank in the early spring of 1983 for one more infu-

his own team. He couldn’t.

sion of funding, Ford and Elliott decided enough was

“He was no real estate salesman,” says Tom. “He

enough. Their well had hit bottom. Elliott refused to sign

was too quirky. He wouldn’t sell to someone he didn’t

off on the loan, which meant there would be no loan.

like the looks of. If a guy didn’t look like a golfer, no. If he

Tom remembers it well. “Bill told him his real estate plan

wasn’t from the right club in Philly, he wouldn’t sell. That

wasn’t working. Bill told him he would have to sell the

was George. You could see where this was all going.”

real estate to somebody and get out of it.” In one way, the decision was a relief, at least for

There were other issues. Neither the cottages, the condos, nor the majority

Elliott. Rod Ross came to know Elliott well over their

of the first forty-three lots approved by the county for the

more than forty-year association that began shortly after

Phase I development were sited to make the most of what

the Korean War when Ross, a veteran, applied to Elliott

land planners call “the view shed,” in this case the lovely

for a job. Elliott mentored him; in the 1970s, Ross took

panorama that takes in the golf courses and the park

over as president of Philadelphia Life when Elliott rose

north and west, and given the two-story height restriction

to chairman. Through the years, they played a lot of golf

Sabo

and

Wyatt

and

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together—including at Jupiter Hills where Ross regularly

but nothing close to the size and scope of what awaited

visited the Elliotts—and they shared each other’s confi-

at Jupiter Hills. Wyatt introduced him to George, and

dences. “Bill loved George,” he says. “He was very patient

they got along right away, which came as no surprise to

with George. It pained him to see George struggling. But

Tom Fazio; he also knew and liked Matevia. But it was

he knew George was spending too much and he worried

George liking him that most mattered and he liked Mat-

that Jupiter Hills couldn’t withstand it anymore.”

evia enough to bring him in to meet Ford, who endorsed

It was time.

the idea of Matevia’s entrance into the picture.

Saying “no” to George affected Elliott deeply. His

“George felt he could still hold on some and guide

daughter Katherine recalls the aftermath. “It was one

Matevia through this process,” recalls Tom. “He felt

of the hardest things he ever had to do,” she says. “My

he could help Matevia and still stay involved. George

father was a very loyal person. It eventually changed the

thought he could control Matevia. He thought he could

nature of their friendship.”

sell to Matevia and still control the project. It was wishful

It ended it.

thinking.”

George’s unbreakable bond with Bill Ford broke,

Matevia arrived with his own dreams and plans—

too. Sadly, says Peter Morse, “There was never a

but George Fazio wasn’t part of them. By mid-summer,

reconciliation.”

Matevia had had raised enough money—$8.7 million— through the bank and through investors to buy all the ✧

✧

land south of the Hills Course other than the golf course, which was still owned by the Jupiter Hills Club. On

STILL, GEORGE HAD ONE MORE CARD to

try to play to try keeping

his hand in the game. He’d known the ground beneath him was shaky,

August 12, 1983, Matevia’s purchase of the deed to the land from Jupiter Hills Village Incorporated was entered into Martin County’s record book.

that he was heavily mortgaged, that the debt rested

The timing was fortuitous. Earlier that month,

squarely on him, and now he knew, too, that there would

Community Federal Savings and Loan Association of the

be no more bail-out from his friends. To exacerbate cir-

Palm Beaches filed suit to foreclose on its mortgage—just

cumstances, the economy was headed toward another

over $1 million plus interest still outstanding—held by

recession, not as bad as the country experienced in the

George and the Village. The new deal erased that and

seventies, but a downturn is a downturn, and a downturn

made George whole again. When all was said and done,

was exactly what George didn’t need.

after every penny of debt had been repaid, Ford and

Elliott and Ford had told him to sell. What he

Elliott saw to it that George was made better than whole.

needed was to find someone who would take over the

Whatever was owed them, they passed onto George—

development and the debt he was carrying.

more than $1.6 million.

Fast. Club manager Frank Wyatt had the guy George was looking for in North Palm Beach attorney Tom Matevia. They’d known each other for years. [SIDEBAR: FRANK WYATT] Just forty at the time, Matevia was trying to segue

They didn’t have to do that, but they did. “Because they liked him,” explains Tom. “They felt he deserved it in spite of himself. It had been a tough time for him.” Which he’d make tougher by walking away and closing the door on two dear friends whose primary intent was to help him. [SIDEBAR: BEYOND THE HILLS]

into real estate. He’d cut his teeth on a few small-scale

Phyllis Valenti, for one, has thought long and hard

developments, including Portage Village near Lost Tree,

about this dynamic through the years. Why he had to

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Before the land swap could be completed, George fell behind on the loan. When it appeared he might default, four members took over the transaction with the intent of building about thirty houses on it. In the late eighties, during the transition period, veteran members Don Six and Mario DiFederico, the former president of Firestone Tire and Rubber who would replace Jack Diesel to become the first president of the member-owned Jupiter Hills in 1989, met with the owners of the parcel to negotiate a deal to purchase it for the club and take it out of potential development. “We didn’t want any more houses on the golf course,” recalls Six. “That’s why we worked so hard.” When they’d gotten the price down to $1.8 million, Six and DiFederico still had work to do; they had to come up with the money. Walking into the locker room after playing one afternoon, they saw Bill Ford, alone in the first bay of lockers, lacing up his spikes. “We told him about what we were doing,” says Six. “He didn’t seem to know much about the piece of ground, so we told him the whole story.” They suggested that if Ford agreed to put up $1 million for the purchase, they could commit the membership to put up the rest. “We had no right to do this,” Six concedes, “but we did.” Ford told them he was going back to Detroit for a few days and wanted to think about it. Ford’s lawyer called shortly after with the news: They had a deal. Though the land now belonged to the club, it sat idly for several years, largely because the Homeowners Association kept turning down the idea of building a deluxe practice facility there. When Frank Schanne, a member since 1987, became head of the association in the early 1990s, he resolved to turn that around. He sold the idea to his fellow homeowners at a meeting attended by more than 150 with the argument that as more people buy homes in the Village, more will want to practice and take lessons, and the existing facility south of the clubhouse couldn’t handle the potential traffic. “We’ll need that range,” he told them. “We have to do it.” He received a fervent endorsement from member Charlie Morin, a well-known securities attorney based in Washington who had just been voted onto the club’s Board of Governors. “Listen to this guy,” he rose to tell them. “This is what we’re here talking about—the future. Listen to what he’s saying.” The association did and the Board did, too. In December of 1992, the Governors voted approval, and in March of 1993, allocated $100,000 for funding. Construction began the following February, was completed in early summer, and, with Tom Fazio

close that door. Why he had to walk away rather than

how generous Bill was throughout. What was so sad was

fade into the scenery. “Jupiter Hills was his life,” she says.

how much promise this all had.”

“He loved Jupiter Hills. He loved talking about Jupiter ✧

Hills. He loved everything about Jupiter Hills. When this

✧

happened, it killed him. It was like putting a dagger in his heart.”

NOT SURPRISINGLY,

the inevitable friction that was latent in

Peter Morse agrees. “George was bitter. I think he

the hierarchy between George and Diesel—the immov-

felt a sense of betrayal. He let it eat him to the end, and

able force and the irresistible object—had sparked fire.

you could see it wasn’t going to get any better. It was very

Friends and neighbors when Diesel’s ascension began, they

sad.”

were still neighbors on SE Village Drive, but as 1982 turned Elliott and Ford both felt that from their end. The

into 1983 and 1983 progressed, they barely spoke. George

overriding sadness. The wall that went up between them

couldn’t abide the idea of power sharing, and, frankly,

and George. The sense it would never come down. “They

neither could Diesel. “He was running the place,” remem-

had such a great relationship with George for so long,”

bers Ed Sabo. “He’d become the boss. That’s when he and

Morse goes on. “I don’t think George fully understood

George became enemies. George had always been able

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tour. “It was hardly developed at the time,” Kania recalls. He decided to buy one of the condo apartments next to the clubhouse. “As we got into our membership, in due course, we could build a larger home.” And in due course they did. But one day, not long after joining, Kania was in his cart when he spotted George walking on the golf course by himself. “I ran over to say hello to him, and I said, ‘George, I’m still relatively new and wet behind the ears as far as Jupiter Hills is concerned. Would you mind riding around with me a little bit and showing me what this golf course is all about?” George was delighted. What he said next was telling. “I’d be happy to let you see it as it is before they spoil it.” Kania was confused. “What do you mean spoil it? It’s a wonderful place.” George, accurately reading the tea leaves from the pot boiling over between him and Diesel continued. “Yeah, I know it’s a wonderful place, but I don’t think to do what he wanted at Jupiter Hills. Now he couldn’t.

they’re gonna let it be as natural as it is and looking as

When they were in the same room together, George would

much like a course you might have up north as it does. I

go to one side and Jack would go to the other.”

recognize things will change. I’m no longer in control of

Philadelphia attorney and businessman Art Kania

what’s gonna happen here.”

had known George for two decades when he decided to

Diesel was.

make his winter home in the Palm Beach area in the early

“The original group,” says Kania, “had splintered.

1980s. He and George had met at Pine Valley, continued

They were concerned about the dissension that was brew-

their friendship at Squires, where Kania was an early mem-

ing between George and Jack and the negative impact

ber, and then went into business when Kania brought in

that it could have on membership and housing sales.

George to redesign the 1920s golf course near Atlantic

With George being moved out, the club began to take on

City that Kania and a partner were turning into Greate

a new identity.”

Bay, a new golf club and hotel with villas.

Diesel was exerting his authority. By the end of

The two had already intersected in several ways

1983, Sabo had become its most visible beneficiary. That

when they ran into each other one day at Seminole, which

spring, Phil Greenwald carefully read his own set of tea

Kania told George he was thinking of joining. “You might

leaves. At seventy-three, after fourteen years at Jupi-

want to take a look at what we’re doing up here at Jupi-

ter Hills and more than fifty years in the business, he

ter Hills,” George suggested. Kania thought, why not?

announced his retirement. Diesel had already identified

He’d played there several times as a guest, and he realized

Sabo as heir apparent.

it might make more sense for his family than Seminole.

“We’d been friends for a long time,” says Sabo.

He drove up to meet with George and Diesel and take a

[SIDEBAR: ED SABO] They met as golfers do, through the

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As innovative, involved and capable a general manager as Frank Wyatt was—and by all accounts he was that—his tenure ended abruptly in the fall of 1988. Phyllis Valenti remembers the moment well. “I was sitting at the dining room table when his picture came on the news. You could have knocked me over with a feather.” Wyatt had just been arrested for drug running. According to the federal indictment, Wyatt had participated in the largest smuggling operation—dubbed the Pinder Cartel for its leader, Claude Avon Pinder, aka “Kingfish”—identified to that date in Palm Beach County. The indictment alleged that Kingfish and his cohorts had imported fifteen thousand pounds of marijuana into Palm Beach, Martin, and St. Lucie counties in 1985, and was thought to have smuggled in a total of one hundred thousand pounds of pot and another twenty-five hundred of cocaine between 1982 and the Grand Jury indictment. Wyatt was fifty-nine at the time of his arrest and had been employed by the club for several years. Though he was acquitted in 1991, the details presented by U.S. Attorney at the trial in Ft. Lauderdale were fascinating. Wyatt’s son, then in his late twenties and also charged, claimed to have just met his father—his parents divorced when he was a baby—when Wyatt asked him to come along for some deep-sea fishing off the Bahamas during the 1985 Memorial Day weekend. Witnesses—all admitted drug dealers who’d copped pleas—claimed that, while at sea, the Wyatts took on a delivery of thirty-seven bales of marijuana from the Pinders, but opted not to immediately unload them when they docked Wyatt’s thirty-one-foot sport fisherman at the North Palm Beach Marina. A few days later, they drove the boat to Riviera Beach. There, prosecutors claimed they stacked their cargo into two vans. Pinder was convicted at trial in 1991; federal agents pointed to his operation, as reported by the Palm Beach Post, as “the oldest and most successful family-run drug ring” in Palm Beach County. Wyatt, who’d maintained his innocence throughout, watched the case against him fall apart when the key witness admitted he’d never seen Wyatt before coming face to face with him in the courtroom. But the damage was done. Wyatt’s career as a club manager was over. Wyatt’s replacement—Craig Waskow—was immensely popular. On the road to Jupiter Hills, he’d managed Sankaty Head on Nantucket, Seminole, and Old Marsh. His tenure was shortened by a heart attack in early 1991; he recovered and moved on.

game they share, in the seventies—at Jupiter Hills, during

Hills’s early cast of regulars. “I thought it was easily the

one of Sabo’s regular visits. Diesel then invited Sabo down

best golf course in Florida.” [NOTE: WE HAVE DIESEL’s

as his partner for the annual pro-am at Houston Country

1984 LETTER MAKING GREENIE AN HONORARY

Club. They became friendlier. “We’d go over to Sunning-

MEMBER. We can run it with an extended caption]

dale together,” says Sabo, “then come back and play at Jupiter Hills.”

Sabo took over in October of 1983. George was no longer there. He’d moved with Barbara up to Port

A winner on Tour—he played ninety-nine events in

St. Lucie to design and build a new golf course with his

the Big Leagues between 1975 and 1980, capturing the

nephew Jim, and he took with him two of Jupiter Hills’s

1976 Buick Open—Sabo left the grind to become director

most recognizable presences—Jack Gately and Gar God-

of golf at the Country Club of Fairfield in Connecticut.

dard. “They all just vanished from our lives,” says Phyllis

Sabo was in Fairfield when Diesel called. “He asked me if

Valenti.

I’d come down and be the golf pro. He told me Phil was going to retire and they’d be doing something nice for him. I’d always loved Jupiter Hills.” And had deep ties to it. He’d met his first wife Barbara at the club. She was the daughter of George’s friend from Philadelphia, Merion course-record holder Jacques Houdry, one of Jupiter

Yes, everything at Jupiter Hills was changing—and it was changing at warp speed. [MATEVIA SIDEBAR ON VILLAGE]

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By the fall of 1983, George and Barbara Fazio had moved to Port St. Lucie where George and nephew Jim Fazio had already begun work on designing and building George’s final project, The Reserve Golf & Tennis Club, which the Fazios owned and operated. Since renamed The Legacy—in George’s honor—it remains a private club, the only one within the gates of the PGA Village resort. It opened in February of 1984, and Barbara sold it after George died in 1986. The statue of a young boy in an oversized cap and oversized kilties wielding an oversized putter was installed in front of the pro shop by a subsequent owner as a tribute to George. It is called, simply, “The Faz.” [PIC OF STATUE] The Fazios moved back to their cottage on SE Village Drive not long after the Reserve opened, but Jupiter Hills had become an alien universe for George. Once the shaper of everything happening around him, he’d been relegated to an unfamiliar role: bystander. “He had other projects through the years,” says Tom, “but his real heart was focused on Jupiter Hills, and when the dream ended, his heart was broken. I was really mad at him for blowing his dream. He did it himself. Nobody did it to him. I thought he would die here in charge.” He did die there, at home, in his cottage, on Friday, June 6, 1986. He would have turned seventy-four that November.

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Following a pastel legend like Phil Greenwald isn’t easy, but Ed Sabo never balked. His reputation preceded him: PGA Tour winner, solid club experience, a link to George, and a familiarity with Jupiter Hills osmosed over a decade of navigating its fairways. During his first years on Tour, he even listed Jupiter Hills as his golfing home. Born in Ohio in 1949, he grew up in Georgia, learned the game at Druid Hills Country Club—he won the junior championship five times and the club championship seven—and captained the golf team at Georgia State University. He turned professional shortly after graduation, serving as assistant to two of the game’s master teachers: Davis Love Jr. at Atlanta Country Club and Jack Lumpkin at both Cherokee Town and Country Club in Atlanta and Oak Hill in Rochester. For good measure, he put in time as an assistant at The Everglades Club. When he left the Tour in 1980, he took over the program at Country Club of Fairfield, a toney outpost with a course designed by Seth Raynor on Long Island Sound. He promptly won three consecutive Connecticut State Opens. The week before moving to Jupiter Hills in 1983, he added the prestigious Metropolitan PGA Section Championship to his résumé. In his six years at Jupiter Hills, Sabo reconceived the golf shop; shepherded a series of more organized programs for men and women; continued to play well competitively on the local and national stage; and was, of course, the host professional for the 1987 U.S. Amateur. “It was easily the best job in golf anywhere,” he says fondly. And a hard one to leave. But when he was lured north in the fall of 1989 to open Laurel Creek Country Club in Moorestown, New Jersey, as its first director of golf, the hook was planted via Jupiter Hills; Laurel Creek’s founder and first president was developer Jay Cranmer, a Jupiter Hills member. While there, he qualified for the 1992 PGA Championship before moving on in 1993 to the Atlantic Golf Club on the south fork of the Long Island fishtail, then back to Florida. As the teaching pro at Bear Lakes Country Club in West Palm Beach, he won the Florida State Senior Open and the PGA National Senior Club Professional Championship in both 2000 and 2001, and was anointed PGA Senior Professional Player of the Year in 2000. He lives today in Pinehurst, North Carolina, and plays golf as often as he can at Pinehurst’s historic resort, where he’s a member.

FROM THE MOMENT HIS DEAL

WAS COMPLETED,

TOM MATEVIA BROUGHT NEW ENERGY AND DIRECTION TO THE VILLAGE development, though getting Bill Ford to sign off on the sale was

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

almost as unnerving as the agreement itself. Michael Redd re-

“Other than brain surgery,” Redd likes to say, “I know of noth-

members it distinctly. Once Matevia got serious about the Vil-

ing more difficult than land development.” That might sound

lage, he called Redd. The two had known each other for years, a

self-serving coming from a land planner, but there’s truth to it,

fortuitous relationship given Redd’s position as president of Palm

especially when developing is confined to the open lanes around

Beach’s go-to land-planning firm, Team Plan. “The clientele and

a curling snake of a golf course already in place. The course de-

tradition of Jupiter Hills required the best design team available,”

fined what could—and couldn’t—follow. Planners and develop-

Matevia later told the Fort Lauderdale News, “and it was our feel-

ers prefer a clean slate, something Ed Stone and EDSA had; Redd

ing that Team Plan had the sensitivity to address the unique char-

and Team Plan would have to work around the eighteen holes

acter of our project.”

they inherited. So, from the start of the new collaboration, SE

But before Redd and company could address anything, Ford

Village Circle, SE Village Drive, and the condo units between the

had to affix his stamp on the sale.

clubhouse and the cottages stood

Matevia flew to Detroit in late July

pat. Everything else not part of the

for Ford’s signature.

playing field was in play.

“It was just supposed to be an

What exactly everything else

up and back,” says Redd, “but he

would be would be determined over

had to camp out for three days be-

time by a strict order of succession.

fore Bill Ford would see him.” Mat-

“You can’t do things in a vacuum,”

evia was the last thing on Ford’s

Redd says. “The first thing we needed

mind. Billy Sims was front and cen-

was a new survey with all that exist-

ter.

ed.” Redd knew the old plan well; he

The Detroit Lions’ training

had learned his craft under Stone at

camp was about to open with the

EDSA, and though he hadn’t worked

All-Pro running back and former

on the Village project, he was grate-

Heisman Trophy winner about to

ful to those who had: “They had the

rush into the final year of his con-

good sense to keep the development

tract. Sims had insisted for months

parcel wide enough.” With the new

that if a new agreement wasn’t

survey in hand, Redd overlaid a new

in place before camp started, he

Master Plan atop what he’d been giv-

would shut down negotiations un-

en. Redd finished his first pass in No-

til the season was over. Though an offer then on the table would

vember. Finding new possibilities for subdivisions that had not

have made Sims one of the highest-paid players in the game, the

yet been zoned, his next step was to go back to Martin County

talks had reached an impasse. Ford was openly pessimistic about

for new approvals. He got the first of them in May of 1984. New

keeping Sims in silver and blue, but he refused to give in—or give

construction began in June.

up—and he did neither. Ultimately, Sims re-signed. After the season.

Of the forty-three lots on the EDSA plan for Estate Homes around SE Village Circle Drive, only eight had houses built on

When Matevia was finally ushered in to Ford’s office, Ford,

them when Matevia took over. Redd reconfigured the Circle

to Matevia’s relief, was considerably more expeditious in signing

Drive lots to make room for fifteen more and added the first thir-

than Sims was.

ty-eight homes that would comprise the higher-density and very

Then the real work began.

golfy-sounding Prestwick Villas soon to go up around a series of new roads: SE Prestwick Terrace and SE Prestwick Lane as well

205

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as SE Crestview Place, SE Ferland Court, and the northern tip of

a construction company on site. He’d assembled an architectur-

SE Bottlebrush Drive.

al review committee to approve reasonable modifications to the

Looking to the future, Redd veered east off the Circle Drive

floorplans of the town homes and villas. (The specs governing

to create Intracoastal Court (later changed to Intracoastal Ter-

Estate Homes were even looser.) Taken together, that added up

race), which he set aside for another thicket of Estate Homes.

to an improved sales pitch to potential buyers: one-stop shop-

And though this version of the plan left the expanse surrounded

ping with more flexibility in design and custom features than

by the bulk of SE Bottlebrush Drive and the eighth, ninth, 12th,

George had presented. “Those things get you started,” Matevia

13th, and 14th holes in its native state of overgrowth, set within

said. “Sales beget sales.”

the pines on his plan is a placeholder. Looking ahead, he’d planted

As did the club’s continuing realignment to equity member-

thirteen small letters in its midst: “Future Housing”—and that’s

ship. “Without an equity position, the property is unique at best,”

what grew there. By the end of the decade, those forests gave

Sam McRoberts, Matevia’s vice president of sales, assured the pa-

way to clusters of Birkdale Courtyard homes, the town houses

per. “But with equity, it’s outstanding.” Yet—then as now—build-

(complete with private elevators), and the Glenhighland residenc-

ing or buying in the community didn’t guarantee entrée to golf

es so Scottish in name they could have been painted in tartan.

and the club; Matevia cleverly found ways around that. Through

Over time, Matevia and Redd revisited the plan several times.

a clause that made final sales contingent on membership, he

Some of their revisions were small: a road curving here, a setback

provided buyers an emergency exit ramp they’d never have to

shaved there, and the planting of community tennis courts and

take because he’d personally secured thirty-three memberships

swimming pools. Some were significant: the later subdivisions

as part of his agreement when he acquired the property; they

and the laying of SE Pineneedle Lane. All propelled momentum.

were his to dole out if needed. (He sold thirty-two back to the

Three years after taking over, Matevia looked back at what

club in 1989. The mathematical discrepancy is accounted for by

amounted to his baptism under fire for a story on the cover of

the certificate he’d embossed with his own name. He held onto

the Palm Beach Post’s Sunday Home section. The headline: “Jupi-

it until 1996.)

ter Hills Village Built Around Golf.”

One of the photos that ran with the piece showed that activity

“I was under a lot of pressure when I first bought the prop-

had, in fact, been brisk—sales do beget sales. The year following

erty,” he recalled. He didn’t have much to sell and he didn’t have

the 1987 U.S. Amateur was even brisker. As Jack Diesel suspect-

anyone to sell it for him. Now he had both. He’d established a

ed in early 1985 when he proposed to his fellow USGA Executive

small sales office on the property under the name Jupiter Hills

Committee members that Jupiter Hills host the event, the media

Village Realty. He had access to a Team Plan architect. He brought

coverage that went hand-in-hand with the championship raised

206

newspapers.com/image/129619768

The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Florida)

· Sun, Feb 9, 1986 · Page 135 Downloaded on Aug 2, 2018

Need 2001 Housing Ad from Dropbox

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State of Florida Incorporation paper

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C H A P T E R T W E LV E

Transitions HE WHISPERING.

That’s what they remember most. The whispers. The questions.

The uncertainty. The sense of not knowing what waited around the corner, not knowing how Jupiter Hills would bear up to the

changes taking place, not knowing how they would weather the transition to what their club might become, and not knowing what obstacles might be pop up along the route the club would have to take to get to its next version of itself. No one even knew whether Jupiter Hills would still be Jupiter Hills with George Fazio no longer on the throne, scepter in one hand, shovel in the other. So the members whispered among themselves. The staff whispered, too. They whispered in pairs. They whispered in clusters. On the range. In the locker room. At the halfway house. Wherever they gathered. Wherever they passed. They whispered. From her perch behind the 10th tee, Phyllis Valenti could hardly avoid the chatter. Between fixing hamburgers, hot dogs, and chicken salad sandwiches, she was too preoccupied to tune into conversations per se, but she knew what members were talking about—and why. “It was the unknown,” she says. “That’s why there were so many hushed tones. Do we stay? Do we go? It was turmoil. Nobody knows what Jupiter Hills was gonna be.” Ed Sabo picked up the vibe in the pro shop. “When I first started,” he says, “everybody was so excited. Jack Diesel was gonna take this fantastic golf club and turn it over to the members. But before you knew it, the members were sitting on edge.” Not knowing can do that. They didn’t know the hows. They didn’t know the how much. And there was no customer service desk in place to sort things out for them. So they whispered. They speculated. They told themselves stories. It’s not like Jack Diesel was calling membership meetings to explain the whats and wherefores. Like George, he saw himself as commander-in-chief; unlike George, he was a largely absentee lord of the realm, a few weeks at Tenneco, a few days at the club, then back and forth again. George may have been feared, but he was also respected, admired and even loved. At Jupiter Hills, Diesel was feared. Period. His style wasn’t one to engender devotion. The members approached

OPPOSITE: Volorest, Busandes sinctotaes maione porporio. Sam, sequo dem ella nimus dolor solupti

orehendunt mi, ommolor rem dollita tquiate nobis aspe.

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him as a high-powered hired hand.

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Don Six, realize that—and that they’d need Mario eyes and diFederico ears on the

That established, he still may have been the right

ground to keep them up on everything and to stand in

man to see this through. Transitions are hard. They

for the members’ interests throughout the transition

demand tough choices. They require tough hides. Die-

period. With their lawyers, they came up with the idea

sel displayed a surfeit for both. The ability to win hearts

of an Advisory Committee, inscribed it in the legal doc-

and minds? Not so much. “He wasn’t around enough for

uments going forward, then filled it with three members

members to have much contact with him,” says Don Six.

they trusted implicitly—Six, Mario DiFederico, and Bill

“Members didn’t have much connection with him. He

Bullock. [SIDEBAR: BILL BULLOCK] All were accom-

wasn’t George. Members didn’t like him much.” [SIDE-

plished men with sterling reputations, an unvarnished

BAR: JACK DIESEL AND HIS DECORATOR]

passion for the game, and deep-set appreciation for Jupi-

Bill Ford and Bill Elliott were savvy enough to

Part of what fired flares from the membership about Jack Diesel was the disapprobation surrounding him. One of the first moves he made when he took charge was to hire a decorator to redo the clubhouse; though he was married, he entered into a relationship with her. That should have been no one’s business but their own, but her assignment made it the club’s, too. Disapproval for one became disapproval for the other. “Most didn’t care for her taste,” remembers Ed Sabo. “It definitely wasn’t George’s. It went away from the old George Fazio look.” The dining room color was changed.

Minutes. Heic Photo use midSix. section Part of what was necessary dle was to understand the after Written mechanisms propelling the equity “ membership and being able to answer questions about Action” them, but in terms of ter Hills. Their brief? “We did what was necessary,” says

power, they would be limited. They could advise. They could cajole. And they could entreat. But they had no authority over policy; that would continue to rest with Diesel, Ford, and Elliott. In the meantime, questions kept building. At the beginning of the 1984–1985 season, the answers would start to come. Until then, the whispers continued.

New patterns draped the walls. The locker room lost

✧

its utilitarian comfort. “She was charging outrageous prices,” recalls Babe Cosentino. “But Jack Diesel never

decided to sell, they retained the Palm

cared. One of the members even told me that she redec-

ONCE THE FOUNDERS

orated his house and the club paid for it. There was a lot

Beach law firm of Alley, Maass, Rogers & Lindsay to

of dissension with the members.”

work with Lloyd Fell—Ford’s longtime attorney and the

Everything seemed altogether too, well, posh. “It didn’t look very good,” says Sabo. “It all”—the combination of refurbishment and relationship—“got everybody pissed off.” Bill Elliott, for one, kept his cool and kept his founder’s focus. As the locker room was being redone, he quietly salvaged much of the old comfortable furnishings. Shortly before he died in 1989, as the equity deal was

trustee overseeing the Founders’ interests—to ensure that all was according to Hoyle on the critical documents Jupiter Hills would need to move ahead. The first was the club’s Articles of Incorporation. The second was the Option Agreement on the sale to the membership. The original Bylaws followed on their heels. The incorporation papers for the new Jupiter Hills

being finalized, Elliott returned what he had to the club,

Club, Inc.—the guts of the name remained—were filed

in effect restoring the locker room to its old familiar self.

in Tallahassee on August 29, 1984, and signed the next day by Florida’s Secretary of State George Firestone. The articles extended over four pages of linguistic boiler-plate

T R A N S I T I O N S

with a few specifics worth noting. The reborn Jupiter

membership corporation was referred to henceforward as HILLS CLUB; the Founders—and what

Hills Club “shall commence to exist” with the filing of these pages; its existence, hence-

THE VICE PRESIDENT

they founded—were covered beneath the umbrella of JUPITER GOLF.

forth, “is perpetual”—barring any decision

of a large woolen concern,

to dissolve itself. It would be organized as

New Englander Bill Bullock

a non-profit corporation “to acquire own-

was as characteristically

in essence, a two-headed monster that

ership or control of and operate and main-

sturdy and dependable as

shouldered weighty implications because,

tain golf courses, a clubhouse and related recreational and social amenities” on the property. Membership would be limited to four hundred Proprietary Members—“proprietary” defined as “entitled to share in the

the product he sold. The proof is in his marriage. His wife Marjorie died just shy of their seventy-first wedding anniversary; Bill followed in 2014, less than a year later.

What the documents created was,

as set up in their pages, Ford, Elliott, and Hope controlled both parties in the transaction: the Hills Club and Jupiter Golf. They would continue to control them until the deal was done, and the

assets” if the club ever liquidated—and ten

personification of that control was Jack

Honorary Members who would be identi-

Diesel. As their designated leader of the

fied in the Bylaws that would follow later in

transition, he was in place to represent

the year. No capital stock would be issued; certificates of

their interests, not those of the members. So, peel away the verbiage in the

membership would. ON NOVEMBER 30, 1984,

paperwork and what remains is this:

Board of Governors would consist of no less

the deck shuffled: Jack Die-

Ford, et. al. were in the enviable position

than three and no more than nine, with the

sel replaced Harold Maass

of being both buyer and seller simulta-

initial three Governors coming from the

as president of the club and

neously. Their legal team set the option

Article VIII addressed governance. The

Alley Maass firm: founding partner Harold G. Maass, Paul B. Erickson, and Ted Jewell, but they were nothing more than place-holders until they could designate successors.

Bill Elliott was installed as vice president and treasurer. Though never a member, Paul Erickson hung on as secretary for several years.

papers up that way; it wasn’t a negotiated agreement, and, at the time, the members had no mechanism to challenge that. The only real option in the “Option Agree-

As of December 1, the Maass

ment” was to join what would become

and Jewell were heard from again through

Board of Governors voted

the new club—or not.

a report in lieu of a Board meeting. They

itself out of existence to be

filed their “Written Action” on September

replaced by Bill Ford—as

Two weeks later, Maass, Erickson,

14, and the document is as long as it is comprehensive. The simplest of its measures was elect-

chairman— Elliott and Diesel. They remained in situ until 1989.

That said, hidden in its forest of legalese, the salient points came down to these: • The sale of JUPITER GOLF to

the members was dependent on the

ing the first slate of officers: Maass became

magic number of 350 members sign-

president, Erickson secretary, and Jewell

ing up and sending in checks, thus

assistant secretary—again, just place-holders

displaying their resolve to raise the

to oversee business until the fall season began. [SIDEBAR:

capital needed to pay the Founders the $16.7 mil-

IN WITH THE NEW BOARD] From there, the “Written

lion price—above any indebtedness—they attached

Action” laid out the path forward in a thirty-three-page

to the club, its golf courses, its clubhouse, and its

option agreement. Attached to that was the twenty-five-

infrastructure;

page “Offering Statement and Membership Plan.” The

• Applications received by December 1, 1984, could

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

buy HILLS CLUB certificates for $35,000; for

GOLF and Village homeowners going forward;

applications received between then and September

• Once fifty HILLS CLUB memberships were inscribed

30, 1985, the buy-in would increase by

in the books, the Advisory Board

$5,000; beyond that, the initiation fee

TO KEEP THINGS

appointed by JUPITER GOLF to

would be determined annually, as would

straight, the annual

serve as liaison between old and new

dues; • If 350 members failed to enroll in the

HILLS CLUB by September 30, 1990—a

membership directory went out under the imprimatur of “Jupiter Hills Club and Jupiter Golf Club” until the transi-

kicked in; once 150 memberships had been filled, the members themselves were given power to elect an Advisory

full six years beyond the date of the

tion was completed. Inside,

Board to replace the appointed one;

option agreement—the option may be ter-

members who’d purchased

[SIDEBAR: HILLS V. GOLF]

minated by JUPITER GOLF. Should that

certificates were listed under

• During the transition, JUPITER

come to pass, purchased certificates could

the aegis of the former, while

GOLF would manage and oper-

be redeemed for their value (less a non-re-

dues-paying members who

ate the HILLS CLUB and pay all

fundable fee), the HILLS CLUB would be dissolved, and its name returned to JUPI-

hadn’t fell beneath the purview of the latter.

expenses incurred as a result. (That would raise unanticipated repercus-

TER GOLF;

sions down the line.) On the fourth page of the Offering

• Any members with homes in the Village

who chose not to buy a certificate could continue to

Statement, members found their marching orders and

play golf and use the clubhouse by paying annual dues

the parade route: instructions for filling out the attached

until September 30, 1990; members living outside the

application form, where to submit it, and what to include

Village preferring to opt out would lose privileges on

with it.

September 30, 1985;

To join or not to join.

• 250 of the four hundred HILLS CLUB member-

To write a $35,000 check by December 1 or not to.

ships were initially reserved for current JUPITER

These were not decisions to take lightly. The club had

Ask Jenny Use Jack Deisels certificate—Certificate. Heic

T R A N S I T I O N S

more than 250 members when thoughts of acquiring Jupi-

Other familiar names in on the ground floor at the

ter Hills outright from the Founders first floated. Many

discounted price: Butler National’s Red Harbour (No.

peeled off in anticipation. More peeled off at the prospect

116); George’s SE Village Drive neighbors Campeau (134),

of raiding reserves for the privilege of more responsibility

Darnton (113), Wheeler (forty-five), and Fales (102); Six’s

than just showing up to play golf. And more, still, peeled

fellow Advisory Board members Bullock (seventy-eight)

off at the prospect of change; they liked the club they had

and DiFederico (105); and Philadelphia architect Jim

chosen to join the way it was.

Nolen, an original investors back in 1969 (137). True to

But it wasn’t going to be that way anymore unless

his insistence that he wanted to be just another face in

six years passed, the 350-member threshold went unmet,

the crowd and just another member at Jupiter Hills, Perry

and, in a miraculous collapse of the laws of physics, time reversed itself and Jupiter

Como found harmony in Certificate 141.

AT THE TIME the option was written,

Someone else of note sent in his

Hills reverted to the fiefdom of its found-

the four founders owned

$35,000 check for proprietary mem-

ing. That wasn’t going to happen. How

237 Class A shares in the

bership. In return, Tom Fazio received

could it without George? Ford was step-

enterprise, distributed

Certificate seventy-two. [SIDEBAR: HON-

ping back. Hope was never really a pres-

proportionally based on

ORARY MEMBERS]

ence. And Elliott, still an active force, was fine with the overall plan—but approaching 80. [SIDEBAR: GEORGE’S SHARES] And yet, the applications came in. By

their contributions, with Bill Ford in possession of

✧

the vast majority. George controlled 3.555 shares—

of change in

worth roughly $250,000;

WITH THE UNMISTAKABLE WHIFF

December 1, 1984, the Hills Club mem-

the option agreement

the air, Jupiter Hills played on. Members

bership had gone from zero to 162. Jack

allowed him to withdraw

doubting the new day at hand only needed

Diesel bought the first Certificate. Future

those shares by September

to look at the golf program. [SIDEBAR:

club president Ed Martin claimed number

30, 1984. He did. When he

LADIES DAYS] The core concept of no

nine; Don Six number eighteen (number six would have been more fitting, but former PGA Executive Director Mark Cox beat him to it); restaurateur Peter Makris was

returned to his cottage after The Reserve in Port St. Lucie was up and running, he still had privileges, but was no longer a partner.

tee times remained—then as now— sacrosanct, as did George’s dictum of no men’s or women’s club championships, but under Diesel’s urging, Sabo began adding

served number twenty-four; and John Benz,

layers. “We started seeing a new direction

who’d lured Six down from the Midwest in

of organized events,” recalls Art Kania.

the beginning, had Certificate fifty-four. Nabisco Chair-

Men’s days. Ladies’ days. Planned contests throughout the

man F. Ross Johnson scooped one up for himself—Certifi-

season, from the informal to the annual member-guest.

cate thirty-seven—then had Nabisco put its own brand on

Videotape was introduced to the teaching program, and a

Certificate sixty-one; his Nabisco cohort Dan Pratt signed

new assistant professional, Jennifer Jones, joined the staff

on for number 101. George Sands, who’d later rescue the

to organize lessons and weekly clinics aimed at women.

Village development, laid the foundation beneath Certifi-

[SIDEBAR: MEMBER-GUEST]

cate sixty-five. West Virginia coal baron Jim Justice depos-

“A lot of new and different things began to happen

ited Certificate forty-seven. And Ken Meinken, who tried

at the club,” adds Kania. “There was more women’s activ-

to buy the Dickinson Park property before George ever

ity, which led to more social activity. There was a feeling

saw it, completed the deal for Certificate 121. [SIDEBAR:

that if we’re to be the prestigious club we were promised,

TOM DORR]

we would have to get more done. Under the Advisory

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

and superlative service—the cornerstones of what the

As golf goes, one of the more

Founders envisioned—were not enough, not when mem-

interesting threesomes to appear from time to time at the

bers no longer simply came and went on a daily basis. An

club was put together by member Tom Dorr (Certificate

increasing percentage lived in the Village, a short walk to

forty-three on your program). Convinced he had a better

the clubhouse, the locker rooms, the pro shop, and the

way for designing and making ferrules, the tube near the

first tee. They all had a personal stake invested in who

head of a golf club that strengthens the connection with the shaft, he left Wilson Sporting Goods in the mid-1940s to set up his own shop in his basement northwest of Chicago. Turned out he was right. His company took off,

they were and who they would be, and as their numbers grew, the powers that Jack Diesel wielded at the beginning of his reign waned. The truth is, once members had

and his ferrules became de rigueur for the equipment

the information at their fingertips explaining what the

makers; Ben Hogan insisted on them—for the clubs in his

transition entailed, Diesel’s influence tempered, though

bag and the clubs coming out of his factory. It was not

not even the Advisory Committee found a way to over-

unusual to see Dorr accompanied at Jupiter Hills by two

rule the unpopular redecoration of the clubhouse and

of the more recognizable names in the club industry: Joe

locker rooms. “It turned a lot of people sour,” says Sabo.

Phillips, the designer of Wilson’s JP wedges, the wedge of choice through the eighties for short-game magicians Seve Ballesteros and Nick Faldo, and Robert E. Lamkin, of Lamkin grips. Together, they had the golf club covered

Still, Diesel maintained his share of executive power. “He was spending a lot of money,” adds Sabo. Looking ahead, he saw the need to remodel the clubhouse and

from stem to stern. Dorr remained a member until his

engaged the Palm Beach firm of Peacock+Lewis to draw

death at ninety-three in 1999.

plans. “He wanted to turn the club over in really nice condition.”

Committee, we did.” The clubhouse began opening for

The Advisory Committee—its prestige only grew

dinner. And more organized social events appeared on

when members chose to keep it intact—wanted to turn

the calendar, like a New Year’s Eve party and the occa-

it over in really nice condition, too, and found ways to

sional dance. Villagers, especially, wanted something

check Diesel in service of doing that. Consider the ques-

more than a club to join; they wanted a club to use.

tion of new members, always critical to a club’s well-be-

Thirty more proprietary members—raising the total

ing. For a brief period, Diesel took it upon himself to

to a handful short of the halfway point to the optimum

interview applicants at his convenience in New York

four hundred—were embraced in 1985, and despite a hike

before he alone passed judgment. Six didn’t think that

in the initiation fee to $50,000—in part to help cover the

was right. He thought it too insular, more insular, in fact,

$2 million cost of a new parking lot and entryway rede-

than he’d realized.

sign—another forty-six joined the party in 1986. That

New Jersey real estate developer Roger Hansen—

brought the total to almost 250. The 350 need to seal the

later founder and owner a golf club of his own, Hidden

transition was in sight.

Creek near the Jersey shore—remembers his interview

“People were just lining up to join,” remembers

well. He and his wife Edwina had just bought a Village

Sabo. “I’d known since I started that the nature of the club

condo contingent upon their approval for admission

was gonna change.” It was. And it had. “That’s when I

to the golf club, so the Hansens appeared at the Car-

said to myself: You know what you’ve got here? You’ve

lyle Hotel, Diesel’s caravansary of choice when on Ten-

got yourself a country club. So many were joining under

neco business, for their required audience. Diesel never

the idea they were joining a high-end country club.”

informed them of the extent of the flux at the top. “When

But that’s what members now wanted. Superior golf

we joined,” says Roger, “I had no idea the club was

T R A N S I T I O N S

The Club’s 1984 Bylaws laid the groundwork for Honorary memberships. In accordance with the incorporation papers, there would be ten—and only ten—at any given time. The Bylaws named the first recipients: Founders Bill Ford, Bill Elliott, Bob Hope, and George Fazio led the list. Behind them stood William Clay Ford Jr., Ford’s son; and Peter Morse, his son-in-law; along with George’s nephew Jim Fazio; and the club’s first manager, Howard Everitt. The final two went to a pair of Ford’s amigos from Detroit, both already club members: Sports Illustrated’s Bill Curran, and J.P. McCarthy, the immensely popular radio “Voice of Detroit” for three decades, Billboard’s four-time National Radio Personality of the Year and an occasional color commentator on Lions broadcasts. The name Tom Fazio was conspicuously absent, which didn’t surprise Tom at all. “It’s George,” Tom says. “It’s just what happened. Even though he was like my father for twenty years, that’s just the way he was.” Besides, he says, “There was so much controversy at the club I tried to stay away.” Beyond that: “I was looking way down the pike.” He was building a remarkable business. By the early 1980s, he was emerging as a force in his own right as a course designer. Across the next two decades, his imprint on the game ran so deep that in the growing universe of golf, the first name associated with the last name Fazio became his. As the credits mounted exponentially, Tom took his place atop the elite of his generation. Through the eighties and nineties, more than a dozen of his designs were embraced by Golf Digest’s Top 200 including The Vintage Club in Indian Wells, The Quarry at La Quinta, Barton Creek in Austin, Black Diamond Ranch just off Florida’s Gulf Coast, Victoria National in Indiana, The Estancia Club in Scottsdale, Galloway National in New Jersey, Caves Valley in Maryland, and the Seaside Course at Sea Island, Georgia. As if that needed further cementing, he also became architect of choice at Augusta National and Pine Valley. As for Jupiter Hills, Tom never succeeded at staying away. He maintained the office he’d shared with George just across from the club, and he came back regularly through the eighties and nineties in his role as consulting architect. When the millennium turned, he came back as himself. As their kids left the nest, Tom and Sue became familiar presences at the club again. In 2001, the board amended the Bylaws and bestowed Honorary Member status on him at last.

owned by a small group of guys. I thought it was already

country—that George had put in but were having trou-

owned by the members.”

ble growing. “We were losing them all the time,” says

Six, DiFederico, and Bullock stepped up and stepped

Six. He called the University of Florida, which put him

in. “We didn’t always know what we were going to be

together with a forestry pathologist who came to the club

asked what to do,” he recalls, “but the more we thought

to study the issue and treat it. “They all died anyway.”

about it, the more we thought that the members—not

But they’d taken action. [SIDEBAR: ADVISORY TOLL]

Jack Diesel alone—should have something to say about new members. Bill Ford agreed with us. From then on, we

✧

were part of it.” To be sure, the troika became part of whatever it

AS MEMBERSHIP GREW,

so, naturally, did a sense of esprit;

could whenever it could. “Mario, Bill, and I knew what

the men and women of Jupiter Hills were truly all in

we thought the club should be and acted accordingly,”

this together. Though they were a disparate group, these

says Six. As in the purchase of the thirty acres that would

members from twenty-eight states, three foreign coun-

one day morph into the North Range and the shoring

tries, and the nation’s capital were bound—residents and

up of property lines where the Village Course and some

non-residents alike—by a Jupiter Hills community they’d

housing had bled into each other. It also turned its eyes

chosen to become a part of.

to the golf courses themselves. They saw hundreds of

The club was experiencing a new camaraderie of

pine trees—a rare breed only extant in a few spots in the

purpose. Yet, even as it continued evolving, at least one of

hoot magazine Golf Club Jan Feb 1988 Issue

GEORGE WAS SO PLEASED WITH THE RECEPTION OF THE FIRST HOSPITAL PRO-AM IN 1978 THAT IN 1979 HE LET DOWN WHAT LITTLE HAIR had to institute what serves as the highlight of the club’s golf-

changing. One year, members had to sign up in person. They be-

ing season: the member-guest. From the beginning, it assumed

gan lining up at five in the morning. You can’t make them suffer like

the aura of festivity, though the earliest events were so informal,

that. We’ve tried a million ways to solve it.”

awards were handed out in the parking lot. Sabo and his staff

Working together with Director of Golf Kevin Muldoon, Tour-

changed that. Dressing themselves in plus-fours one year, they

nament Chairs Bert Kennedy, George Stradley, and Bill McLaugh-

laid the groundwork for the marvelous spectacle that the annual

lin finally have with both the sign-up and the format. For 2019,

William Clay Ford Classic has become.

they opened participation up to 108 teams, with automatic entry

Could there be a more fitting name for a weekend of golf among

for defending overall champions and another sixty teams based

members and their friends at Jupiter Hills? That name, though well

on historical participation over the previous decade. Ten teams

into its third decade, was something of a late starter and almost

would come through the previous year’s waitlist, and the rest of

didn’t stick. It arrived in 1985, after Ford stepped down as club

the field completed by lottery.

president. “Somebody,” recalls Peter Morse, “asked if I thought he

Once in, members and their guests now face a packed three-

would mind. I certainly didn’t speak for Bill, but I didn’t think he

day schedule of dinners and golf—a practice round, skills con-

would mind at all. He never saw it about him. He saw it about the

test, plus five nine-hole matches per flight leading to the shoot-

club and the golf courses.” And, in that spirit, the Ford has been

out to determine the kings of the Hills. Muldoon’s so pleased with

the Ford ever since, though the 2001 edition went AWOL while the

how it went in 2018 and 2019, he says, “As long as I’m here it will

new clubhouse was being built. In its absence, the Board briefly

remain that way.” All flight winners go home with a Model T Tro-

considered sunsetting the name and turning it into the Jupiter Hills

phy; overall winners receive a larger version.

Invitational.

As much as the Ford has evolved since its conception, one

“There were thoughts of creating an event to bring in top play-

aspect remains as fixed as a navigational star: its ethos. Muldoon

ers for a special competition at the club,” explains General Man-

and his chairmen redacted it into two sentences then dropped

ager Atilla Kardas. “They wanted something more like Seminole’s

them beneath a portrait of Ford on the cover of the 2019 player’s

Coleman Cup, but it never happened.”

booklet and schedule. They are worth lingering over: “Mr. Ford’s

There was another idea behind the potential change. “There

requirements for golf at Jupiter Hills would be a golf course of

were some who thought Mr. Ford has nothing to do with the club

the highest quality and equally important that it be played in the

anymore,” recalls Bill Davis, then director of golf. “You have people

best spirit of fair play and sportsmanship. In that spirit, it is our

who join a club and get on the Board, and they really don’t un-

distinct honor to host one of the finest golf events in the coun-

derstand the history of the club. If it wasn’t for Mr. Ford, the club

try… The William Clay Ford Classic at The Jupiter Hills Club.”

wouldn’t even exist.”

An outlier at its birth, the Ford Classic now has plenty of com-

In the end, history prevailed.

pany on the annual calendar. Since 2007, the Fazio Cup, the club’s

So, the Ford, with its distinctive trophy crowned by a Model

member-member, has traditionally kicked-off the season in early

T, motored on—and continues to motor on, though in ways that

November, and 2019 marked the inaugural of a pair of one-day

would be unrecognizable to its pioneering participants. Its orig-

member-guests thanking the memories and contributions of

inal January dates long ago gave way to three days built around

Ford and Fazio’s co-founders. The first is The Hope, played at the

the first Saturday in March. Overall champions are now recorded

beginning of January. The Elliott follows shortly before Easter.

on the trophy and on a locker room plaque; they weren’t always

Beyond that, there are Ladies’ Day events most Tuesdays of

preserved before 2007. Formats have changed about as often

the season, a two-day Ladies’ Member-Member and a one-day

as George changed putters, and with four hundred members vy-

Ladies’ Member-Guest, all reflections of the interweaving of golf

ing for what had been ninety-six team slots divided into multiple

and life at Jupiter Hills, with more than half the women mem-

flights, just getting into the draw was a scramble.

bers participating in the Ladies Golf Association. Both men and

“It had become a disaster,” says Kardas. “Sign-up rules kept

216

women tee up their own Pro-Members and the annual schedule

T R A N S I T I O N S

Shortly after Ed Sabo arrived, Tuesday mornings were reserved for a weekly Ladies Day competition held on both courses. As many as forty women would sign up to play. Mary Hamilton and Peggy Hargrove were in charge; they arranged the matches and mixed the weekly pairings. Residents of Chicago’s North Shore, Peggy and husband Jim, who owned printing companies, were among the first to purchase an equity membership, as were Indianans Mary and Bill Hamilton, a manufacturer of home and office products. The Hamiltons relocated to the Jupiter Hills campus in the early 1980s after more than a decade as golfing mainstays at Lost Tree. Mary was the first chair of the Jupiter Hills Ladies Golf Association. [WE HAVE SOME PICTURES] WOmenn Playing HEIC -- February 1987 newletter - Feb 1987, Feb 1986 _ news of the Village

its traditional appeals—it’s raison d’etre from Day One— remained blessedly unchanged.

1985 Mid-Amateur in late June. [SIDEBAR: MID-AM] In 1985, Golf magazine included Jupiter Hills in an

“Unhurried, uncluttered, and the most relaxing golf

august grouping with Cypress Point, Augusta National,

in the world,” is how Ross Johnson once characterized it.

Shinnecock Hills, Los Angeles Country Club, Seminole,

Busy as he was—these were volatile years at Nabisco—

Gulfstream, Jupiter Island Club, and two of George’s old

he’d find time to take the company jet from wherever he

haunts—Hillcrest and Pine Valley. With a catchy head-

happened to be to his home in Jupiter so he could play at

line, Golf identified them as the nation’s “50 Snobbiest”

least three times a month at the club. [SIDEBAR: F. ROSS

outposts of the game, though Editor George Peper copped

JOHNSON]

that it was all “tongue-in-cheek.” The criteria, however,

Manufacturer’s Hanover Trust CEO John McGil-

were as real as they were button-bursting for the anointed

licuddy also found in Jupiter Hills the escape he needed

clubs: money, tradition, reputation, and exclusivity.

from the hurly burly of his day job. He’d arrive at his

Money may buy access and exclusivity can be imposed,

home on Prestwick Terrace to bask in what he deemed

but tradition and reputation are organic, only bubbling

“a quiet and congenial membership. The fact that there

up with time, effort, and good stewardship. That a club

are not many members means I can play on my own

barely fifteen years beyond its birth could be acknowl-

timetable.”

edged by one of the game’s premiere arbiters as worthy of

Ken Meinken, recently retired as executive vice pres-

rubbing elbows with the Augustas, Shinnecocks, and Pine

ident of electronics giant North American Phillips, led the

Valleys of the game was something to crow over—despite

choir. “It’s the best place in the southeastern United States

the list’s off-putting titular adjective.

for golf recreation and leisure. You can’t be bored here.” The members knew they were part of something singular. Even with George gone, the

Golf Digest. Golf magazine. Fancy, fancy feathers for the Jupiter Hills cap. The next accolade would go way beyond

courses, under the stewardship of Dick Herr, [SIDEBAR:

feathers. The United States Golf Association was on its

DICK HERR] were recognized as two of the best in Flor-

way, and it would be bringing the United States Amateur

ida with the Hills Course firmly ensconced in the Golf

Championship with it.

Digest Top 30. Golf Digest also ranked it second in the

As accolades go, the world of golf deems that a

state—between Seminole and Pine Tree—and the Florida

crowning achievement. As envisioned by Jack Diesel, it

State Golf Association picked Jupiter Hills as the site of its

was a strategic stroke of brilliance that smoothed some of

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

the transitionary bumps, introduced the club to the nation, and showcased just how good a pair of golf courses the Fazios found, formed, and nurtured.

DON SIX and Mario DiFederico were sitting in the locker room after finishing a round on the Hills Course shortly before the transition was completed. The subject of the Advisory Committee—and its unanticipated consequences—came up. “When we took this job,” said Six, “we both had seven handicaps, and we could play to it. Here we are four years later, and we both have 11 handicaps, and you just shot 88 and I shot 89.”

F. ROSS JOHNSON CUT QUITE A SWATH AT JUPITER HILLS, BUT THEN HE CUT QUITE A SWATH WHEREVER HE WENT. Through the 1970s and 1980s, he was one of the swashbucklers

the place where you have to be, and that was it,” Orr remembers.

of the business world, oozing with charm and cheek. A master

When the Orrs decided the time was right to relocate to Florida

marketeer, he muscled his way to the top of Standard Brands on

for part of the year, they did their due diligence. “We looked in

his way to the catbird’s seat at RJR Nabisco. Along the way, he

the area. We looked at a number of places. But we kept coming

became something of his own standard brand for the jet-setting

back to Jupiter Hills. Ross was absolutely correct. We joined—

colorful life; have Gulfstream, will travel—especially if there was

and never doubted our decision. We love the golf. We love the

some good golf on the other end to entice his ten handicap. Time

members. It’s not real formal. It’s relaxing. That’s what we were

magazine installed him on its cover. If Hollywood made a movie

looking for and that’s what we found.” And Orr is nowhere near

about him—and it did—James Garner would have had to play the

the only member with a story like that.

lead—and he did.

Johnson also made a point of extending his generosity to

“The hallmark of Johnson’s reign was the personal touch,”

the staff. “He wasn’t there that often,” recalls former assistant

wrote Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, the Wall Street Journal

pro Mike Kernicki, “but he’d always say he wanted to do some-

reporters behind Barbarians at the Gate, the best-selling book,

thing for us. UPS would come in with cases of Planters Peanuts,

adapted by HBO, that chronicled Johnson’s 1988 attempt to buy

Baby Ruths, Butterfingers, Peppermint Patties, gin, vodka, even

out Nabisco’s shareholders only to have the company bought out

Scotch,” after Standard Brands bought a distillery group in 1979.

from under him. Johnson himself was whisked away in the deal,

“We’d pass it out to everyone.”

his fall cushioned by a $53 million golden parachute. “He had an overriding rule he felt free to invoke at any time,”

The haul continued after Johnson engineered the 1981 merger with Nabisco.

wrote Burrough and Helyar. “The chief executive can do what-

“Mr. Johnson couldn’t spend enough of Nabisco’s money,”

ever he wants.” One of the things he wanted most—and loved

says Babe Cosentino. Babe was kidding Johnson one afternoon

doing—was promoting his products with star athletes. “Johnson

about how so many of the friends Johnson brought to the club

was a hopeless sports nut,” the writers went on. He befriended

were decked out in Nabisco apparel. Shortly thereafter, a couple

them. He played golf with them. He called them his Team Na-

of large boxes addressed to Babe arrived. Inside were two dozen

bisco. And he introduced two of his favorites—Hall of Famers

golf shirts, hats, overnight bags, and jogging outfits. The next time

Frank Gifford, the Giants’ legendary running back and a fixture in

Johnson came in, Babe, beaming, proudly handed him a new Na-

the booth for ABC-TV’s Monday Night Football, and Bobby Orr,

bisco shirt and pronounced, “It’s a gift from my locker room.”

the Bruins’ nonpareil defenseman—to Jupiter Hills. Both became members, Gifford in 1988, Orr a year later. [AD WITH GIFFORD AND ORR SHOULD RUN WITH THIS. SO SHOULD A PICTURE OF JOHNSON] “Ross was a wonderful, wonderful man,” says Orr, a generous friend who enjoyed sharing what he had. The two played a good bit of golf together, and Orr regularly joined Johnson for the pro-am at the annual Nabisco Dinah Shore, then one of the LPGA’s four majors, in Rancho Mirage. In Florida, Johnson rolled out the welcome mat at his home for friends like Orr and his wife Peggy. It was during one of these visits that Johnson introduced the Orrs to the club.. Some golf. Some dinners. Even a New Year’s Eve party. Turns out that Johnson was every bit as good a pitchman for Jupiter Hills as he was for Nabisco. “He would say Jupiter Hills is

219

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The parade of superintendents that fell victim to George’s revolving door was put to an end in 1980 when George offered Dick Herr a tryout for the season. He passed. Herr began in the game as a caddie before his promotion—at age ten—to mowing greens at the Logansport Golf Club along the Wabash River in north central Indiana. His victory, at thirteen, in the club championship, inspired dreams of a life in the game. When Logansport’s superintendent was killed in car crash during Herr’s senior year in high school, Herr took over—as both greenskeeper and head pro. When he knocked on George’s door, his reputation in the game preceded him. After his first season, George was sold. “I really loved Florida, and I really enjoyed working for Mr. Fazio,” Herr said in 1987. “We worked hard together. I honestly feel everything I know here, I learned from him.” He remained at Jupiter Hills until 1991.

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

T R A N S I T I O N S

On June 27, 1985, one hundred of Florida’s best amateur golfers twenty-five and older convened at the club to vie for the state’s Mid-Amateur Championship. It was the first true competitive championship to be contested at Jupiter Hills. The hospital pro-ams had been fund-raisers. This was the real McCoy. The groundwork was laid by member Bill Baker. Baker was a rare bird among the Jupiter Hills membership; he and his wife Katrink lived year-round in Tequesta. Originally from Chicago, he’d served on the boards of both the Chicago District Golf Association and the Western Golf Association, played the game to a low-single digit, and won multiple club championships at Skokie Country Club. When the Bakers moved to Florida in the mid-1970s, his golfing jones never let up. On course, he was a regular in senior amateur events; off of it, he became an active volunteer in the Florida State Golf Association, rising to its vice presidency and chairing the Ratings Committee that instituted Slope, the measure of a course’s difficulty for a bogey golfer, into the evaluation system in the mid-eighties. In 1992, he joined Jack Nicklaus as an inaugural inductee into the Palm Beach County Golf Association’s Hall of Fame. In 2006, the state Golf Association enshrined him in its own Hall. [NOTE: MAY BE ABLE TO GET PICTURE OF BAKER AND PICTURE OF TUMLIN FROM THE FSGA] Baker’s efforts at bringing the Mid-Amateur to the Hills Course were rewarded by the spirited play. The hundred who arrived had all worked their way to Jupiter Hills through local qualifiers. After two days of stroke play, the top sixteen advanced to two days of head-to-head matches. Thirty-six-year-old Ronnie Tumlin, medal leader after the first day with a 1-under 71 ballooned on Day Two to a 79, but held on to capture co-medalist honors. Two days later, his eighteen-foot putt for birdie on the 16th hole dispatched John Parsons of Palm Beach Gardens 3 and 2 to win the title. To listen to the well-traveled Tumlin, the biggest winner was the golf course itself. “I’ve played golf from Canada to the West Coast to South America, and this,” he assured officials, “is the finest course I’ve ever played.” Afterward, Club Manager Frank Wyatt sent up a cautionary flare about course set up for events going forward. “They played it from the back tees, which was a mistake,” he said. “Some of the guys were shooting in the 90s.”

ASK

FROM FSGA

T H E

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J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

S O M E

L I K E

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Some Like It Hot HE HEAT.

Blistering, puckering, mind-sizzling heat. Ask Billy Mayfair, the winner of the first U.S. Amateur ever contested in Florida, about his week at Jupiter

Hills at the end of August in 1987. Before he mentions a single shot, his hoisting of the Havemeyer Trophy, the amazing resilience of the golf courses, or the extraordinary hospitality extended by the club and its members, the first thing that bubbles up in his memory is the heat. It was drenching. It was debilitating. Unless you happened to be from Arizona, and you happened to have a bad back. “The heat saved me,” recalls Mayfair with assurance. “It kept me loose. It kept my back nice and warm. It didn’t bother me nearly as bad as some of the guys.” You might even say it gave him an edge. “Coming in,” he says, “I thought I was one of the best in the field.” One of? He was just being modest. Beginning with his victory in the USGA’s National Public Links Championship the year before, Mayfair was pretty much unstoppable. As a junior at Arizona State University, he won six college tournaments in 1987, was named Pac-10 Player of the Year, college Player of the Year, and an All-American for the third consecutive year. Then he won each of his three matches at Sunningdale in May as a member of the victorious American Walker Cup team. He was so hot when he arrived for the NCAA championships in June at Ohio State University’s Scarlet Course that only the demonic convergence of imperfect genetics and a tree root concealed in unforgiving rough could cool him off. Until Florida’s blazing sun heated him up again at just the right time. There’s a good reason that the USGA had avoided Florida in late summer as a national championship venue, and it boiled down—literally—to two words: heat and humidity. The combination can melt all but the staunchest resolves at that time of year. Unless you happened to be Billy Mayfair from Arizona with a back that needed warmth. Then heat becomes your partner. It becomes your best friend. ✧

✧

OPPOSITE: Volorest, Busandes sinctotaes maione porporio. Sam, sequo dem ella nimus dolor solupti

orehendunt mi, ommolor rem dollita tquiate nobis aspe.

T H E

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J U P I T E R

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Jack Diesel may not have been the most

by scheduling the 1986 Amateur at Shoal Creek, which

popular presence at Jupiter Hills, but he knew how to

was even younger than Jupiter Hills, did not bode well

work a room. He knew how to throw his weight around.

for another whippersnapper in its wake. Then there was

As a member of the Executive Committee of the United

weather. Since hosting its first national championships

States Golf Association since 1984, he was in a unique

in 1895, the USGA rarely ventured into the stickier pre-

position to do both in the club’s service. But bringing a

cincts at the stickiest times of year. Only six times before

national championship to Jupiter Hills in the summer?

had it set down in Florida, and never for an Open or

The smart money was against even something like the

Amateur. And again, what was the likelihood of point-

Junior Amateur or Women’s Senior Amateur.

ing compasses south so soon after Alabama and Shoal

CLUB PRESIDENT

The U.S. Amateur?

Creek? [SIDEBAR: IN GOOD COMPANY]

With its Havemeyer Trophy covered with the blue-

None of that was going to deter Diesel. He swatted

blooded names of the game like C. B. Macdonald, Wal-

the weather worries away with a sharp dismissal. “The

ter Travis, Jerome Travers, Francis Ouimet, Chick Evans,

USGA,” he said, “has always been afraid of the weather

Bobby Jones, Lawson Little, Arnold Palmer, Bill Campbell,

being too warm in Florida at this time of year. But we’ve

and Jack Nicklaus? Run Am winners photoss

had tournaments in Texas and Oklahoma, and it gets

That U.S. Amateur?

just as hot there as it does here.” He had too sophisti-

Get real.

cated an agenda to let weather rain on his parade or the

To begin with, the club was still a teenager. National

club’s relative youth spoil his strategy. With Jupiter Hills

championships like the Open and Amateur primarily

in a period of change—and dramatic change at that—a

stop at established venues with weighty pasts like New-

national championship could work all sorts of wonders.

port, Merion, Oakmont, and The Country Club; the

It could work wonders on morale. It could work won-

fact that the USGA was already making an exception

ders at bringing an uncertain and disparate membership

For at least one prominent golf administrator, the relative youth of Jupiter Hills as a potential national championship site spoke more to how far the club had already come than how far it still needed to go. Longtime Merion member Pam Emory was a fine golfer who sat on the USGA’s Women’s Committee and served as a past president of the Pennsylvania State Women’s Golf Association; she penned an open letter to the Jupiter Hills membership that appeared in the Amateur program. “The fact that your club is so young, and yet willing and able to host such an important event is a marvelous testament to your golf course and membership,” she averred. “By your willingness to hold this tournament, you have joined the ranks of such outstanding clubs as Baltusrol, Oakmont, Chicago Golf Club, Winged Foot, and the Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts, as a host of the U.S. Amateur Championship.” Of course, her own beloved Merion had quite an Amateur pedigree, too. Bobby Jones first stepped onto the national stage at the 1916 Amateur there, won the first of his record five Amateurs there in 1924, and then completed his incomparable Grand Slam at the Amateur there in 1930.

S O M E

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together in a common cause. It could work wonders at

Rosaforte newspaper with Diesel, he was then the organization’s article. vice president

lifting the club’s national profile and status. It could work

and the chairman of the Championship Committee, all

wonders at exposing the club to the widest possible audi-

of which created a valuable synergy for Diesel and his

ence. In late 1984, as he formally took the reins of the

intent. Battle’s respect within the USGA was peerless, and

club’s presidency from Bill Ford, Diesel throttled up and

no club is accorded the privilege of hosting a national

pitched his confreres at the USGA: Let’s bring the 1987

championship without his committee’s OK. A varsity

Amateur to Tequesta.

golfer for three years at the University of Virginia, Battle

“It took no lobbying,” Diesel would later tell the Palm Beach Post. “It was no tough sell.” Evidence suggests otherwise.

was thoroughly devoted to the game. Diesel invited him over. As a golfing friend of Bill Ford’s from three of the

On the surface, the club had much to recommend

clubs they shared in common—Jupiter Island, Seminole,

it, above all the presence of a superlative pair of golf

and Augusta National—Battle had played the Hills Course

courses nestled side-by-side on a single site; Golf Chan-

several times as a guest, but he’d never ventured onto its

nel commentator Tim Rosaforte, the Palm Beach Post’s

younger sibling. At Diesel’s behest, he played them both.

golf writer at the time, liked calling them “George Fazio’s

The experiment worked. When Battle walked off the Vil-

fashion statement, his definitive imprint on golf course

lage Course, he was leaning in the right direction.

design,” and Golf Digest’s annual ratings certainly sup-

The rest of the Championship Committee still

ported that. Coupled with the championship’s logistics,

needed convincing. As of February 1985, it had com-

such a combination of quality and quantity bordered on

piled a list of possible sites for 1987, but the committee

high blessing, and, when all was said and done, formed

remained uncommitted to its destination. USGA Execu-

the tipping point that upended the various issues that

tive Committee minutes show that while Jupiter Hills’s

the USGA raised. The Amateur’s plan of play seemed

stock was rising, questions lingered.

designed for Jupiter Hills and vice-versa. Its format calls

Was the clubhouse large enough? Would Jupi-

for two rounds of stroke play on two different courses

ter Hills be able to supply enough caddies in the Flor-

to winnow the field to the sixty-four who then advance

ida off-season? Was there sufficient parking? The USGA

to five rounds of match play in three days on the same

wanted reassurance. Diesel reassured them. But he had no

course on the way to the thirty-six-hole final on the ulti-

sway on what follows, taken from USGA minutes: “Con-

mate day to crown the national champion. Two courses

cern was expressed at the prospect for very uncomfort-

juxtaposed? What could be more convenient? It simplifies

able weather in southeast Florida during the last week in

the enormous task of shuffling more than 280 players to

August. The staff was authorized to learn the probabili-

the right place at the right time over two days of practice

ties, including normal mean temperatures, humidity, and

and two days of medal qualifying.

prospect of thunderstorms, during that week, and report

The Hills course? Check. Its reputation preceded it.

findings to the Championship Committee soon.”

But the Village, less familiar and less applauded

By June, the USGA had crunched enough numbers to

beyond the club’s perimeter, would have to step up to

know what any random Gold Coaster could have volun-

prove itself.

teered unprompted: the mean temperatures and humidity

Diesel went to work. He set up set up an experiment,

in the neighborhood would be mean, indeed. In the end,

then asked the ideal corroborating witness to perform the

the Championship Committee didn’t care; by then, sev-

test and assess the results. [SIDEBAR: BILL BATTLE]Bill

eral more, beckoned by Diesel and encouraged by Battle,

Battle not only sat on the USGA’s Executive Committee

had come by to play—and they were wowed. So was P. J.

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Behind closed doors, there were two more objec-

The son of a Virginia governor

tives decidedly less altruistic: enticing new members and

and a nominee for the office himself, Bill Battle need

selling new houses.

usga headshotwould go on to become president of the ✧

USGA from 1988 to 1989, but it’s his wartime experience

✧

with another president—a future president of the United States—that engraved his personal footnote into history. After college, Battle enlisted in the U.S. Navy, commanding a PT boat in the Pacific in the same squadron as JFK. He took part in the same operation in the Solomon Islands as Kennedy when Kennedy’s PT-109 was sliced

PREPARATION BEGAN

in earnest in 1986.

“By and large,” Diesel noted at the time, “the members were enthusiastic about it.” There were committees to form and plans to shape

in half by a Japanese destroyer; in the aftermath, Battle

and the groundwork for both would evolve as time went

was part of the rescue team that brought Kennedy and

on. Given the personal nature of Diesel’s involvement, he,

his surviving crew back from the island they’d been

not surprisingly, had a few plans of his own. To comple-

marooned on for almost a week. In 1960, Kennedy asked

ment the new décor he’d been so instrumental in seeing

Battle to chair his presidential campaign in Virginia. When Kennedy sat down behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, he named Battle his ambassador to golf-

Clubhouse

implemented inside the clubhouse, he made it his mission to now spruce up the outside to make the entire entryway more appealing for both the Amateur and the club. Appearances matter.

“Boaty” Boatwright, the USGA’S executive director. “For

He engaged the West Palm Beach architectural pair-

a Florida course, it’s rather hilly,” he observed. “I like that

ing of Peacock+Lewis to look the place over and come

aspect of it. Plus, we’re sure it will be a good test.” Club

up with a plan. Led by founders Carroll Peacock and

member Mark Cox, the former PGA of America execu-

Hap Lewis, the firm established its golfing bona fides

tive director who would sit on the Amateur’s Steering and

in the 1960s with the North Palm Beach Country Club,

Communications Committees, witnessed the process and

Tequesta Country Club, and Jack and Barbara Nicklaus’s

was pleased to report, “They promptly pronounced both

personal residence at Lost Tree—and continued building

courses ready for championship competition with little

on its reputation since. At Jupiter Hills, their plan added

more than minimal refinements or preparation.”

a porte cochère to the front of the clubhouse and a water-

Done deal? Almost. There were still formalities.

fall at the entryway. Together with the expanded parking

In June of 1985, the committee recommended that

the USGA asked for, the cost came to $2 million. [PIC-

the invitation from Jupiter Hills be accepted. In August,

“ Beaming”

TURES OF CLUBHOUSE AND WATERFALL]

the Executive Committee, with its final authority, sec-

By comparison, the golf courses got away scot-free

onded that, and on September 11, USGA President James

because George Fazio, from the onset, had established

Hand announced that the 87th U.S. Amateur was on its

the culture and tradition that insisted on nothing short

way to Jupiter Hills in 1987, leaving one particular com-

of quality conditions every day. Throughout his tenure

mittee member ecstatic. [SIDEBAR: HOT DATES]

as superintendent, Dick Herr scrupulously upheld that.

“We are looking forward to having the 1987 Ama-

“The USGA didn’t have to do much other than narrow a

teur Championship, a championship that is counted as

few of the fairways,” recalls host pro Ed Sabo. “But I’m

a major, at Jupiter Hills,” beamed Diesel. “Bringing an

telling you, this was a tough enough test without some-

event of this caliber to Florida and supporting amateur

one coming in and trying to make it harder.”

golf are the overriding objective of our members.”

Fazio draw

Quietly, Tom Fazio believes, George would have

Newspape Bagtags

S O M E

I T

H O T

been beaming. “Even though he was on the outs with

to skirt tradition by appointing Earl Collings; the PGA of

Diesel”—and this was most assuredly Diesel’s party,

America’s communications director under Mark Cox, he

not George’s—“I’m sure he felt good about this. I can’t

was well versed in the ins and outs of the press and public

imagine he wouldn’t have. He created Jupiter Hills. I feel

relations side of the game. Anxious as he was for posi-

the pride for him in this right now.” [DIRECTIONAL

tive press—and lots of it—Diesel insisted that a seasoned

SIGNALS]

veteran handle it.[ SIDEBAR: EARL COLLINGS] As tournament coordinator, Pat Kensett, another non-mem✧

✧

ber, was third on the administrative chain ORIGINALLY, THE USGA

Amateur left town to join the manage-

quickened as anticipation grew through the

the week of September 1

ment team, and in 1989, married Babe

fall of 1986 on through the spring of 1987.

through September 6, but

Cosentino).

Diesel, an aloof presence through the early

later amended the calendar

innings of the equity transition, was now

to August 25 through August

among the membership

sending regular status reports to the members; this was his stage and he commanded its center. [SIDEBAR: SCHISM NO LON-

all things Fazio, the PGA of America held its own

Fazio, and Bill Baker, who’d been so instrumental in luring the Florida Mid-Amateur to Jupiter Hills in 1985. Mike Caldwell chaired the Finance Committee, Jim Pilz

into place. Gears were turning. Volunteers

1987 from August 6 through

the Course Operations Committee, Owen

were volunteering. Advertising sales for

August 9 at the Fazio-de-

Lavalle the Grounds Committee, and Art

the program book, one of the club’s main

signed Championship Course

Murphy the Marketing/Promotions Com-

sources of revenue to cover its financial

fifteen miles south of Jupiter

mittee. For chairman of the Communica-

which would be broadcasting ninety min-

for

ence of time and place and

tee featured Howard Everitt, Cox, Tom

sixty-ninth championship in

Meetings with the USGA and ABC-TV,

30. In a remarkable conflu-

The all-important Steering Commit-

GER]The event’s committees were falling

share of the championship, were brisk.

wing here with

(she stayed on at Jupiter Hills after the

scheduled the Amateur for

THE CONVERSATIONS

e and Canopy

L I K E

Hills at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens. Florida was such a turned-up oven that week, the PGA Champion-

tions Committee, Diesel, again intent an experienced hand, went beyond club borders to tap Cliff Danley, then in his third

utes of coverage on the final Sunday, were

ship never returned to its

year of a three-decade run in charge of the

ongoing. The bulk of ticket sales would

own backyard.

PGA Tour’s Honda Classic.

come later. In January, Sabo told the Palm

Meanwhile, Superintendent Dick

Beach Post, “We’ve already ordered bag

Herr was busy ministering to his playing

tags and blazer patches for the committee. We’re working

fields: 6,915 yards of Hills and 6,542 yards of Village.

well in advance.” [SIDEBAR: THE NUMBERS]

Preparing thirty-six holes for a national championship

Though Diesel was very much the championship’s

while Florida’s summer sun beat down on them was no

de facto overlord, he eschewed the title, assuming it

simple matter, but, through his tenure, Herr had become

would have smacked of grandiloquence for a sitting club

a course whisperer to his greens and fairways. Slowly,

president with a seat on the USGA’s Executive Commit-

carefully, he and his crew massaged the layout to the

tee. Instead, he delegated the general chairmanship to a

championship specs that would greet the players. Five-

non-member: John Terrell, a trusted Tenneco executive.

eighth to three-quarter-inch growth on the fairways with

Terrell’s appointment veered from custom; the general

landing areas ninety- to one-hundred feet wide. One-and-

chair is traditionally an active leader at the host site. As

a-quarter inch intermediate rough that extended out six

is the vice chairman, but here, too, Diesel led the USGA

feet on both sides of the fairway. One-eighth inch greens

T H E

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O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

Though George had become an ancillary to the continuing story Ron

between his return from Port St. Lucie in 1985 and his death in June the following year, he was still a familiar presence around the property when he felt well enough to be out and about. His natural curiosity turned toward the club’s new space-age neigh-

ers,

bor as it began to rise beyond the tree line several hundred yards east of the fourth and 12th greens near the North Fork of the

uniform

in do

Loxahatchee River. When it opened in January of 1987, the imposing array of satellite dishes carried with it a fittingly imposing name: the Jonathan Dickinson Missile Tracking Annex. As it took shape, George was transfixed by its proximity. [PICTURE OF THE SATELLITES] NASA selected the eleven-acre site to fill a blind spot between the mainland and Antigua in the surveillance region—it spread from South Florida to Africa and on to the Indian Ocean—designed by the Air Force to track rockets, missiles, and other probes, government and commercial. George found a more earthly purpose. “We had those installed last week,” he’d tell golfers, “as direction finders for the 10th hole. Just aim your tee shot at the one in the middle, and swing away.” You couldn’t miss it. Painted brilliantly white, the largest of the nine dishes, about sixty feet tall and fifty feet wide, sat mounted on a cylindrical silo that lifted its apex to roughly a hundred feet off the ground. Not all members appreciated the intrusion on what had been an unencumbered panorama from both the clubhouse and the 10th tee, but few offered any complaint. In time, the annex blended into the scenery and became, as it remains, a part of the overall vista—and a unique conversation starter.

set to Stimp between nine and nine-and-a-half. One-half

an airline pilot, a truck driver, a waiter, a Yugo salesman,

inch approaches and collars. Bunkers filled with fluffy

and, in Ron Sellers, a former NFL wide receiver from

native sugar sand. “Dick has done just a superb job,”

the Super Bowl VIII. They bunked in hotels and motels,

Cox told the Post. “The USGA just said, ‘OK, Dick, you

with friends, and with volunteers who opened their front

Comm, Admin

do it.’ And so he did.”

doors and spare rooms to them.

Finance Comm

By August, the only uncertainties were the exact

At fifty-seven, Ocala’s Bo Williams, the reigning

names attached to the 288 golfers—winnowed from a

U.S. Senior Amateur Champion, was the oldest competi-

record 4,084 entrants—who would arrive at the end of

tor; at seventeen years and one month, Thomas Scherrer

the month.

from Skaneateles, New York, was the youngest, edging

Sterring

out a skinny rising high school senior from San Diego ✧

AND ARRIVE

✧

they did. [SIDEBAR: THE CHAMPIONSHIP

PROGRAM] They pulled into Tequesta by plane, train, and automobile from forty-six states—led by the thirty-one from

named Phil Mickelson by one month. Two-time cham-

Supe

pion Jay Sigel (one of the insurance execs) was teeing it

his assistn

up for the twenty-first time, one behind two-time British

the progra

Amateur champion Dick Siderowf (one of the stockbrokers); 164 players, more than half the field, were reaching the championship week far for the first time.

Florida, thirty from California, twenty-three from Texas,

How good were they? Twelve represented the

and seventeen from Ohio—plus Canada and Bermuda.

United States in the Walker Cup and six in the World

There were 122 college students among them, eighteen

Amateur Team Championships. Like Sigel, Buddy Alex-

business owners, sixteen stockbrokers, nine insurance

ander, the coach of Louisiana State University’s men’s

executives, seven golf coaches, three attorneys, two bar-

and women’s golf teams, was a U.S. Amateur champion,

tenders, and, in the one-offs, a doctor, a school principal,

the defender, in fact. There were three U.S. Mid-Amateur

a ski instructor, a dry cleaner, a grocery store manager,

champions; two U.S. Junior Amateur champions; a pair

S O M E

L I K E

of British Amateur victors in Sigel and Siderowf; and a trio of U.S. Amateur Public Links ChamSell-

pions, Billy Mayfair among them. A host

olphins

would advance to the PGA Tour, includ-

n Folks

er Herr and

I T

H O T

strived for were not to be.

TWO YEARS INTO the transition at Jupiter

“With heat like this,” he said, “you’re going to have some [brown] spots. This

Hills, there was still some

summer has been the worst. We’ve had one-

ing Mayfair, Mickelson, David Toms,

whispering and dissatisfac-

half inch of rain the last six weeks. I would

Scott Gump, Len Mattiace, Brett Quig-

tion with the route the club

like a lot more rain, but you can’t fight the

ley, Nolan Henke, Steve Stricker, Dudley

was taking. A small group

weather. You’ve got to take what you’ve

Hart, Keith Sutherland, Glen Day, Ted

of early members yearned

got and make the best of it.”

Tryba, and Tommy Tolles. Gary Nicklaus carried with him a portion of golf’s greatest genome. And

sadly

conspicuous

his

for the good old days. “They believed very strongly in George’s ideas about how the club should be devel-

Which was the advice Golf Digest supplied by implication in the subhead tacked to its preview: “A test of will, stamina and

oped,” says Art Kania. “They

patience.” Players, take heed: You’ve got to

absence was one of Jupiter Hills’s very

didn’t like the changes they

take what you’re given, use what you’ve got,

own: Jerry Kelly, who missed the event

noticed.” They held on to

and make the best of both.

because of a broken arm. [SIDEBAR:

the vestige of the idea of

Will. Stamina. Patience.

JERRY KELLY]

separate, autonomous clubs,

Tom Fazio reinforced that on the eve

though Bill Ford, Bill Elliott, ✧

✧

and Fazio had vetoed that years before. “That the Amateur was coming washed

“HOT, HUMID AND HILLY”

That was the four-word headline

of the first round. “It’s going to be a hard golf course, especially with the amount of golf they have to play,” he told the Post.

that away,” recalls Frank

“The idea of the Amateur is to pick the best

Schanne. “We were all so

player of the year in the amateur ranks, and

that Golf Digest set atop its Amateur pre-

endurance is part of it.Photos TheseToms fellows are

view. Could it have been more on point?

athletes, and that’sStricker part of Phil the game M as also, to

It captured what the field would encounter that week per-

prove they’re athletes. A true national young Gary champion Nicklaus is going

fectly. It also captured the challenges Dick Herr faced in

to evolve from this in many respects. It won’t just be a

the weeks before play. [SIDEBAR: TOM MATEVIA]

guy hitting golf balls.” [SIDEBAR: PRACTICE BALLS]

Despite closing the Hills Course completely for the two months leading up to the

nat from

championship, the heat took its toll. The

greens at PGA National had been rife with fungus during the PGA Championship at the beginning of August, and greens throughout

TICKETS FOR THE Amateur were a bargin: daily ground passes sold for $5, daily clubhouse passes for $15, and weekly passes were priced at $20 for grounds and $60 for clubhouses.

No, it won’t. Not at Jupiter Hills. On a ferociously hot and unforgiving week. The weather would turn the sixday competition schedule into golf’s Bataan death march—those two quali-

South Florida had fallen victim to the pound-

All passes included parking

fying rounds of eighteen holes each on

ing heat and lack of rain. How hot was it? Hot

and were available at the

Tuesday and Wednesday; the first round

enough that one of Herr’s huge riding mow-

club and select spots

of match play on Thursday; the second

ers caught fire, an unexpected $10,000 hit to

around town. AD CAN GO

and third rounds on Friday; the quarter-

his budget. Still, Herr managed to protect his

HErE

thirty-six greens by overseeing the Bent grass

finals and semis on Saturday; the thirty-six-hole match for all the marbles on

with a fine Bermuda grass called Tifdwarf. Even so, he

Sunday. If all matches reached their final holes, the last two

accepted that the high green speeds and perfect look he’d

standing would have logged 162 holes in six days. On foot.

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

Village Course? Oh, went the prevailing assumption,

in the spring up to Tom’sleading analysis nailed it. To survive this ordeal and

that’s the easy one, right?

a guy hitting balls. He’ll be a survivor. by throwing his hat in the

Well… [SIDEBAR: MAYFAIR INSIGHT] Mayfair touched down four days before the cham-

The players accepted that. “It’s a matter of who

pionship and had time for several reconnaissance mis-

doesn’t get tired,” observed the University of Miami’s

sions up, over, across, and around the Hills Course when

Scott Gump, an elite favorite coming in, “of who can

he took a break to concentrate on putting late one after-

grind it eventually out.” winning, stepping

noon. Boaty Boatwright, the USGA’s executive director,

into the Tequesta mayor’s ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ office. Though never a mem-

spotted Mayfair’s distinctive bucket hat and pulled him

ber of Jupiter Hills, he was

himself to the Village Course, too. Billy did. “That was

no stranger to its golf course;

a huge tip he gave me,” says Billy without reservation all

Run diese

Hills offered something that the familiar icons of the rota-

these years later. “They made that golf course a lot more

chapter 12 phot

tion no longer could: surprise. While all 4,088 entrants

difficult”—in part through liberal use of out-of-bounds—

who began their quest in earnest knew where it might

”than any of us thought it would be. I took his advice. A

lead them, barely a handful had any real idea what they

lot of guys took the Village Course for granted, and they

would find at the end of their roads. As a national cham-

got bit in the butt for it.” [SIDEBAR: BUCKET HAT]

ring at the last minute for a

seat on the Tequesta Village Council. He won. And kept

AS AN EXAMINATION

of national championship golf, Jupiter

he once aced the nettlesome ninth hole on the Hills.

pionship venue, Jupiter Hills was cloaked in mystery.

pictures of

C L U B

Mercifully, they’d have the rest of their life to sleep it off. AT AGE SIXTY-SIX, the Amateur, Earlall, Collings prevail above a true national champion won’t just be decided to shake up his life

etter. Pro-

H I L L S

aside. He suggested Mayfair reserve time to introduce

Did they ever.

“We knew there would be elevation changes,”

With 288 rounds played on each eighteen across the

recalls Mayfair. “We’d been told that coming in.” Beyond

two-day qualifier, the Village, once the numbers revealed

that? “We knew Jupiter Hills was more like a normal

themselves, actually played harder, almost a full stroke

course than a Florida course. We really weren’t sure what

per round on average. Consider the odyssey of former

to expect, though.”

Mid-Amateur champion Mike Podolak, one of two to

That the Hills Course was a beast was a given. The

find the route to Tequesta from North Dakota. He tore up

raters had been saying that for more than a decade. The

the Hills Course on Wednesday with a 68—and a share of

Contestants and spectators alike were met by a series of welcoming letters in the front of the championship program. Florida Governor Bob Martinez sent out a generic greeting while USGA President William J. Williams Jr. extolled the uniqueness of the golfing ground, as did Jack Diesel. His club president’s missive hailed “our remarkably different Florida courses.” Jupiter Mayor Mary Hinton chose a different path toward perspective. “Since this is the oldest golf championship in America,” she wrote, “it is appropriate that the contestants may walk on the site where the first ‘tourists’ such as Ponce de Leon visited the area.” The program itself was healthily hefty, nearly two hundred pages long with more than ninety advertisers purchasing space. Tom Fazio bought an ad. So did Tenneco, the Village development, and Ford’s Ford and Lincoln Mercury divisions. Ross Johnson’s Nabisco commandeered the back cover. As for those remarkably different Florida courses, they became the program’s centerpiece. Each of the thirty-six holes received its own page complete with photo, diagram, and description. Howard Everitt penned the write-ups for the Hills; Jan Beljan, one of the senior designers at Tom’s firm, wrote the Village’s. [USE ONE of each TO ILLUSTRATE THIS, maybe 9 on Hills and 6 on Village]

S O M E

L I K E

I T

H O T

the competitive course record established in 1978 by Jim

way the golf courses withstood the assault. He would have

Simons. It was a surreal bounce back from the 82 he’d

also enjoyed the madcap scrum necessary to determine

wrenched from the Village Course—or was it the Village

the final match-play slots. When the dust settled Wednes-

that did the wrenching?—the day before. “I’m still trying

day evening, twenty-five players, Alexander among them,

to figure out [the 14-stroke swing],” he said right after

stood tied at 151. The conundrum? Only nine places in

the round. “An 82 on the supposedly easier course. Golf’s

the draw were unaccounted for. Grab an abacus. It gets

a funny game.” [SIDEBAR: LOCAL RULES]

confusing. [SIDEBAR: CLUB REPAIR]

So funny the courses turned the best young play-

The numbers added up to the largest Amateur play-

ers into punchlines—and punching bags. Collectively, the

off since sixteen were forced into extra innings at North

best amateurs in the land managed to eke out only 22

Shore Country Club outside of Chicago in 1939. It took

rounds under the par of 72 presented by both courses

them more than an hour just to complete the first hole.

el photo from

in the 576 they played on Tuesday and Wednesday. On

“What do you get when you put five fivesomes into

tos

Tuesday, no one broke 70 on either course; “That’s an

a sudden-death playoff to fill nine spots in a sixty-four-

indication of how tough these courses

man U.S. Amateur field?” asked Post

are,” sighed Alexander, the defender,

sports editor Dan Moffett. “About sev-

following his bogey-laden 76 on the

enty-two minutes of mass confusion,

Hills. Only two players joined Podolak

that’s what.” His assessment whipped

in the 60s on Wednesday, with lone

up images of Keystone Kops karrying

69s recorded on each course. Phil

klubs. “Matching players with their

Mickelson never broke 80. [SIDEBAR:

balls became a consuming struggle.

CAREER AMATEURS]

Matching players with their identities, too. Some of the caddies are

Scott Gump won the medal— and the first seed in the match-play brackets—with his

still looking for their players.” Perhaps to this

two-round aggregate of 141. He was followed by Nolan

day.

Henke, owner of the 69 on the Hills, and Tampa’s Miles

Mayfair, safely through, observed the

McConnell at 143. Mayfair was two strokes back. Future

melee from the sidelines. “There were balls fly-

Tour pros Toms, Stricker, Mattiace, Tryba, and Day all

ing all over the place. It was wild.”

moved through to match play, as did the veteran Jay

As darkness fell and play was halted, five

Sigel. So did the virtually unknown Eric

unfortunates walked into the sunset

Rebmann, though the University of Ten-

toward the rest of their lives. Eight

nessee academic All-American was not

went

without star quality; he’d been an extra

in the movie Caddyshack, some of which

beds

was filmed on his home course west of

were sleeping

Fort Lauderdale. His sweat-stained cap

in secure that

and wrinkled shorts would have fit in

their

perfectly with Danny Noonan, Motor-

on the open-

mouth, and the rest of the Bushwood

ing hole had advanced them. And

loopers.

twelve—Alexander

George Fazio would have loved the

back whatever they

birdies

included—would

have to return to the second hole at 8

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

WITH THE CHAMPIONSHIP LOOMING LARGER ON THE CALENDAR, NO AMATEUR IN THE NATION LOOKED FORWARD TO IT WITH more enthusiasm than future PGA and Champions Tour stand-

now and then moved him up to the forward tees to test his re-

out Jerry Kelly. He was just twenty at the time and had been

solve. Davis knew his methods were working when he watched

playing tournament golf since he was twelve. When parents

Kelly, playing up, birdie the last five holes on the Village to post a

John and Lee Kelly, excellent golfers themselves, identified Ju-

stunning 59.

piter Hills as their warm-weather refuge from Wisconsin, the

“Bill realized what it took to be a professional golfer,” ex-

Amateur was on the horizon—and their son had a definite goal

plains Jerry. “It’s all from a hundred yards in. He taught me an

to shoot for.

awful lot of shots around the green that I’m still using to this day.

“I knew I had home-field advantage, no question,” says Jerry.

When you get close to the Tour, everybody can hit the ball, but

“I’d never really done anything of note on the national stage. I

not everybody can hit the ball in the hole. That’s what Bill kept

was hoping this would be a little breakout for me.” Instead of

drilling into me.

breaking out, he broke his arm over the July Fourth weekend. He was crushed. “I was really looking forward to it.” Though he missed the Amateur, Kelly matured into the golfer he became on the Hills and Village courses, and, looking back,

“He was a master of drills. He did a fantastic job of writing up a worksheet for me to do. Two hundred balls with this. Two hundred balls with that. A short-game progression from wedge to putting. I still have the notes.”

will say unequivocally, “If I didn’t have Jupiter Hills to hone my

In 1992, Kelly went back to Wisconsin to win the state Open,

craft I never would have made it on the Tour. Just the difficulty

and in 1995, was the leading money-winner and Player of the

of the Hills helped me a lot. It was just a big, tough golf course.

Year on what was then called the Nike Tour. He ascended to the

About every other course was easy compared to that one.”

majors in 1996. Over the next several seasons, he occasionally

The Village had its own lessons for him, too, its narrower fairways encouraging him to hit it straight. “It was actually tougher for me at first,” he recalls. “I was pretty crooked then.”

knocked on victory’s door, but never found the key to opening it. Until 2002. And Jupiter Hills was key to that, too.

In his first years at the club Kelly took lessons from Ed Sabo.

Kelly always loved hanging around and playing with some of

He’d play with Sabo, too, and was no stranger to morning four-

his fellow professional athletes at the club. For a hockey player

somes with his father and his father’s friends. Kelly also liked

growing up—he made all-city in high school in Madison—get-

playing and practicing on his own. When he had the course to

ting to play golf with Bobby Orr was a thrill. “He was my idol,”

himself in the afternoon, he’d play multiple matches against

says Jerry. “Just listening to him talk about the old days and the

himself with multiple balls. To drill himself into shooting well, he

way you should be in coming up and your work ethic. He just had

liked playing his worst ball on each shot. “It was pretty difficult.”

everything to give. He was awesome. He taught me so much.”

Though Kelly turned pro right after graduating from the

As did “The Boys,” the regular hoop threesome of Billy Cun-

University of Hartford in 1989, he remained a fixture at Jupiter

ningham, the Hall of Fame player and coach of the Philadelphia

Hills, staying with his folks on SE Village Circle and working with

76ers; Chuck Daly, coach of both the NBA champion Detroit Pis-

Sabo’s successor, Bill Davis. Kelly was then playing on the Hoot-

tons and the 1992 U.S. men’s Olympic basketball “Dream Team”;

ers developmental tour. “He wasn’t looking for a coach,” recalls

and Rollie Massimino, Villanova coaching legend and member of

Davis of their first meetings. “We were just having a discussion

the College Basketball Hall of Fame. “When I used to be able to

on the range on how to go lower. Everything began there.” And

get into that group,” says Kelly, “that was so much fun. Just listen-

continued for a decade.

ing to them talk. To be around other professionals from different

Davis worked to instill a sense of confidence into Kelly’s game.

sports and learning all the things for me to apply to my sport was,

“Good players can shoot a few under,” says Davis, “but have a

to me, much better than just picking the brain of another golf

hard time shooting 7, 8, or 9 under. That’s the psychological bar-

pro. I don’t want to know how he did it. I’m gonna do it my own

rier.” Together, they worked on ways to smash through it. Davis

way. But I want to hear from some of the greats about the kind of

focused Kelly on course management and the short game, and,

person to be and the kind of work you need to put in. That was

232

S O M E

L I K E

I T

H O T

I want you to be fired up from start to finish.” Coming from an

the best.” Today, Kelly insists that if it weren’t for Cunningham, he still

NBA coach with a near .700 win percentage and a championship ring, this was advice worth heeding. Kelly did.

might be looking for his first PGA win. For six seasons, Kelly put together respectable stats and sub-

He won the Sony Open a week later.

stantial earnings, but, in 199 starts, collected no hardware for his

He won again that season, was named to the 2003 Presi-

efforts. “I wasn’t winning,” he says. “Billy knew how frustrated I

dent’s Cup team, and added another Tour victory in 2009. Since

was.”

turning fifty in 2016, he’s harvested four Champions tour titles

Just before flying off to Hawaii for the Sony Open to begin

since 2017, and twice tied for second in the U.S. Senior Open.

his 2002 campaign, he sat down with Cunningham. “I asked him about his routine,” Cunningham remembers. Kelly told him. He tries to stay calm. He tries to get into his round slowly. And he tries to build momentum from there. “OK,” asked Coach Cunningham, “what do you do if you make a bogey?” Kelly’s answer: “I spike on emotion right away.” The coach took over. “Here’s what I want you to do,” and with that, ticked off a new playbook. “I want you to work out beforehand, right before you go to the range. I want you to get your adrenaline up. I want you to carry that adrenaline throughout the entire round. I want you to walk faster on the golf course.

Young jerry Kelly Bill Davis

233

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

a.m. to continue their quest for the one spot still avail-

that then came with it—seemed pre-ordained. Still, a bad

able. [SIDEBAR: HARRY RUDOLPH III]

bounce here, an opponent’s lucky break there, a way-

The next morning, Alexander and the University of

ward drive, a frigid putter: all could derail the best golfer

Washington’s O. D. Vincent III were the only

in the solar system on any given day.

two to birdie that second hole, Alexander

TOM MATEVIA

Even Bobby Jones—and was there ever

with a confident twelve-foot putt and Vincent

was determined to promote

a fiercer competitor head-to-head?—

with a miraculous thirty-five-foot chip follow-

the Village development

was so spooked by the mercuriality

ing an approach from the left rough, which

during the Amateur, heat

of the genre that he would regularly

bounced off a rake, deflecting it from a greenside bunker. George would have loved that, too, part for the serendipity, but more for the

be damned. Beyond his ad in the program and daily advertisements in the Post, he entertained residents and

lose ten pounds during a championship and dubbed the two rounds that in his time made up the first day of the

personal connection; Vincent’s father Orrin

prospective buyers through-

Amateur’s match play contests “Black

was the longtime pro at Edgewood Tahoe, the

out the championship on

Wednesday.”

pre-Jupiter Hills design that cemented Fazio’s

a floating cocktail lounge

architectural reputation nationally. When

moored in the pond between

Vincent’s momentum carried over to a win

the condos and the 18th

at the third hole, the field was set, though as the final qualifier, he would have to turn right around and face the top-seeded Gump. Gump

green of the Village Course. Drinks and brochures were plentiful.

shut down Vincent’s Cinderella run on the 13th green. Then Gump breezed to the semifinals.

And, so, the parade of upsets and chalk began. In the upper half of the draw, the highly regarded Chris Webb, one of Alexander’s charges at LSU, and Sigel, as expected, cruised through the first three rounds, as did Rebmann, which

was anything but expected, to join Gump. In route, Sigel—holing every putt—left an enduring mark on the

✧

Hills Course with his splendid 30 on the front nine of his first-round match against just-crowned National Publinx

of match play where the best

champion Kevin Johnson of Massachusetts. “Every hole,

player doesn’t always win, though Gump’s procession to

bam-bam, he was right at the flag,” sighed Johnson. Even

the penultimate round—and the invitation to the Masters

Sigel was impressed with his performance. “It’s not very

WELCOME TO THE INTRICACIES

With only one practice area to launch from, the range was especially crowded from Sunday through Wednesday, the two practice days and the two days of medal play. But there was no shortage of golf balls. The USGA insisted that practice balls for the championship be all white with no striping, but the only range balls Jupiter Hills then used were striped. Ed Sabo was going to need three-hundred dozen new balls, and the pro shop was going to have to pay for them. He called Titlist, and they gave him a price. Then Sabo called the Wilson Tour representative he got his got clubs from and explained the situation; Wilson offered a 30 percent discount, potentially saving Sabo’s budget thousands. When Titleist found that out, they offered to match it. Sabo called back Wilson. “I said I wasn’t trying to negotiate,” Sabo recalls, “I was just trying to save money.” Wilson countered: We’ll just give them to you. “Now we’re getting some place,” thought Sabo. He had his balls. And since players paid $20 each for the week to use the range, he had a profit, too.

S O M E

L I K E

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H O T

often that I’ve played that well,” he attested. When he

rested most of the summer, sitting home in Phoenix to

closed out the match on the 16th hole, he walked off the

allow his back to heal after connecting with that tree root

golf course eight strokes under par.

at the NCAAs in June. “I felt a twinge,” he recalls of his

Mayfair; Miles McConnell; Stephen Ford from

club’s impact. “I finished the round and didn’t play well

Melbourne, Florida, just up the coast; and Robert

the next day.” The pain progressed. His mind whirred in

McNamara, another of Alexander’s min-

its wake. “I didn’t think I would play the rest

ions at LSU, proceeded to the quarterfi-

of the summer. I didn’t know if I would ever

nals in the lower half, though Mayfair

play golf again.”

wasn’t quite firing on all cylinders until he

But he knew that that single swing had

repelled a second-round blitz from thirty-

not created the problem; it only exposed

three-year-old Bob Young of Atlanta that

problems already lying in wait. He’d lived

took nineteen holes to finally douse.

his life with one hip higher than the other. The imbalance exacerbated all the wear and

✧

tear he’d amassed hitting golf balls. When he returned home to Phoenix

ANY QUESTION

after the NCAAs, Arch Watkins, May-

of how tough a grind this

week would turn out to be was answered

BILLY MAYFAIR’S

fair’s longtime instructor at Camelback

on the first morning of play when three

groundwork in his practice

Golf Club, suggested a chiropractor; Billy

caddies were taken down by the ferocious

rounds yielded dividends

began to feel better right away. But he

pairing of Hills and heat as temperatures

in insight that aided him

forced himself to go slowly. He concen-

moved into the mid-90s with no cloud of relief in sight. [SIDEBAR: CADDIES] “It was so hot,” remembers the Golf Channel’s Jaime Diaz, on assignment that week for Sports Illustrated. “It was so hot

through the week: • “You always had to place

the ball well off the tee. You had to put the ball in a certain point of the fairway

trated on stretching. He iced his back. He applied heat. What he didn’t do was hit golf balls. When he felt ready, he eased back in, returning to competition in early

to have the right angles into

August—by winning the Pacific Coast

and hard to walk. Nobody was walking

the green.”

Championship in Seattle. His confidence

the course who didn’t have to.” Earlier in

• “You had to know distanc-

accepted the boost; his golfing mind

the month, he’d covered the PGA at PGA

es. You didn’t want to hit

accepted that his game was still rusty after

National. Same thing. “Palmer, Nicklaus, and Watson played in a threesome on Thursday and Friday and nobody was watching. Jupiter was similar and a much

through fairways. You had to position yourself off the tee to play the rest of the hole, and you had to keep the ball in the fairway as best you

the lay-off. The former sent him to the championship hopeful; the latter he could work on there. Other than practice, play, and shar-

could.”

ing a single dinner with his Walker Cup

Mayfair was grateful for that, at

• “You can attack the course

mates, Mayfair was the Amateur’s Invisible

least on a selfish level; unlike many of his

from the fairways. Even with

Man. “It was a huge advantage not being

fellow competitors, he pulled into Jupiter

elevation changes, you can

from Florida,” he can say looking back.

tougher walk. Crowds were sparse.”

Hills with no excess baggage or entourage of friends and family to distract him.

attack the flag from the flat spots in the fairways.”

“I didn’t have to worry about friends. I didn’t have to worry about family. I could

He had nothing but golf—and keeping

fly under the radar and get by every match

his back loose—to concentrate on. He’d

and do what I needed to win.”

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

AS A YOUNG GOLFER,

In the weeks before the Amateur,

Billy Mayfair stood out. At

thirty-four-year-old defending champion Buddy Alexander had some interesting observa-

just five-feet-eight and 155

tions on the status at the time of career amateurs like himself and his Walker Cup team-

pounds, he looked almost

mates Jay Sigel, Bill Loeffler, and Bob Lewis, all in their thirties or forties. As both a college

frail. On top of that, his skin

coach and son of a former PGA Tour player, Alexander had par-

was quite fair and his hair

ticular perspective. The paragon path—so associated with Bobby

almost white. Hence, the

Jones—that juggled career, family, and competitive golf at the

unmissable bucket hat atop

highest level for honor alone was largely a vestige of the past.

his head. “I had a reputa-

“We weren’t a dying breed,” said Alexander, “we had already

tion as a junior for wearing

died ten to fifteen years ago. But I think we’re seeing a resur-

one,” he says, and it wasn’t

gence in the competitiveness”—spurred, in part, by the USGA

a style choice. Growing up

establishing its Mid-Amateur Championship, open to players

in Arizona, he needed it for protection. As he would at Jupiter Hills. “I caught a lot

Then return to his

of crap at the start of the

hotel.

week for it, but as the week

failed to get up and down

wore on”—and the tempera-

His back was far

tures settled in the mid-nine-

from one hundred percent.

ties—“I saw more and more

He needed to tend to it.

of them.”

“This

concession when McConnell after flying the second extra green. Though ending in regulation, the other quarterfinal

tournament

matches were no pushovers. Gump defeated Webb, 4 &

beats up on you. It wears

3; Ford eliminated McNamara, 2 & 1; and the unher-

you out. Once match play started, it was get something

alded Rebmann, in his Caddyshack hat and shorts, kept

real quick to eat, then get back to the hotel. Ice the back.

marching on, sending the august Sigel, as commanding a

Stretch. Drink as much water as I could. And

golfing presence as there was in the amaBEFORE PLAYERS

rest.” Given the results, he should have patented his routine and marketed it. ✧

✧

AFTER BLOWING A THREE-HOLE LEAD,

Mayfair was

forced into bonus time again in the quarterfinals, closing out a strong challenge by McConnell on the 20th hole. Clawing his way back, McConnell caught Mayfair on the 17th before halving the 18th to extend

took to the course, USGA officials handed them a sheet of local rules. Two remain

teur ranks, back to Philadelphia. [SIDEBAR: JAY SIGEL] Sigel had played the Hills Course masterfully all week, but by Saturday

worth noting: • “Fire-ant mounds are

morning, he was tapped. He double-bo-

declared to be ground

geyed the second hole, fought back to

under repair,” and

control a 2-up lead through 11, then

• “Holes made by armadillos—

To be treated as ground under repair if a ball lies in the hole, but only on authority of a USGA Committee member.

bogeyed 12, and halved 15 in a comedy of errors that witnessed both players overshooting the green. Regrouping, Rebmann finished strongly with a useful string of fours to win 2-up. “Eric played

the match. “I saw my hands shaking a few

steady, played well,” Sigel conceded in

times when I teed up the ball,” said McCo-

defeat. “I sort of ran out of gas.”

nnell afterwards, “but I saw his shaking a few times,

Rebmann continued his improbable run in his

too.” Mayfair steadied his first, ousting McConnell via

afternoon semifinal against Gump, handily dispatching

S O M E

L I K E

I T

H O T

his fellow Floridian 5 & 4 by playing steady, error-free

Mayfair, but Billy took nothing for granted. He under-

golf. Gump never won a hole all afternoon. “He gave

stood the flukes that infiltrated match play, and he under-

me a taste of my own medicine,” Gump said graciously,

stood he was about to go up against a player at least

though his disappointment was clear.

as hot as he was—with a sturdier back shouldering far

All week long, he had geared himself for a Sun-

fewer expectations. “I never heard of Eric before this

day final with Ford. Both originally hailed

WITH AN EYE

week,” admitted Billy in the press room.

from Plantation; they’d

on contingencies, Ed Sabo

“All I know is that he beat Jay Sigel and

been beating each other’s brains in on the golf course for as long as their

set up local clubmaker Mark Isabelli, who’d learned his

Scott Gump on the same day, and that’s pretty good in my book.”

craft under Toney Penna,

Then Mayfair climbed into his

in a repair station off the

twenty-something selves

practice tee for the champi-

rental car to head back to his hotel room

could remember. To pre-

onship’s duration. During the

and the nightly routine that was serv-

pare for their season’s

week, he adjusted lofts and

ing him so well. Tomorrow wasn’t just

main event, the two road

lies, reshafted a few clubs,

another day. It was the day he hoped

warriors embarked on a

and straightened three club-

would become as big as any in his golfing

forty-four-day

expedi-

tion together to tournaments around the country; it logged

heads bent by the airlines in transit. “I did have one repair

life.

to do for a spectator,” he

✧

later recalled. When an older

more than six thousand miles

gentleman broke his walking

on Ford’s 1986 Eurosport.

stick, Isabelli epoxied it back

Unfortunately for Gump, his

together. “The cane held,”

needle hit empty one round

reported the fixer, “and the

U.S. Open with the reigning Open cham-

early.

spectator happily continued

p i o n s

So did Ford’s, though, like Gump, he would leave

watching the

THIS ONE

wasn’t just for the Masters.

It came with a pairing in the 1988

from both

tournament.”

sides

Jupiter Hills with the game’s most coveted

the pond:

consolation prize: a spot in the field at the

S c o t t

ONE OF THE EIGHT who made it through on the first day was Harry Rudolph III, the seventeen-year-old from the San Diego area not

Masters. “I was almost satisfied with finishing in the final

Simpson, the victor at the

named Phil Mickelson. He

four,” he admitted after Mayfair eliminated him 3 & 2.

Olympic Club in San Fran-

went on to win two matches

While never ahead in the match, Ford pulled even with

cisco in June, and Nick

before falling to LSU star

Mayfair on the 10th hole, but found water on the next as

Faldo,

Mayfair pumped his accelerator, pocketing three of the

Claret Jug at Muirfield in

next four. Mayfair remembers it as the toughest test of

July.

the championship for him. “It was the one that worried

who

kissed

the

Chris Webb in the third round. [WE HAVE A PHOTO OF HIM]

It came with the win-

me most,” he says. “By this point, we were all feeling

ner’s name permanently engraved on one of the most cov-

the heat and the pressure. When I got by him, that was

eted and distinctive trophies in the game.

huge.” The final pairing was set. Given their résumés, the probabilities favored

This one was for history. The silver sounds of Jack Whitaker’s voice to open the ABC-TV broadcast on Sunday afternoon reinforced

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that. As he introduced Jupiter Hills to the nation,

green, and they were important differences about the

George’s old friend elegized the Fazio achievement filling

way each they played the game. After a rough trip to the

the screen. “Welcome to Jupiter Hills, just north of Palm

putting surface, Mayfair’s fourth shot stopped ten feet

Veideo still best of work,” USWhitaker amatuer intoned. “In fact, George thought so himself.” on TV He went on to praise its dramatic topograBeach, Florida, considered to be architect George Fazio’s

from the hole. Rebmann’s third shot lay four feet closer. Mayfair made. Rebmann missed. Though they walked off the green all-square, match play’s first psychological

phy and absence of palm trees. “Jupiter Hills,” he assured

swing favored Mayfair. When Rebmann missed another

viewers, “looks like no other golf course in the state.”

six-footer for birdie—and the lead—on the second hole,

[SIDEBAR: TELEVISED PLAY]

and failed to capitalize on a Mayfair miss on the third,

George would have liked that. Whitaker’s voice, together with former PGA champion Dave Marr’s, sat behind video of Mayfair and Reb-

Mayfair’s fortunes held. But it was still early. Match play giveth. It can also taketh away.

mann on the first tee. What viewers saw was instructive,

When Mayfair hit an exquisite wedge to three feet

beginning with a panorama of the golf course before

on the fourth hole to set up a birdie and his first lead,

pulling into the contestants themselves. Rebmann, a hair

Rebmann fought back to level the score with his own

taller and more muscular, looked like the college player

confident birdie on the next. Mayfair pulled ahead again

he was in his white Tennessee team shirt and orange

on seven, extended the lead on eight, and gave one back

shorts. He stepped in to hit first, a persimmon driver in

on nine when his tee shot hit a tree on the left corner

hand. By contrast, Mayfair sported a pair of crisp white

of the green before disappearing in the undergrowth. At

trousers and a light blue shirt; he looked like the PGA

least he found his ball.

Tour pro he would become. His weapon of choice was a

Suddenly Mayfair looked shaky, scrambling to save

new three-metal. His eyes seemed focused on the future.

par—and the hole after his tee shot found the woods—on

Rebmann appeared to represent the past.

10. Rebmann evened the match again at 11, and the bal-

Other differences revealed themselves on the first

ance of the back nine turned into a war of nerves and less

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than exemplary golf, though Mayfair managed to eke out a win on the 17th hole. When the match broke for lunch,

Given the time of year, the USGA

he walked into the clubhouse 1-up.

was rightfully concerned about the caddie pool, but

Following the long climb up the 18th fairway—

with help from an announcement in the Post and co-

Whitaker likened its final ascent to “the steppes of Rus-

operation from neighboring clubs, caddie master Willie

sia”—Mayfair and Rebmann were both hot and tired. To

Peterson easily exceeded the 120

hear Billy tell it, this was where momentum swung his way for good. He found his advantage on a locker room bench.

that the USGA sought. He had to. “The tournament office has been flooded this week by contestants requesting caddies,” reported the

“I caught a break,” he remembers. “I had no one

Post on August 20. “With the im-

there. Eric had his family.” His parents. His grandparents.

pending heat and hills, many of the

His caddie brother. His friends. “A lot of people popped

contestants are realizing how tax-

up today that I hadn’t seen in a year or two,” he told

ing it could be to carry one’s own

on-course reporter Bob Rosburg. Rebmann joined them

bag for up to 36 holes a day.” When

for lunch in the clubhouse. Afterwards, he went straight to the range. He never had a moment collect himself. Billy, meanwhile, ate quickly, and like the Invisible

three wilted on the first morning of qualifying, Peterson was able to send out replacements for the first two. The third player fended for himself for the rest of the day.

Man he’d become, disappeared. Babe Cosentino ushered him to a corner of the locker room, and Billy comman-

For their efforts, caddies received $25 per bag per round plus tips and a badge good for entry all week,

deered it. “I didn’t plan on it, but I just shut my eyes, lay down, and slept for forty-five minutes. I wasn’t hitting

to keep things even. Two holes later, Mayfair took con-

it as good as I’d liked to before the break. Just that little

trol. Admitted Rebmann, “I was getting tired right about

forty-five minutes with my eyes closed in the air condi-

there.”

tioning made a big, big difference. I felt refreshed. I felt

Mayfair, played

rested,

rehydrated. My batteries were recharged. It got me into a

simply

better.

great frame of mind.” To prepare for the second act of the

He won five of the next

battle, he changed uniform, replacing his sweat-soaked

eleven holes they would

blue polo with a white-and-blue striped one. “I went out

play; Rebmann only put

in the afternoon and played very,

his stamp on two. May-

very well.”

fair putted better. He

Still, Rebmann was able to

scrambled better. He cap-

square the match with a birdie on

italized on Rebmann’s

the second post-prandial hole. Was

mistakes, and Rebmann,

momentum shifting again?

following a win on the watch.

31st hole, made a doozy on the 32nd, the downhill par-3

Despite yanking his tee shot on the

14th. The pond on the left was no problem for Rebmann;

ensuing par 3, the third hole of the

he avoided it entirely by hooking his 4-iron right over

afternoon and the 21st of the match,

it on an inevitable loop out of bounds. “That was the

Mayfair

biggest shot of the match,” says Billy. “I took advantage

Not

Mayfair’s

stopped

the

Rebmann

mini-charge and halved the hole

of it.”

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Assessing the Fazio design, the well-travelled Jay Sigel was particularly impressed with its collection of one-shotters. “I think the Hills Course has the best par-3s anywhere,” he said not long after the Amateur. He didn’t limit his praise. “You get a good feeling playing the Hills Course, and the other one is a great contrast. In golf, distance is not everything, as the Village Course shows.” Sigel, a Philadelphian, may have been prejudiced. He’d first met George shortly after Squires opened. He was still a teenager. “We played with Jumbo Elliott,” he recalled, “and George took an interest in me. He was very low key, always had a smile on his face, and was smaller than I expected.”

Winning four of the last six holes, he closed out the

Afterward, Mayfair went back to the hotel. For the

match 4 & 3 on the next. Mayfair’s 3-metal off the tee

first time all week he had company. The Havemeyer Tro-

left him safely in the fairway, 170 yards from the pin.

phy was with him—and he celebrated. “I had some ice

Rebmann tried to shorten the hole with a more aggres-

cream, and I went to sleep.”

sive line; his ball came to rest on the tongue of the fair-

He had earned it.

way bunker just over the pond. Mayfair pulled his 5-iron

“Ben Crenshaw”—as fine a name as any to drop

from the bag. He swung his slow, easy swing. His ball

into a golf conversation—“was the best amateur golfer

came down twenty-five feet from the hole. Advantage

I’ve ever seen,” said Jay Sigel after the performance, and

Mayfair. Rebmann’s approach found the left greenside

Sigel’s experience in these matters spoke volumes. “There

bunker. He exploded to ten feet. Mayfair left his putt two

have been a few others, and Mayfair is showing he might

feet short.

soon be in that company.”

Two long feet remaining between him and his sec-

Billy had earned that, too.

ond national championship. ✧

Rebmann missed his putt for par. Mayfair’s found

✧

nothing but net. He pumped his fist almost imperceptibly. Walking away from the hole, he shook hands with Rebmann, then his caddie, before turning back to retrieve his ball and accept congratulations from several USGA officials.

IT HAD BEEN A REMARKABLE WEEK

of golf both for the cham-

pion and the championship site. Billy Mayfair played a total of 152 holes, and he’d played them just two over par. Across six examinations

He spotted Steve Loy, his ASU coach, on the edge

of match play, he trailed his opponents only twice: when

of the green and, picking up his pace, headed toward him

he lost the third hole in the second round and the second

with arms extended. Loy had flown in from Phoenix on

hole of his quarterfinal. On both occasions, he steadied

the Red Eye in time to reach Jupiter Hills for the last 24

his ship right away. After unsuccessfully defending his

holes. The two embraced.

title in 1988 at The Homestead in Virginia, he turned

“My first thought,” Billy remembers three decades

professional, winning five times on the PGA Tour, includ-

later, “was ‘What’re the people thinking back home?’ ”

ing the 1995 Tour Championship, before relocating his

His second? “Now I can get a date.”

game to the PGA Tour Champions when he turned fifty

Then? “I sat down and had a drink of water. I just wanted to cool off.” He praised Rebmann’s tenacity. “It was a dogfight,” he said. “He’s a scrapper.”

in 2016. He is one of only two players to defeat Tiger Woods in a playoff. Jupiter quantitatively.

Hills

fared

well

qualitatively

and

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“When the tournament was over, it was plain that the course held up beautifully,” wrote Robert Summers, the editor of the USGA’s Golf Journal in his report for the magazine. “The measure of any course is the quality of the winner, and Mayfair was a quality player. You can’t ask more of a golf course.” But would it help the club move closer to the magic number of 350? Would the festivities and the attention accelerate the push to the threshold it needed to cross to complete the sale to the membership that Diesel had been marshalling for almost three years? Consider the numbers. At the moment that Mayfair sunk his final putt, the club had 269 equity members. That number had grown in fits and spurts since the names of the first 162 certificate holders were inscribed in the ledger on December 1, 1984. Within a year of the cham-

GOLF ON TV

pionship’s departure, the number had shot up

was a very different animal

to 336. By the end of 1988, all that was left

in 1987 than it is today.

were formalities.

For most fans, the season

“The Amateur helped put us on the map,” says Frank Schanne, who joined shortly before the event after coming down as a guest for more than a decade. “It was a very

began at Pebble Beach, ended at the PGA Championship, and coverage was limited. ABC allotted ninety minutes for the U.S. Amateur

big deal having the name Jupiter Hills associ-

on Sunday. Between Jack

ated with the Amateur and then seeing it on

Whitaker’s praise and the

TV. Suddenly, when people came to Florida,

stunning images of the golf

they wanted to play Jupiter Hills. I started

course, those ninety minutes

getting calls from friends I hadn’t heard from

would do yeoman’s work in

in twenty years asking if they could come to play.” The Amateur exceeded expectations in every way. If you stage it, they will come. Some might even stay.

introducing Jupiter Hills to the nation’s golfers.

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GEORGE BUSH PLAYING

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A New Day ✧

N SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1989,

✧

under the sign of Scorpio, constituents of the newly reconstituted,

member-owned Jupiter Hills Club gathered in the clubhouse for its first annual meeting as mandated by the Bylaws. Seated beside Vice President Don Six and Secretary/Treasurer Bill Bullock, President Mario DiFederico called the session to order and led the assembly. The

main order of business was nominating and electing a nine-person Board of Governors and appointing the chairs of the club’s five standing committees going forward. Three days later, the new Board held its first meeting. Equity membership was in the 370 neighborhood—almost half were residents of the Village—and while that number would fluctuate over the next five years, a waiting list was established to house the hopeful overflow. [SIDEBAR: BOARD OF GOVERNORS] The transition was over. The future beckoned. But when is the stroll into territory ahead ever that simple? “The past isn’t dead,” mused Faulkner. “It isn’t even past.” And at Jupiter Hills, at this critical transitional juncture, the past presented unfinished business. Technically, the 350 members required to cross into the promised land had been delivered the previous December, and, within sixty days, as stipulated by the Offering Statement of 1984, the Advisory Committee had notified Bill Ford, Bill Elliott, and Bob Hope that they would exercise the statement’s option as of May 1, 1989. But there were loose ends to take care of—the most glaring involving money and shades of interpretation surrounding money and responsibility—so closing was postponed until August 1. Six remembers one particular moment after the closing vividly. The Advisory Committee hadn’t been present; the transaction between the Hills Club and Jupiter Golf only needed the sign-off from Ford, Jack Diesel, and David Hempstead, a Ford attorney who’d replaced Lloyd Fell as trustee. When Six saw Diesel later, Diesel was revving. He leaned into Six. Their eyes locked. The words flew. “You’ve harassed me,” Diesel fumed. Decades later, Six concedes that perhaps he did, and he’s never had a single qualm about it. “I didn’t like him at all. I didn’t care for the way he did some of the things

page 126 of Bill Elliott

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from corporate papers use Ford

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reignation and use and Mario,Don,Bill letter

To satisfy the stipulation of the Bylaws that Board of Governors’ terms be staggered so a third of members rotates in and out every year, the first nine Governors were grouped into threesomes. George Butts, a Chrysler vice president, Mark Cox, and Mario DiFederico would serve for three years; Ken Meinken, Jim Nolen, one of the original Philadelphia investors, and Don Six for two; and Toledo attorney Ed Martin, Pennsylvania chocolatier Dick Palmer, and Bert Phillips, chairman of the world’s largest manufacturer of forklifts, for one. In addition, Cox was chosen club secretary and Meinken club treasurer to replace Bill Bullock, who’d held both positions on a provisional basis since August. Of the five committees, three consisted of a single individual: the House, chaired by Phillips; Golf, chaired by Butts; and Personnel Policy chaired by Six. Of the remaining two, the Green Committee consisted of Nolen, as chair, with Tom Fazio, and the Membership Committee was made up of Martin, as chair, with DiFederico and Six. Within a year, each of the committees had grown in size and a sixth-committee—for long-range planning—was added. Through the decades, the committee structure, as is often the case, would continue to grow—both in number and in size.

he did. I didn’t like that he tried to dictate to us. He was

information supplied was not sufficient and we should

never pleasant to deal with.”

discuss the matter with the attorney.”

The following day, the Advisory Committee, with Club Manager Craig Waskow observing, gaveled itself

With details to come, sensitive nostrils sniffed a whiff of litigation in the air.

out of existence by naming themselves the first provi-

Was this any way to begin the future?

sional Board. Their first order of business was to elect

DiFederico, Six, and Bullock hoped not. But the

themselves officers—DiFederico president, Six vice presi-

choice wasn’t all theirs.

dent, and Bullock secretary/treasurer—all by unanimous agreement. “Mario and I pretty much organized the

✧

thing,” says Six. “Bill Ford asked us to take care of putting a Board in place. Mario and I knew what we thought

IN THE MONTHS BETWEEN

the club should be and acted accordingly.”

first annual meeting, the club faced two other important

The balance of that meeting was filled with adminis-

the exercise of the option and the

transitions, both unexpected.

trative necessities, but three items under discussion stood

At the end of the spring season, Director of Golf

out. First, due to an $800,000 shortfall in operating

Ed Sabo announced he’d be leaving the club by sum-

funds for the Village Course, members would be billed

mer’s end to assume the same mantle at the new Laurel

$2,500 each to cover it; with Ford out of the ownership

Creek Country Club in Moorestown, New Jersey. While

structure, so was his checkbook, hence the membership

the news of his departure was unwelcome, the circum-

was hit with its first assessment. Second, to help defray

stances were not out of left field. On the one hand, one

the cost of the transfer, the price of new certificates would

of Laurel Creek’s founders—and its first president—was

rise from $50,000 to $65,000 on September 1.

Jay Cranmer, a Jupiter Hills member and Sabo champion.

The final item on the agenda unsettled the club’s

On the other, the Jupiter Hills Sabo knew going back to

historical underpinnings, at least internally, for several

the 1970s had changed. “As it got closer and closer to the

years. According to Bullock’s minutes, “A discussion was

sale,” he says, “Jupiter Hills became a different kind of

held relative to the transfer of the club to the members

club. It felt more like a country club and less like a golf

and the closing papers that were supplied. There were

club.” He happened to prefer what it had been. [SIDE-

many questions raised and it was determined that the

BAR: EVENING EVENTS AT THE CLUBHOUSE]

Nine photo of new Board from old book

N E W

Dozens of applicants threw their mesh caps in the

D A Y

verge of stepping into the Board’s legal line of fire.

ring for the position. DiFederico, Six, and Bullock win✧

nowed the candidates, interviewed a handful, and by

✧

August, identified Sabo’s replacement in another professional with ties to George Fazio and the club’s early years:

FROM JACK DIESEL’S

Bill Davis, then head pro at the old-line Shaker Heights

the delivery of the club to its members, certain capital

Country Club on the outskirts of Cleve-

assumption of the presidency through

projects that should have been addressed

land. As an Akron resident, DiFederico

FROM THE BEGINNING,

were allowed to slide in the interest of

knew the club, had heard good reports

George Fazio insisted that

saving money. The Hills Course irrigation

about Davis, and drove to Cleveland to

the clubhouse existed to be

system was antiquated and held together

check the pro out for himself. “We had a

passed through, not lingered

with not much more than Scotch tape and

little chat,” Davis recalls. “One thing led to another, and there we are.” Davis was ensconced in the pro shop when mem-

within. Lunch, fine. Dinner, no. That changed under Jack Diesel to include regular Friday night service and an

plumber’s putty. The Village Course needed a halfway house and upgrades to its own irrigation system. The maintenance build-

bers returned in the fall. [SIDEBAR: BILL

occasional evening seafood

ing needed replacing, as did most of the

DAVIS]

buffet. As club manager,

outdated equipment—much of it bought

Craig Waskow built on that

used—that it housed. The man-made lakes

dational and existential, and a loss that

menu. With 1989 segueing

needed new liners. Almost 250 dead trees

emphasized that the end of an era had

into 1990, the Friday dinners,

needed to be cut down and removed. The

The second transition was foun-

truly come. Bill Elliott—the club’s conscience and steadying influence from the start—passed away early in the morning of

which included a combo for entertainment, found company on Sunday nights with an informal barbeque.

security fence around the property was in shambles. The service road between County Line Road and the maintenance

July 13 at Presbyterian Hospital in Phila-

House Chairman Bert Phillips

delphia. He was eighty-four. He died as he

specifically asked Waskow to

would have wished: quickly, with family

add a third night of service

wanting, their budgets held to between

and friends present, hours after suffering a

and to begin “a resumption

$700,000 and $800,000 annually, a signifi-

stroke at his beloved St. Davids Golf Club.

of the very popular (period-

cant cut from the more than $1 million that

Two days later, Paul Nealon, a finance and management consultant from Palm Beach, was tapped, as a formality, to fill Elliott’s term beside Ford and Diesel as a Jupiter

ic) seafood dinners,” as well. In 1992, occasional Saturday dinners joined the schedule—with men requested to wear ties.

yard was a wreck. So were the cart paths. The golf courses themselves went

top-tier clubs with thirty-six holes in the environs were allocating. That they looked and played as well as they did was visible testament to Dick Herr’s sorcery and the

Hills Club Governor. All three resigned

ministrations of a devoted staff, but there

two weeks later—at precisely 5:01 p.m.

was much to be done above the surface

on the day of the closing—to clear the way for the next

and below it, and the new administration knew that. The

generation of leadership.

board quickly engaged both a private agronomist and the

With Fazio and Elliott gone, the Founders—the

USGA’s Green Section to prepare reports.

Core Four—were down to two. One, Bob Hope, was for

All of that had to be paid for.

all intents and purposes, absentee. And the other—Bill

The new board set aside almost $4 million over a

Ford, who’d paid for so much of what surrounded them

four-year period for these projects. It resulted in a second

all the way back to before the beginning—was on the

assessment, this time for $10,000, payable in increments.

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FOR BILL DAVIS, JUPITER HILLS WAS MORE THAN A HIGH-PROFILE OPPORTUNITY FOR A CLUB PRO WITH AMBITION. “It was a family move for me,” he says of his relocation from

Like Ed Sabo before him, Davis oversaw the expansion of the

Ohio with his wife and two young children. He wanted to spend

golf program, but unlike his predecessor, there was now a Golf

more time with them. He wanted to see his kids grow up. In Shak-

Committee to report to. “It was a one-man committee at first,”

er Heights, the seasonal schedule demanded that he be on call

he says. “That’s the way Mario wanted it.” Even as the committee

through the long days of summer when his kids were home from

grew, it reined in organized activity. “Every couple of years the

school. At Jupiter Hills, he might only have a few foursomes out

committee would ask me to introduce something new,” he says.

on any given summer day. The summer would be his. He knew

“They didn’t do it all at once, because there were still some peo-

that from experience; this was a homecoming of sorts, a return

ple who wanted to keep it a golf club. For a long time, members

to a place with roots and meaning for him.

pushed for more, but the Board pushed back.”

Davis first stepped on to the property in 1972 with dreams

Across his long tenure at Jupiter Hills—director of golf from

of a PGA Tour career and the hope that George Fazio’s wizard-

1989 to 2007, then director of instruction until 2014, and pro

ry might help him get there. He’d grown up in Vero Beach, and

emeritus since—both Golf Digest and Golf magazine installed

by college he was playing on the top-ranked golf team at the

him on their lists of the nation’s Top 50 Teachers, and he was

University of Florida with future two-time U.S. Open champion

honored five times by the section as Teacher of the Year. He

Andy North, future eleven-time PGA Tour winner Andy Bean,

championed the addition of the North Range; fought hard for

and future CBS commentator Gary Koch. Post-graduation, he

the Learning Center, which opened after he left; played twice

knew he had to kick his game up a notch. One of Davis’s friends

a week with the members, once with the men, and once with

was so thrilled with the progress he was making under George,

the women; instituted a series of year-long pro-member events

he urged Davis to follow.

for men, women, and seniors; sent twenty-five of his assistants

Davis describes George as a demanding instructor who con-

off to become head pros elsewhere; and always reveled when

centrated equally on the swing and how best to maneuver the

a touring pro dropped by for a whirl and left saying, “ ‘Gee, I

ball around a golf course strategically and intelligently. “He liked

played really well today. I shot a 75.’ The design of the course

taking you out to play to see if you could do on the course what

kept scores honest.”

you learned on the range,” Davis says. “It’s something I’ve used myself as a teacher.”

Davis continues to teach in the area, and he looks back on his years at the club with senses of satisfaction and accomplish-

He found another life-long influence at Jupiter Hills in George’s

ment. Having followed Phil Greenwald and Ed Sabo, he’s grati-

friend Ken Venturi. In fact, Davis traces his well-honed skills from

fied by the mark he was able to leave in the continuity of golf at

fifty yards in directly to him: “I consider him a mentor.” (The two

Jupiter Hills.

were close enough for Davis to enlist Venturi to conduct a clinic during the 1991 Ford Invitational.) Under Venturi’s eye, Davis’s

“I’m the longest tenured pro in the history of the club,” he says. “I’m very proud of that.”

short game became so artful that fellow pros began asking his advice. “That’s how it started.” His life as a teacher has never stopped. Bill Davis found his calling passing on what he knew. He began his club career in 1973 as an assistant on Long Island, and by his second season, the Metropolitan PGA had anointed him its “Assistant of the Year.” Then on to Connecticut, back to Long Island, all the while playing and winning PGA sectional tournaments, then into his first head professional’s job at Atlanta’s Standard Club in the late 1970s. By the eighties, it was off to Shaker Heights, where he earned elite PGA Master Professional status. Not surprisingly, he penned his thesis on the short game.

248

Bill Davis photo from Club..ask Jenny

N E W

On top of that, in planning for the replacement of the maintenance barn, the board learned that both the

D A Y

various agreements. The language asserting that fact was ripe.

barn and part of the pond on the nearby 11th hole spilled

Though the Board’s frustration and anger were

across land belonging to the Florida East Coast Railway.

largely directed at Jack Diesel, Bill Ford took the hit. In

It wasn’t a huge parcel, just a strip, but it was another

the absence of George Fazio and Bill Elliott, he was the

loose end that had been left hanging for years. The club

last active name tied to the club’s founding. In the Board’s

had no choice but to clean up its perimeter and make the

eyes, he was synonymous with the past, and thus its front

land its own—for another $46,000.

man; he conveniently personified Jupiter Golf and its his-

With the membership’s will and wherewithal, that would be addressed and attended to. All of it would.

tory to them. Given Ford’s penchant for privacy, Harris believed that Ford would never engage in public battle; the

And then there was Bill Ford.

Board seconded the assessment. The next step? Harris ✧

✧

would draft a letter—to go out by registered mail over DiFederico’s signature—laying out the situation to Ford

ON NOVEMBER 29,

DiFederico convened a special meeting

of the Board that featured a trio of outside invitees. The

directly, again asking that he make the old account books available.

first was attorney Richard Harris of the Palm Beach Gar-

Two weeks later, the Board gathered for its regular

dens firm of Scott, Royce, Harris, Bryan & Hyland. He’d

monthly meeting in the clubhouse. Mixed in with the first

been retained in 1985 by the membership to represent

reports of the new committees, the minutes present some

them through the course of the transition. The other two,

funkiness. It was as if the club, for better or worse, was

George Marose and Robert Salmore of the giant audit

intent on cutting ties with its history and exorcising its

and tax consultancy McGladrey & Pullen, were the club’s

living past.

auditors.

Ken Meinken, in his role as treasurer, informed

Harris’s presentation, backed by Marose and Salm-

the Board that Jack Diesel was in arrears; per the new

on’s figures, was discomforting. Given dues and fees

Bylaws, his name would be posted prominently in the

that had been paid to Jupiter Golf, Inc. in the months

locker room for all to see. It was the only place you were

before closing, his position was that the previous owners

likely to see him at the club. With the transition com-

should have turned over something in the neighborhood

pleted, Diesel faded, like the powers he’d wielded, into

of $400,000 at the closing, not the $24,000 in cash that

the background. Though he held onto his membership

they did. In addition, he suggested Jupiter Golf improp-

until January 1996, Diesel sightings were on a par with

erly borrowed from that kitty to cover certain expenses

visitations from Sasquatch. With the announcement of

that it was not entitled to reimburse itself for since, per

his posting, you could almost feel a sense of glee emanat-

the 1984 agreement, Jupiter Golf, through its own capital

ing off that page of the minutes.

sources, was responsible for the care and feeding of both

As chairman of the Membership Committee, Ed

courses, the clubhouse, and, in fact, everything other than

Martin put forth a letter Bob Hope sent to DiFederico

the housing development. Beyond that, despite Jupiter

requesting Honorary Membership status for clubmaker

Hills’s efforts to scrutinize the books, Jupiter Golf and

Toney Penna, Hope’s good friend and business associate,

its representatives, per the minutes, “stonewalled us in

and, through his relationship with George dating back

every respect possible,” claiming the closing papers came

to the 1930s, part of the club’s scenery from even before

nowhere near to providing the financial data required by

the golf course took shape. The committee turned Hope

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down, regretting, according to the minutes, that “it had to

hoped to avoid; in late April of 1990, he filed a $1.5 mil-

come to this decision considering Mr. Hope’s reputation

lion suit in Martin County District Court against Jupiter

and world-wide renown. The committee sincerely hopes

Golf Club as an entity and Ford, Jack Diesel, and Hemp-

its decision does not, in any way, reflect on the credibility

stead individually. Within a few days, the Palm Beach

of Mr. Penna.” It did not, though it was hard to mistake

Post was running with it on the front page. Beyond the

the message it was sending to Hope, a Founder who’d pre-

financial questions, the suit charged Jupiter Golf with

viously asked nothing of the club but the ability to enjoy it

failure to maintain the club and its courses properly. The

when he was there.

club’s dirty linen had reached the public eye.

The most important item on the agenda was its first

After two decades of personally financing the

order of business. DiFederico read into the minutes the

endeavor, Ford was deeply hurt. “He was very disap-

dense three-page letter Harris had drafted for him to send

pointed,” recalls son-in-law Peter Morse. “He had always

to Ford. It reiterated the concern on behalf of the

contributed to the club. He had always tried to do the

Board that “Jupiter Golf, Inc. did not close in compliance with the terms of the Option Agreement.” The letter questioned what it called “doubtful

right thing by the club. He was never in this to make a profit. It was so perplexing to him that he’d be involved in a lawsuit when he had done so much for them.”

charges.” As the letter made clear, “We have received no

Had he been a more hail-fellow-well-met kind of

information or supporting data to justify this amount

presence at the club, might this have gone differently?

other than the statement that the cash of Jupiter Golf,

Perhaps, thinks Morse. “There was now a sense among

Inc. was used to repay borrowing from the non-return-

the membership of ‘Who is Bill Ford?’ They don’t know

able account established under terms of the option agree-

him. He doesn’t know a lot of them. He doesn’t come in

ments.” Unless Ford and Hempstead presented their

much. But there was never a promise that Bill Ford would

accounting forthwith, the club would be forced to take

play in your foursome. It wasn’t his obligation to do that.

further action.

It wasn’t that he didn’t like them. He just liked his own

“The Board of Governors hopes to avoid any con-

space. He wasn’t one to think about the other dimensions of his responsibilities as an owner, that he should get to

troversy,” the letter insisted. It couldn’t. It couldn’t avoid hurt feelings either.

know the members better. That’s what George had been

Remarkably, though, just as the Board seemed

for.”

intent on a break with the past, as the calendar flipped to 1990, it upheld one of George Fazio’s founding com-

But George, his friend, the reason behind the endeavor, was gone.

mandments. In response to the motion that the new

“Things change. It felt like a betrayal.”

club deserved a club championship, the governors curtly

Interestingly, despite an extended Q&A session delving into the issues with the Board at a membership

denied the proposal.

meeting held at the end of April, the proceedings had lit✧

✧

tle impact on the members. “It was basically hush-hush between the Board and

the squabble between Jupiter Hills and

Bill Ford,” recalls Frank Schanne. “It wasn’t generally

Bill Ford had legs, spilling into late 1992. When Ford

known to the membership. It wasn’t as if they were try-

and Jupiter Golf trustee David Hempstead failed to send

ing to build any kind of leverage among the members by

the financial and maintenance records as asked, Richard

keeping us informed. There was no mention of it outside

Harris, the club’s lawyer, did what both he and the Board

the Board.”

AS IT TURNED OUT,

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Art Kania remembers it the same way. “There https://www.newspapers.com/image/132405435 wasn’t much knowledge and there certainly wasn’t much

D A Y

Though Ford, in the end, paid the bill, he didn’t forDownloaded on May 10, 2017

The Palm Beach Post (West Palm Beach, Florida) · Fri, Apr 20, 1990 · Page 44

get it. Says Morse, “He was quite taken aback by it all.”

traction,” he says, “and nothing to cause concern among ✧

the membership. Any of us who knew anything about

✧

this—and very few did—felt the whole club was Bill Ford’s idea and that he was an extremely honorable per-

IN THE FINAL YEAR OF HIS TERM,

DiFederico faced a trio of

son who would do whatever it took to make it come out

contingencies no one anticipated. Two were internal, the

right.”

third had global repercussions. In February of 1991, Club

And so the legal wrangling progressed, hovering and

Manager Craig Waskow suffered a heart attack. A month

quietly unresolved in the lawyers’ hands, through Mario

later, Superintendent Dick Herr announced his retire-

DiFederico’s tenure into his successor Ed Martin’s. Depositions were taken in early 1991, and after an attempt at Page 135 of Book

ment, effective at the end of May. In April, the President of the United States showed up to play golf.

judicial Ed Martin goes here. plusmediation that the Board rejected in the spring of

All three were handled with dispatch and equanim-

1992, Martin reached out to Ford directly by letter in late Ford Martin 1 and Ford

ity. [SIDEBAR: HAIL TO THE CHIEF – THIS REALLY

Martin 22

June. Ford responded, by letter, a month later. “I never dreamed,” he wrote, “that when George Fazio and I were walking the snake-infested ‘jungle’ in

SHOULD BE PLACED SO IT BEGINS ON THE PAGE OPPOSITE THIS. WITH ART IT CAN RUN A FEW PAGES]

our survey of what turned out to be the site of an out-

Waskow recovered quickly. He was able to finish

standing golf course—Jupiter Hills—I would someday be

the season on a limited basis before decamping for a

locked in litigation over the administration and condition

less demanding routine. By fall, the Board named Peter

of the course.”

Dinehart to replace him. Dinehart had worked his way

Ford concedes that at one point he might not have

up from bartender to waiter to maître d’ to partner at a

been up on the details nestled in the complaint’s nooks

popular restaurant in North Palm Beach before taking

and crannies, but he was now. “In all honesty,” he

over as manager at Old Port Cove Yacht Club. Stepping

stressed, “I, personally, am not convinced that there is

in for the well-liked Waskow was an unenviable task. The

merit in your position. That is my honest belief.” Ford

club and Dinehart parted company in 1995.

and Martin—Diesel’s name was conspicuously absent

When Dave Troiano left the Polo Club of Boca

in this back and forth—agreed that they both wanted to

Raton to replace Herr as superintendent at the end of the

avert the headlines and humiliations that would likely

season, he walked into an unenviable situation of a dif-

attend a public trial, but Ford’s position was, for the

ferent sort. Despite all Herr had done through the transi-

moment, fixed: “I do not see that we have done anything

tion years on a shrunken budget, the exigencies of a Hills

wrong or immoral. If I thought so, we would pay the bill

Course more than twenty-years old needed more than

and forget it.”

even extraordinary routine maintenance. “The turf was

Ford held out hope that the issue could still be

severely stressed out,” said Troiano not long after assum-

resolved, if not amicably, at least privately, through medi-

ing his post. Balls in the fairways routinely plugged. It

ation, but mediation wasn’t necessary; face-to-face inter-

was not unusual to find a ball on the green coated with

action was. On November 6, Martin and Ford sat down

soil. This was not what older members remembered or

for a conversation. To disperse this cloud, Ford, for one

newer members expected.

last time, put the club’s interests above his own and wrote a check for $350,000.

“When the two courses were built,” Troiano explained, “no one anticipated how much play they

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AS THE SUN ROSE OVER JUPITER HILLS ON WEDNESDAY, APRIL 3, 1991, A WEIGHT HUNG IN THE ATMOSPHERE BEYOND THE HEAVIER-THAN-USUAL humidity that presaged an impending downpour: the President

pages of Sports Illustrated and Golf Digest. Both were Texans,

of the United States was dropping in to tee it up.

both went back almost three decades with the president, and

George H. W. Bush was beginning the final morning of his four-day Florida vacation, his first break from the burdens of of-

both were fine golfers, as was Brady, an Augusta member and twice a club champion at New Jersey’s posh Somerset Hills.

fice since the end of the Persian Gulf War. Three days of fishing

✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦ ✦

off Islamorada in the Keys with Secretary of Treasury Nicholas Brady, his longtime friend and fellow Yalie, were over. It was time

Why Bush decided to finally check Jupiter Hills off his bucket list

to play golf.

goes unrecorded, but he had played a good bit of golf in Florida

So there they were, Bush and Brady sharing a Marine heli-

through the years, often with Farish at Gulf Stream, where Far-

copter on the ride north for an itinerary that would begin with

ish was a member. The president also had history with Jupiter

a round at Jupiter Hills before the president peeled away to vis-

Island, where an annual spring tournament still carries the name

it his eighty-nine-year-old mother on Jupiter Island, her winter

of his father. But Jupiter Hills remained uncharted terrain. He

home since the 1960s. The chopper was scheduled for touch-

reached out directly to his mother’s Jupiter Island neighbor Bill

down shortly before ten at a sod farm on Bridge Road west of

Ford, who agreed to make arrangements, suggesting that pro-

U.S. 1. The owner, a Democrat, graciously granted landing rights.

tocol dictated that the White House call club President Mario

Though Bush 41 was as good an all-around athlete as ever sat

DiFederico to work out the details. The White House alerted

in the Oval Office, golf ran especially deep in his genetic inheri-

DiFederico to expect the call on Sunday morning.

tance. Like his mother’s father, he played notoriously fast—the

At the appointed time, the phone rang. DiFederico was sit-

Secret Service called it “power golf;” the president preferred

ting in his easy chair watching television. Knowing exactly who

“cart polo”—and though his game was certainly north of re-

was on the other end, he asked his wife Jean to pick up. She did.

spectable, his golfing lineage was a sight more impressive than

The incoming voice asked for Mario. “May I say who’s calling?”

his swing, which was actually pretty good. Investment banker

The president announced himself. She was stunned. Then, after

George Herbert Walker, the speedster on the family tree, was

a suitable pause, “Mr. President George Bush?” Affirmative. She

the president of the USGA in 1920, and later donated the epon-

rushed into the next room. Her husband tried stifling his laugh-

ymous Walker Cup for the biennial competition between teams

ter, but she never saw a guffaw. She had an important message

of top amateurs from the United States and Britain. Bush’s own

of state to deliver: “Mario, the President of the United States is

father, U.S. Senator Prescott Bush, was a USGA president him-

on the phone, and he wants to talk to you.” The next time they

self, in 1935; he didn’t donate hardware so much as win it—he

talked was to exchange greetings, president to president, when

was an eight-time club champion at Maine’s Cape Arundel Golf

the Bush motorcade pulled in.

Club in Kennebunkport, where his 66 established the club’s standard for years.

In preparation, the grounds had been thoroughly inspected and secure phone lines installed. On the morning of, the Secret

The president played to an eleven handicap at best.

Service brought a dog in to sniff the lockers, and an agent hand-

Despite a game built more for speed than comfort and an al-

ed Babe Cosentino, overlord of the locker room, two bottles of

ways uncooperative putter—“There’s definitely no deliberation

Evian water with specific instructions: If the president wants a

over a shot,” the pro at Cape Arundel once revealed—he loved

drink, it can only come from these bottles, and the bottle had

his time on the golf course. “It can do wonders for friendships

to be opened in plain view of either an agent or the president

and establishing common ground,” the president once said.

himself. Check.

Fittingly, when his motorcade arrived at Jupiter Hills, two very

As the president went to put on his shoes, he stepped into a

good friends were there to join them: Will Farish, the thorough-

crisis. The leader of the free world had forgotten his socks. Babe

bred breeder Bush’s son would appoint Ambassador to Great

rushed to the pro shop and brought back a pair. Bush reached

Britain, and Dan Jenkins, novelist extraodinaire and icon on the

for his wallet. Babe waved him off. “That’s OK, Mr. President. The

252

club will take care of it.” On the first tee, Bill Davis, serving as caddie and guide, joined the foursome, and a fair-sized gallery made up of members had

always do, but in a way as unexpected as the commingling of Babe’s feet and the First Footwear. The president’s brief Jupiter Hills sojourn influenced American foreign policy.

formed to follow. Bush split his time walking and riding, and

That night, the major broadcast networks and CNN all ran

seemed so happy to be on a golf course and away from the wor-

footage of Bush at Jupiter Hills in counterpoint with Kurdish ref-

ries of the world that not even a passing shower dampened his

ugees fighting to survive in the treacherous mountains between

spirits.

Iraq and Turkey. “George Bush learned in 1991 about the peril of

At the ninth hole, DiFedrico ushered the president and his

dissonance between presidential behavior and news coverage of

party, per tradition, to the back tee. Bush graciously obliged. His

a humanitarian emergency,” wrote Philip Seib, the veteran com-

3-wood came up short, proving once again that the hole cannot

mentator and director of USC’s Center on Public Diplomacy, in

be lobbied, compromised with, or cowed by political power.

his book The Global Journalist. “The contrasting images”—of a

Meanwhile, back in the locker room, Babe put a shine on the

golfing president and the plight of the Kurds—”contributed to a

president’s black wing tips, slipped in his own feet, and took off

shift in public opinion in favor of helping the Kurds, which was

for a spin around the clubhouse. “I’m a size eight,” says Babe,

promptly followed by a shift in U.S. policy.”

“but it didn’t matter if they were size fifteens. I was gonna try them.” They were pretty cloggy on him. “I didn’t care. I had to do

As the president himself liked to say, golf can establish common ground.

it. If I did nothing else, I had to do that.” On his stroll, he giddily proclaimed, “If anybody wants to know what it feels like to walk in the president’s shoes, ask me. I know.” Back outside, the president insisted on several occasions that the bill for green fees be sent to the White House. He also kept asking Davis for advice, tips, and anything Davis could pull from the sky that might smooth out the presidential golf game. Davis assured him again and again that the golf was on the house, but… “Mr. President,” suggested Davis respectfully after the umpteenth mini-tutorial, “the playing lesson today will blow a hole in the deficit.” The president roared. While his score was classified “Top Secret”—“I was told not to tell,” says Davis—the president revealed his appreciation for the golf course to the membership. “Now I know why you enjoy your Shangri-La,” he announced walking off the 18th green. The clock read 1:45 p.m.; they’d played in about three hours. The press corps was waiting to follow-up on the aftermath of the Iraq war and the perils facing Kurdish refugees. The president answered questions for more than ten minutes before returning to the sanctuary of the locker room. “Mr. President,” asked Babe, opening the government-sanctioned bottle of Evian, “would you like something to drink?” Yes, he said: a Miller Lite. Babe was frantic. He knew the rules, and Miller Lite wasn’t on them. But the Secret Service gave him the OK. The president added a hamburger and fries to his order, had lunch with his group, and was back in his car by three for the short hop to Jupiter Island for a reunion with his mother. The Bush visit, of course, made news as presidential visits

253

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would receive in future years.” Between them, they were

percolation rate of the soil, stripped away layers of

averaging 250 rounds a day in season. George never envi-

organics that had built up over time, and released harm-

sioned that.

ful gases, trapped well below the surface, that had been

But Tom did. [SIDEBAR: FAZIO BYLAW]

damaging root structures. The course would play better,

And he conveniently sat on the Green Committee.

and it would drain better.

Though Tom hadn’t been around much during the

At the same time, more than six hundred trees and

transition—and wouldn’t be until early in the new mil-

plants—live oaks, slash pines, sand pines, palmettos,

lennium—his office was still across from the club on Fed-

and scrub oaks—native to the original vegetation were

eral Highway, and he was on the Green Committee. In

planted on the Hills course, primarily in open spaces

early 1990, DiFederico asked him to survey both courses

between the seventh and eighth holes, to the right of the

and recommend improvements to playability and main-

landing area on the eighth hole, and in the area around

tenance. His assessment? The Hills Course needed to be

the pond between the first and fifth fairways. “When the

regrassed. The subsoils needed improving. A proper tree

members took over,” observed Green Committee Chair-

program needed to be put in place.

man Jim Nolen, “we began to restore the beauty.” Going

“Grass maintenance back then wasn’t at today’s

forward, the planting program was on schedule to con-

level,” explains Tom. When they first seeded the course

tinue on each of the courses over the next several years. It

in 1969, the Fazios used a warm-weather grass called

added… and took away. It began a systematic clearing of

Bermuda 328 on both fairways and greens. “The theory

the invasive Brazilian Pepper trees—botanists refer to it

at the time was that it was the best grass for Florida. It

as “the plant from Hell”—grape vines and dodder vines

was just a theory.” And good as it might have been, it still

that were ravaging native flora and hosts of the speci-

required overseeding the greens with Bent to stay healthy

men pines George installed. The program also attacked

through colder winter nights.

the undergrowth between holes to make searching for the

In the intervening two decades, heartier new strains

result of misguided missiles easier.

had been developed, and Tom now recommended a com-

As much as had been done on the golf courses, what

bination to replace the original Bermuda: a more resil-

didn’t need addressing was the design itself. When Lorne

ient Bermuda—Bermuda 419—for the fairways, and a

Rubenstein, Canada’s leading golf writer, visited not long

relatively new hybrid Bermuda that needed no summer

before George Bush, the future member of the Canadian

overseeding for the greens. By the time the board fac-

Golf Hall of Fame couldn’t resist penning an ode to Jupi-

tored in new sand for the bunkers, a more sophisticated

ter Hills for the Toronto Globe and Mail. “Jupiter’s holes

tree program, and replacement equipment for the crew,

require all types of shots,” he wrote. “They turn right and

the budget climbed to close to a million dollars. It was

they turn left. They run downhill and uphill, sometimes

approved in early 1992, and the Hills was closed from

on the same hole. The fast greens are contoured… but

April to November for the work. [SIDEBAR: ACES]

you don’t have to be a Houdini to putt.

“This wasn’t a renovation,” stresses Tom. “It was

“Jupiter Hills,” he went on, “fits the landscape,

part of the heavy maintenance program the club was

instead of being imposed on it. It’s all anybody should

undertaking to spruce things up. It’s like putting down

need in the way of a first-division golf course.”

new carpet without changing the color or the texture very much.”

Which begged the question, asked and answered in the last paragraph of Rubenstein’s column. “Why would

“Heavy” was the right word. In addition to the

anybody build a typically modern goofy course with end-

new grass, Troiano and his crew improved the poor

less lakes, long walks, or drives, between tees and greens

N E W

D A Y

that belong on a carnival midway? Jupiter is a lesson in

delegated the thankless—and tedious— task to one of

golf course design and golf club operations. It should be

its new Governors, Washington, D.C., attorney Charlie

required study for anybody interested in starting a club.”

Morin. They picked the right guy. What he came up with

True as that might be, this was no time to rest on

was heavily influenced by an unexpected precinct. [SIDE-

laurels or revel in accolades. There was still plenty to do.

BAR: CHARLIE MORIN BYLAWS]

The heavier volume of use impacting the golf course ✧

was also impacting the clubhouse, so that, too, loomed as

✧

large as it did imminent. The initial flurry of activity in 1989 and 1990 was prelude, really, for what lay ahead.

THERE WAS NO GETTING AROUND THIS:

When Martin became president at the end of 1991, he

stretching.

the clubhouse needed

inherited the regrassing of the Hills and the groundwork

The glass cube with the wood trim that had been set

for modifying the clubhouse. At the same time, on a less

atop a base of Travertine marble in the early 1970s was

tangible front, he believed, and the Board concurred,

a clubhouse designed for minimal use for a club designed

that two years into their autonomy, the Bylaws that had

for minimal use. Storage was at a premium. The kitchen

been written in 1984 by attorneys retained by Bill Ford

was small. There was no grill. There was no bar. There

and Bill Elliott needed updating. The 1984 Bylaws were

was no boardroom. (Why would there be? There was no

filled with transitionary nuts and bolts no longer applica-

board.) The only way to get from the first floor to the din-

ble; a fresh start called for a fresh document. The board

ing room was by spiral staircase. The men’s locker room

With the dawn of the 1990s, the golf course yielded a pair of achievements so remarkable that Jupiter Hills turned into aces central. In January of 1991, Bob Meyerhoff, a member so new he’d yet to receive his formal Certificate, watched his tee balls find nothing but cup on successive days—the first on the 17th hole of the Village, the second on the beast of the ninth on the Hills. As impressive as that sounds, it paled beside what the Palm Beach Post dubbed The Sorge Slam. Between March 7, 1990, and September 1, 1998, Ginny Sorge recorded holes-in-one on each of the par 3s on the Hills Course. It’s as rare a feat as there is in the game, much rarer, even, than a pair of ones by the same player in the same round; mid-way through her run, Golf World reported knowledge of only forty-five golfers acing all the one-shotters on the same course. “It’s the first time I’d ever run across anything like that,” recalled Bill Davis at the time. Decades later, he was no less in awe. “All four of those holes-in-one were not accidental. She knew what she was doing.” Sorge was, indeed, a superior stick, her prowess noted as far back as the early 1960s when her hometown paper, Connecticut’s Bridgeport Post recorded her victory in a long-drive competition. She won several club championships along the way, and she was an equally proficient bridge player. In a long golfing life, she’d never aced a hole until she and her husband Mike—they met, fittingly, on a golf course in the 1950s—joined Jupiter Hills in 1988; two years later, the magic began to happen. She made her first on the 142-yard 14th hole; she watched excitedly as the ball landed, rolled, and dropped. On December 2, 1991, she made her second, on the third hole, playing 122 yards. “It was in the late afternoon,” she recalled. “The sun was in our eyes, and no one could see the ball on the green.” She missed seeing

T H E

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housed 168 lockers, the women’s seventy-six; despite

H I L L S

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ambition yielded to practicality and cost.

heroic shuffling by attendants Babe Cosentino and Frank

Construction began on the scaled-back Kvarnberg

Morabito, there was no calculus yet invented that would

design in 1992 right after Mother’s Day with the club-

fit close to four hundred members and their golfing hus-

house remaining shuttered until the work was completed

bands and wives into 244 compartments. With no place

in the fall. When the renovation debuted to the mem-

to add lockers, the club asked members to double up, but

bers—at a cost of $572,967—the clubhouse boasted new

not everyone agreed. The calculations were so inhospita-

storage areas, restrooms, elevator, enlarged kitchen, and

ble that when members witnessed the flag at half-staff in memory of fellow members, they furtively sought out Babe or Frank to inquire whether the departed soul’s accom-

GREEN COMMITTEES can be mercurial enterprises. It’s not uncommon to see features appear or disappear

the multi-purpose room—aka the Pine Tree Room, a small addition adjacent to the northwest corner for private parties with full bar service, small private sit-

modation might be available—and whether

at their whims. Donald Ross

down dinners, a permanent meeting site

a carefully greased palm might ease the

was wary enough of intru-

for the Board of Governors, and a cocktail

path to it.

sive green chairmen to coun-

lounge the rest of the time. On November

sel clubs to leave their golf

22, 1992, the Board convened within its

Yes, there had been work done to the clubhouse as the U.S. Amateur approached, but its new features were cosmetic, not functional, and did nothing to help service a growing club. In the immediate after-

courses to the professionals. With Tom ensconced on the Green Committee from its inception through the regrassing in 1992, an expert

walls for the first time. But… The dining room was no bigger and lockers were still at a premium. In 1993, the ladies’ locker room was

math of the turnover, no matter how the

held sway in fact, but not

board crunched the numbers, the numbers

fiat. In early 2006, that was

enlarged when the bag storage area was

rebelled. Short of tearing the clubhouse

changed. Shortly after Tom

relocated to the new underground cart

down and starting from scratch, the only

completed a major over-

park built into the hillside. The pro shop

solution that made sense was expansion. Preliminary plans arrived in the spring of 1990 from architects Lee Kvarnberg and Henry Goldman of Lee Kvar-

haul of the Hills Course, the board amended the Bylaws to sanctify its insistence that alterations to the playing fields “must first be ap-

grew, too. Inside the public areas of the clubhouse, new carpeting, wallpaper, fixtures, and furnishings scrubbed away vestiges of the Diesel-fueled decorating era. [SIDEBAR: A BRIDGE TOO FAR]

nberg Architects & Associates in Jupiter,

proved to the satisfaction of

and the renderings posted in the clubhouse

a Certified Professional Golf

Bit by bit, project by project, year by

were ambitious enough to call for pushing

Course Architect chosen by

year, as Jupiter Hills continued to grow, it

out one of the walls to enlarge the dining

the Board of Governors.” For

continued evolving. By the end of 1993,

room and the construction of a new pod to the men’s locker room adding twenty-eight additional lockers. When members saw

as far into the future as the eye can see, that architect’s last name will be Fazio.

the sketch for a new multi-purpose room,

equity membership, holding remarkably steady through the country’s mini-recession of 1990–1992, had reached 377. The North Range was on the drawing board.

Don Six, in his planning report, passed on their wish that

On December 1, copies of the club’s silver-anniversary his-

it “could possibly be made a little more sexy to make it

tory, The Jupiter Hills Story: A Quarter Century of Golf

more desirable when used as a cocktail lounge—the archi-

by George’s old friend, former Golf Digest writer and edi-

tects tell us that is no problem.”

tor Cal Brown, were available for pick up at the pro shop.

The project was approved in in late 1991. Alas,

Membership Certificates had

N E W

D A Y

Of the thousands of golf clubs

IN A MEASURE

west of the Atlantic seaboard, the number with Bylaws

of how far Jupiter Hills had

based directly on the fundamental principles of a Scot-

come since its founding and

tish curling club can be assigned to one finger, and that

how much had changed

finger is attached to Jupiter Hills.

since the members took

In December of 1991, Charlie Morin’s first assignment

over,

as a newly elected Governor was to rewrite the Bylaws

in the spring of 1993,

into an operating manual for the new Jupiter Hills. A

twenty-three women

prominent attorney in the nation’s capital—his law part-

petitioned the board to be

ners included Charles Colson of Watergate fame and

allowed to play bridge in the

two former heads of the SEC—Morin was a passionate

dining room. The Governors

devotee of the ancient Scottish pastime just a shade

said OK. At first. And then

younger than golf. He found the inspiration he needed

appreciated to $75,000

for the task he’d been presented in a dusty volume on

on the way to $90,000 in

the shelves of his library: The History of Curling, dedicat-

the new year.

ed to Queen Victoria and published in 1890 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Royal Caledonian Curling Club. The book’s first appendix was the club’s 1888 constitution. A quick examination of both notes synchronicity, less in the rules themselves than in the overarching ethos that connects them. The spirit of the Jupiter Hills Bylaws and its nod to the importance of friendship and harmony was lifted right from the Royal Caledonian’s, and in more than one instance Morin simply transposed “golf” for “curling.” Fortunately for the membership, Morin could find no contemporary analog for this passage: “If a member left the parish his stones became the property of the club.” Morin,page 135 from book

But the dining room was no bigger and lockers were still at a premium. Give it time.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A Fazio Comes Home ✧

✧

BOUT HALFWAY THROUGH HIS FOUR-YEAR REIGN AS PRESIDENT, Ed

Martin had reason to look out

from the terrace of the newly renovated clubhouse over the newly regrassed golf course with a newly reinvigorated sense of satisfaction. Jupiter Hills was thriving. [SIDEBAR: COMING TO TERMS]

The playing fields were looking healthy, and the $1.4 million annually budgeted for their care

and feeding offered 1.4 million good reasons to believe they would remain healthy. So did the Board’s clever move, urged by the Green Committee, to include the membership in the process by raising awareness and keeping them involved in the care and upkeep of the course. The plan was simple: Members were gathered into groups of twenty-two, and each group was assigned a specific hole on the Hills Course with the responsibility of tending to it every time an attached member played. The idea of playing well now came with the added fulfillment of knowing you’ve left the golf course better than you found it: You’ve repaired divots, fixed ball marks, and made certain no broken tees were left about to loll in the Florida sun—even if you weren’t accountable for the unrepaired divot, the unfixed ball mark, or the abandoned tee personally. Cleverly, it contributed, as well, to pride of ownership, an incalculable plus for a membership still getting used to the the alchemical bond that transmuted them from hundreds of individual golfing cells into a single equity organism with common interests and responsibilities. Turning toward the club’s north quadrant, if Martin squinted hard enough, he might have also caught a glimpse of the future; a second range designed for serious players to practice their game seriously was in the works to debut in 1994. The original range behind the clubhouse was going nowhere, but with both a place to practice and a place to warm up, Jupiter Hills would soon be able to claim as good a one-two punch for working on your game and preparing for a round as existed anywhere. So, if Martin felt pleased, he had cause. “You walk out on the golf course now and see a beautiful place,” he said, “with beautiful turf and beautiful greens. It makes you feel good, like you want to play.”

IT’S UNUSUAL FOR A CLUB AS WELL-ESTABLISHED, WELL-KNOWN, AND WELL-RESPECTED AS JUPITER HILLS TO GO THROUGH A SERIES OF identity crises, but, at least in terms of its logo, that’s precisely

sand dune, made a hand-rendering, colored it in, and entered it

what Jupiter Hills has done. The club finally got on top of its in-

into her computer. Pleased with the image, she tested a few type

decisiveness in 2005—and that in itself is a story—but the saga

styles beneath for synergy. “It was a pretty unsophisticated way

leading up to it deserves revisiting.

of doing it, but it was really fun to make cool line drawings.”

For the first decade, the club dispensed with a logo altogether, preferring an upper-and-lower case imprint of its name in a

She sent in several options, received a $50 honorarium, and that was that. “I went along with my life.”

clean italic type style. In the early eighties, the club added an

For the next two years, Brinsfield’s committee continued

image—the Jupiter Lighthouse in red with a palm tree in the

looking, continued talking to designers, continued spending

foreground—and changed the type face beneath it to an all

money, but were never thrilled with what their money was buy-

lower-case “jupiter hills” in elongated Roman style. That didn’t

ing. Then they remembered Chrissy’s tree.

last long. By the mid-eighties, the lighthouse disappeared, and

She was in her first semester at Savannah College of Art and

“Club” returned to the name with the three words presented in

Design when her mother called to see if she still had her Jupiter

an upright script.

Hills files. Chrissy was stunned. “They liked what I created when

Cut to 1989, and the new era of equity ownership. The first membership applications arrived with a stylized green JHC sur-

I was sixteen better than what the other agencies and designers did. And that’s the logo the club is still using.”

rounded by a golden circle. The monogram gave way the follow-

This time, the club paid her considerably more. “I remember

ing year to the stark image of a silver metallic sand pine, perched

looking at the receipt for all my books and thinking this will take

on a hill, leaning into the wind. In time, it was emblazoned on

care of it.” And then some.

everything from hats and shirts to club literature.

After the Board formally adopted the logo in December of

On the verge of the millennium, the Board asked member Bill

2005, the club tried to copyright the image—it was successfully

Weithas, with his long career as president and then chairman of

able to register the name “Jupiter Hills” in 2000—but ran into

the advertising giant SSC&B:Lintas International, to work up a

an roadblock put up by the Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach.

new insignia; he put his former associates on it. Their new idea,

Jupiter Hills went with it anyway, and the logo debuted in March

which was essentially the old idea of the monogram, though

on shirts given to participants in the annual Ford Classic. To ce-

elongated this time to fit an oval, was revealed as part of the

ment the image, the House Committee found a way to recreate

club’s millennium celebration. Though the Board planned to ta-

the real thing at the club’s entrance in 2010. With the problem-

ble implementing it until the new clubhouse was ready in 2002,

atic waterfall finally gone, they decided to redesign the entry af-

they began using it in late 2001, and trademarked it in 2003.

ter Atilla noticed a perfect specimen of Chrissy’s tree, a lovely

Within the year, they went back on the prowl. The Golf Com-

short-needle pine, in three-dimensional living color staring at

mittee, led by Jay Brinsfield, sought the Board’s blessing to bring

him from the late Thomas Murphy’s front yard at 18565 S.E. Vil-

in something more distinctive, more memorable, more descrip-

lage Circle. Atilla arranged a swap for any tree Murphy wanted,

tive, and more eye-catching. When the Board said OK, the com-

and using Murphy’s tree as the centerpiece, the House Commit-

mittee sought input from several well-known designers. In the

tee looked at several design proposals before going with a slight

spring of 2004, one of Bill Davis’s assistants took a few items

modification of Dan Morello’s featuring the tree with two key

for stitching to the club’s custom embroiderer, Karen Caskey of

elements of the renovated golf course: sand and mulch. “Now,”

Caskey Monograms & Embroidery in North Palm Beach. While

says Atilla, “our logo is out where the waterfall was.”

there, he mentioned that the club was hunting for a new logo.

Meanwhile, Karen Caskey still does custom embroidery for

Karen had a wild idea. Her daughter Chrissy, just sixteen, was

the club. As for Chrissy, after college, she worked her way from

a junior at the Dreyfoos School of the Arts in West Palm Beach.

an assistant at a photo studio to design director for a magazine

To get some real-world experience, she was sure Chrissy would

in New England to art director for Sephora, the international

be happy to come up with a few ideas.

beauty-products retailer, at its headquarters in San Francisco.

“I’d just discovered graphic design,” recalls Chrissy, “and was

Once, while she was still in college, she and her mother were

beginning to learn the computer programs.” Karen told her a

invited to lunch at Jupiter Hills. “It was so crazy and surreal to

little about Jupiter Hills and that the club was looking for some-

see the very first thing I’d ever been paid to do emblazoned all

thing with a tree. Chrissy found a photo she liked of a tree on a

over the club—at the front entrance, on merchandise, even em-

F A Z I O

C O M E S

H O M E

The feeling was contagious. Twenty-five years after

other institutions had already begun opening doors to

George Fazio first set eyes on the rocking and rolling ter-

people who could do no more than bang on them not

rain he was so instrumental in shaping, Jupiter Hills—

all that many years before, so many in golf’s elite strata

the club and its two golf courses together—had matured,

seemed fossilized. As one famed club in Southern Califor-

evolved, weathered challenges, and found its new self and

nia proudly advertised in its past, no blacks, no Jews, and

direction. The membership was holding steady—right

no actors need apply. An absence of Y chromosomes at

where the board wanted it—at a shade under four hun-

Augusta, Pine Valley, or Burning Tree? Get serious.

dred. The financial footing was firm. The infrastructure

Tales of exclusion and discrimination might raise

was improving. The staff was exemplary. The golf was

hackles, but they didn’t raise eyebrows. Tales of exclusion

second to none.

and discrimination went with the territory.

It all led Cal Brown to wax lyrically as he reached

Until the PGA held its annual championship at

the final paragraphs of his volume penned to mark the

Shoal Creek in 1990, and the world beyond golf was

silver anniversary of the serendipitous events that lured

so outraged by its founder’s blatant admission that “we

George to the land and the enduring power of the vision

don’t discriminate in every other area except blacks,”

those events brought forth. [SIDEBAR: CAL BROWN]

the response resonated loudly and clearly: enough was

“It’s the kind of place,” he wrote, “where each

enough. Golf’s governing bodies had no place to bury their

member feels, secretly, that the club and the courses are

heads. And while these bodies—the USGA, the PGA of

his own, where he can bring friends, relax and play golf

America, the LPGA, and the PGA Tour—couldn’t force a

with no distractions, no hurry, and no rules other than

club to change its membership practices, they could draw

those of common courtesy and etiquette.

an unequivocal line in the sand with real consequences

“Wouldn’t it be nice, after all of this, if Jupiter Hills

for crossing it, and they did: No club that excludes mem-

turned out as the founders dreamed it might. For dream

bers on the basis of race, sex, or religion can host a tour

they did, each in his own way, just as the members now,

event or a national championship henceforward.

in their own way, and those to come may dream of their

At Jupiter Hills in 1992, the question stirring these passions was literally not just close to home, it was shar-

golf.” Wouldn’t it be nice, to be sure.

ing one of the houses without the formality of wedding

Would that it were that simple.

rings: What constitutes a family and how far does the concept of family extend under the warrants of member-

✧

ship? Once upon a time, the answer was self-evident; a husband, a wife, and their children up to a certain age. But

As the club’s dispute with Bill Ford was on the verge

as nuclear families split apart and reconstituted with new

of fading in the rearview, another adventure in jurispru-

partners, society—begrudgingly at first—began accept-

dence began to flash its headlights.

ing broader definitions of what a family can mean in the

The changing customs of the late twentieth century

same way it had been rethinking the broad questions of

presented their share of sticky wickets to private clubs.

civil rights and equal rights since the second World War.

In the hidebound insularity of maintaining the status quo

Do two dedicated partners even need the imprimatur of

simply because it was the status quo they inherited, clubs

a marriage license to enjoy the rights and privileges of

found themselves bogged down on membership issues

life—and that includes club life—together?

focused on race, sex, religion, and marital status. While

Jay Brinsfield was about to help the club find out.

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

The owner of the nation’s largest chain of Hallmark stores, Brinsfield was in his mid-fifties at the time,

H I L L S

C L U B

included the descriptive “only” as the designated modifier for the member. No “only” left room for interpretation.

divorced, living most of the year in southeastern Pennsyl-

The Board dug in. When the club’s request for a

vania, and engaged to Anne English, a woman who loved

rehearing was turned down in September—Judge Ken-

golf as much as he did. From the mid-eighties on, their

ney, in his denial, insisted “this case cries out for the

names were linked in Philadelphia-area sports pages as

imposition of estoppal” against the club—the club filed

one of the best mixed pairings in the region; they played

an appeal in Florida’s Fourth Circuit. In October 1994,

out of Wilmington Country Club in Delaware, where

the appeals court straightforwardly upheld Kenney; his

Brinsfield often partnered in men’s events with Alfred du

original ruling stood. But, and this is a big but, the ruling

Pont Dent, one of Jupiter Hills’s original investors.

only pertained to Brinsfield and English, and the Board,

The adventure that led to two years in the courts found its antecedent when Brinsfield decided to join Jupi-

at the court’s suggestion, quickly cobbled together some protective language going forward.

ter Hills as a single member after buying a lot on S.E.

There was fallout. The club parted company with

Village Circle in 1988. Two years later, he told Club Man-

the law firm that had represented its interests back to

ager Craig Waskow that he was ready put a house up on

the dawn of the transition days. And there was a group

his property, but only if—and his proviso was unequivo-

of members displeased enough with the march of time

cal—he could convert his single membership into a cou-

to write letters opposing any extension of privileges to

ple’s membership to include English. After consulting

non-married members. [SIDEBAR: CARD PLAYING]

the Board, Waskow informed Brinsfield his request was

But time, as time is wont to do, marched right by

approved. For the next two years, he paid dues at the

them, and the Bylaws were amended in 2003 to allow a

upgraded couples’ level. And up went his house.

“Domestic Partner” of the opposite sex living together

But the Board had second thoughts, and at the end

with a member full privileges, though those privileges

of 1991, let Brinsfield know that a closer reading of the

would not carry beyond the member’s lifetime. Granted,

Bylaws suggested he and English did not qualify as a cou-

the change, at first, didn’t come voluntarily; it was man-

ple under club rules after all. The Board offered to refund

dated by the court. Even so, on this social issue, Jupiter

the difference in dues retroactively, but the damage was

Hills was ahead of the curve. It displayed its intention

done—Brinsfield had built the house on condition of the

to stay that way when the membership was polled on

membership—and the gauntlet went down.

the issue via questionnaire, and domestic partnerships

Brinsfield said no to the money, and yes to a fight by

became encoded in club governance.

filing suit in the Circuit Court in Stuart in March 1992.

As for Brinsfield and English, they finally married

“We are very sorry and extremely disappointed,” Martin

and, in the late 1990s, moved into a larger house a few

informed the membership by letter, “that Mr. Brinsfield

doors away. During the presidency of Ames Shuel, Brins-

has chosen to take this action.” The case went to trial a

field, a former president of Wilmington Country Club,

year later, and Judge Scott Kenney, citing his own close

chaired both the Golf and Green Committees and was

reading of the Bylaws, ruled in Brinsfield’s favor. By pars-

Shuel’s vice president from 2003—2004. The Brinsfields

ing every letter in every syllable of the pertinent passages,

were active at Jupiter Hills until 2016, shortly before

the judge determined that the Bylaws never specifically

he turned eighty. He died two years later, but his legacy

defined a “couples” membership as only referring to a

runs through Article Two, Section Eight of the amended

husband and wife, the way a single membership plainly

Bylaws.

F A Z I O

C O M E S

H O M E

“He expected people to do their jobs,” says Valenti, ✧

✧

“plain and simple. He was easy to please as long as you were doing your job.” But not everyone pleased him, and

The club faced two key personnel decisions in 1995, one inside, one out.

under his aegis, several senior employees were let go. He brought in a new chef. He hired Gwen Gordon from

Never happy with the management style of Peter

Frenchman’s Creek as the club’s controller, then, through

Dinehart, the Board explored the idea of expanding the

Gordon, brought Jenny Messer over from Frenchman’s

title of club manager into the more authoritative position

Creek as his administrative assistant and front-desk

of general manager with more concentrated power and

receptionist, beginning her long tenure as, in essence, the

the broader brief of overseeing the entire staff and the

face of the club to the membership. [SIDEBAR: JENNY]

club overall. Once they decided to go that way, Dinehart

Naturally, when the boat rocks, the sailing gets

was eased out in early spring and Bob Schmidt arrived

choppy. Some of the staff was unhappy with Schmidt’s

in July from Jack Nicklaus’s Muirfield Village in Dub-

changes. That wasn’t an issue for him. What became

lin, Ohio. “He was just great,” recalls Phyllis Valenti,

an issue for Schmidt was the position he found himself

who relocated from the halfway house to the account-

in—as the enforcer, the bad cop to the Board’s good cop.

ing department the year before en route to her final post-

When he resigned in 1997 to move to the Estancia Club

ing—as Director of Human Resources—before retiring

in Scottsdale—Golf Digest had named its Tom Fazio eigh-

in 2015. (Her forty-one years of service to Jupiter Hills

teen the Best New Private Course of 1996—Gordon was

remains the club’s longest tenure to date.) “He was a true

promoted from within to fill his seat.

professional.”

Besides a general manager, the Board also sent out

With the Board in his corner, Schmidt shook up

flares to find a new superintendent when the Green Com-

some of the Jupiter Hills culture. When George Fazio

mittee opted not to renew Dave Troiano’s contract. They

began focusing the bulk of his attention on the Village

didn’t have far to look, plucking Chuck Gast, an agron-

development in the late seventies, the club took on the

omist in the Hobe Sound office of the USGA since 1991.

reputation as a place run by its employees. Which it was.

He, too, hit the ground running, creating a new tree

Ownership may have been there, but George was preoc-

nursery within a month of his arrival. The first serious

cupied, Bill Ford defined laissez-faire, and Bill Elliott was

test of his skills came in October when a stationary front

more into the big picture than the day-in, day-out nuts

dropped two feet of rain onto the property in twenty-four

and bolts of the operation. Then, through the transition,

hours, seriously flooding both the golf course and the

Jack Diesel was largely an absentee overseer. In the first

renovated maintenance barn. Given its sandy base, the

years after the transition, the Board was putting out fires.

course handled the water fine, a good harbinger for cat-

Somebody had to fill that vacuum and make the deci-

aclysms to come. The barn, not so fine. With the advice

sions, and the day-to-day somebodies were the staff.

of a local engineering firm, the club upgraded its drainage

It was time to reel in that situation. Schmidt’s charge—part trouble-shooter, part problem-solver—was to do just that.

capacity and began studying ways to move water off the property more efficiently. Meanwhile, membership remained steady—but

And so he did. He took a hard look at the respon-

flat—in the high 370s, causing some concern. A con-

sibilities of every employee, evaluated performances, and

certed campaign to up the number kicked off over the

instituted a set of inviolate new policies and procedures.

1995 Labor Day weekend.

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

between the 10th fairway of the Village Course and the ✧

✧

Federal Highway. The club wanted it left as is, but the club didn’t own it. George Sands did. It was part of the

In the wake of activity, redefinition, and repair that

domain he snapped up when he bought the Village’s devel-

filled the terms of the first two club presidents under

opment rights from Tom Matevia in 1990. He decided he

shared ownership, their successors, John Lynch and Joe

wanted to build twenty multi-housing units unaffiliated

Nelson, oversaw a period of relative calm on the road to

with the Village there. With power lines above it and the Federal Highway

Y2K. New regulations governing cart use were estab-

on its edge, Parcel IX was never a particularly attractive

lished: Member-owned carts must be colored beige or

strip; it had never been zoned for residences of any kind,

white and manufactured by EZ-Go or Club Car, with

and none of the development’s Master Plans ever con-

trail fees moving from daily billing to annual.

sidered placing so much as a port-a-potty on it. For the

Tee colors were changed—in descending order of length—to tan, blue, white, green, and red.

club’s purposes, the land’s best use was no use at all; let it do what it does best—provide a buffer between the hur-

Membership reached capacity for the first time,

ly-burly of the Federal Highway and the oasis of the club.

cracking the four hundred ceiling in 1996, when thir-

But Sands formally appealed to Martin County

ty-seven new members brought the total to 401, evidence

for a zoning change to allow him to build. John Stanger,

of the success of the campaign begun the year before.

the president of the Home Owners Association began a

The official address of the club was switched from Federal Highway to Hills Club Terrace.

campaign to stop him. “Our Village is threatened with serious deterioration in its quality,” he warned his fel-

Should the Village Course be renamed? The board

low homeowners. “Should the developer’s request for

considered it, as it would continue to do from time to

re-zoning of Parcel IX be approved, housing that would

time, and, as it would continue to do almost every time—

be built, if marketable would be inferior in all respects

the course was briefly renamed the South Course in

to our homes.” He painted a Doomsday scenario: The

2000—accepted that there were better uses of its time.

noise would drive them crazy, the community’s security

Metal spikes became taboo.

would be breached, home values would plummet, and

And, at the end of 1997, non-Board members, for

apartment dwellers might be able to join their associa-

the first time, were invited to sit on club committees. The

tion. He urged them to sign the petition he attached to

idea grew out of the Green Committee, (which had tech-

his letter. At that point, his fellow members would have

nically broken ranks from 1990–1991 with Tom Fazio’s

gladly grabbed their pitch forks. Instead, they settled on

presence). As its chairman, Larry Washburn found him-

reaching for their pens. Like John Hancock, President

self a magnet for member complaints and suggestions. His

Lynch installed his own name on the top line.

solution? Turn the tables. One of his invitees made club

Sands made the members an offer. They could buy

history: When Gerry Butts, a stalwart of women’s golf

Parcel IX from him for $600,000. After some back and

at Jupiter Hills since she and husband George joined in

forth, Sands agreed to sell for $400,000. The Doomsday

1977, took her seat, she became the first woman to serve

clock stopped ticking.

on a standing committee. [SIDEBAR: GERRY BUTTS] The most urgent business centered on a relatively small swath of land—aka Parcel IX—the 4.5 acres

But there was one unresolved piece of the past that kept bubbling up. The clubhouse.

F A Z I O

The dining room was still too small and there weren’t anywhere near enough lockers. There was no

C O M E S

H O M E

The lounge area? Only 4 percent considered it worthy of the name.

place to gather for a drink outside the locker room. And

The East Terrace overlooking the golf course? Just

the roof was leaking. While the maintenance staff placed

11 percent. The South Terrace barely fared better with

tubs in the dining room to ward off floods, the Board

17 percent. The dining room? 13 percent.

commissioned a survey. Why not just open Pandora’s Box?

The new multi-purpose Pine Tree Room created with such hoopla in the last renovation? A disappointing

✧

10 percent. Yet, despite the overall dissatisfaction with the

Oh, they had such plans.

clubhouse as it was, only 26 percent of the membership

In March 1998, the Board decided the time had

favored a new clubhouse, 22 percent strongly, compared

come for Fort Apache’s last stand. They began seriously

to 52 percent who leaned toward renovation—33 per-

discussing the idea of razing the clubhouse and replacing

cent strongly. And while 14 percent indicated that they

it. But with what?

could have cared less either way, the numbers told a defi-

Well, they didn’t know what, only that what they

nite story: The vast majority of members were unhappy

hoped to see was something larger than the 1,900 square

with what they had and wanted something better. They

feet they had, something absolutely water-tight, and

wanted something elegant in an understated way. And

something more reflective of the needs of Jupiter Hills

they wanted something they would feel proud to bring

in approach of the millennium vs. those of Jupiter Hills

a guest to.

circa 1972, which weren’t even similar. One course had

When the committee delved deeper into the num-

become two. Two hundred members had become four

bers, the ammunition for change became more com-

hundred. Almost half of the membership was now liv-

pelling. While results were generally unaffected by the

ing “on campus” within the club’s perimeter. That they

amount of time members spent in Florida, how often they

wanted more from their clubhouse than their clubhouse

dined at the club, or whether or not they lived on cam-

could provide, who could argue? They’d outgrown it

pus, the differences by age and tenure were startling. The

long ago.

longer the membership and the older the age of the mem-

The Long Range Planning Committee of Joe Nel-

ber, the less the support for something new; conversely,

son, Tom Dailey, Ben Torcivia, and Al Vitale—the first

younger, newer members with less of a tie to the early

two would go on to become the next two club presi-

days were ready to storm the barricades and take Fort

dents—surveyed the members through a questionnaire

Apache down. So, then, the question made itself mani-

constructed by fellow Board Member Larry Washburn,

fest: Which direction was Jupiter Hills more comfortable

a marketing expert. The results were fascinating. [SIDE-

facing—the past or the future?

BAR: BENCHMARKS]

This was startling, too: Yes, better facilities were

By a wide majority, the membership deemed the

a must, but the bulk of the membership held that the

existing clubhouse a dud, with its highest satisfaction

Jupiter Hills golfing experience was still more important

marks going to the practice putting green, the staging

than anything else, and they considered that experience

area, and the valet parking area, with few of the respon-

blessed.

dents classifying any of those three as an outright hit.

T H E

✧

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

✧

H I L L S

C L U B

“Over the long haul,” he went on, “the shortcomings and problems of this existing clubhouse facility and

The Board went to work. They interviewed a quartet of architects. They presented their wish lists. They listened to what was possible.

its mechanical systems remain with us and should be addressed.” They would be. Sooner than he’d planned.

And then kicked the can down the road. Instead of a sparkling and roomy new clubhouse,

✧

the Board settled for the utilitarian practicalities that come with a $360,000 budget: patching the roof, replac-

Outside, on the golf course, the old problem of

ing and expanding the south deck and giving it a new

balls plugging had returned. Balls were plugging on the

awning, upgrading the air conditioning, and—as they’d

fairways and plugging in bunkers. By the end of 1998,

already done in the late 1980s—redecorating the dining

conditions became so untenable that the club instituted

room, this time with new carpeting, wallpaper and win-

its own local rule: free drops when a ball became embed-

dow treatments, and stripping the green paint from the

ded, even in sand. And the Hills Course, while still on the

dining room chairs and slapping on new fabric.

list, was free-falling down Golf Digest’s Top 100. That

This was a Hobson’s Choice that resolved itself in

was only part of it. The Green Committee was displeased

compromise. The bolder options—building new or reno-

enough to rip a page from George Fazio’s old play book

vating significantly—were beyond reach. Of course, the

and anoint a new superintendent. Then it reached out to

club wanted a new clubhouse, and wanted it badly. For

Tom Fazio and his expertise directly.

more than a year, the Board and staff assayed the pos-

Dick Gray, the new super, rode in at the beginning

sibilities. They had sent out the questionnaires. They’d

of 1999, and promptly made clear that the club would

analyzed the macros, dissected the micros… and then

need to dig deep into its pockets over the next several

called an audible. A new clubhouse would cost a min-

years to reach the kind of optimum playing conditions

imum of $5.5 million. A major expansion/renovation

that George wanted. The Board had already budgeted

project came in at only $2 million less. “Each,” Nelson

$855,000 for a new irrigation system on the Village, and

asserted to the membership, “required substantially more

that was a significant step, but there was much more to

study and planning to assess adequately the needs, bene-

do. [SIDEBAR: DICK GRAY]

fits and risks involved.”

And Gray, the Pete Dye-ciple fresh from building his

So, as he looked ahead, Nelson took solace in the

own public golf course in Stuart, wasn’t shy about spell-

positive response to the new interior decoration and color

ing out how much he thought there was to get done. He

schemes. “The Board’s intent in authorizing this rehab,”

wanted to put in a new lake liner on the third hole of the

he explained, “was to provide a three- to five-year win-

Hills; upgrade the Hills irrigation to sync with the new

dow during which the membership could enjoy a clean,

system about to go in on the Village; construct several

comfortable, sanitary and attractive clubhouse setting in

new tees on both courses; re-face the most offending bun-

keeping with Jupiter Hills standards while the long-range

kers with shell rock to reduce plugging; improve fairway

opportunities, risks and investments of a new or substan-

conditions on the Hills through revised mowing practices

tially renovated facility could be parsed through in an

and increased fertilization; construct a demonstration plot

unhurried, deliberate and conclusive way.”

of TifEagle, the new hybrid grass that promised the elim-

Three to five years?

ination of overseeding in winter; and enhance the overall

F A Z I O

C O M E S

H O M E

health of the first, 16th and 18th greens by increasing the

inexpensive trees that would grow quickly to help pro-

size of the former and promoting more direct sunlight by

vide definition. “These ‘trash trees’ are now mature and

eliminating shade around the other two. And that was

have become landscaping and maintenance problems. In

just for starters.

addition, several Live Oaks and Slash Pines were posi-

As Greens chair, Washburn sought a second opinion.

tioned close to greens to provide immediate impact with-

He’d developed a good working relationship with Fazio

out regard to the long-term consequences to the health of

through 1997 and 1998 when he tapped into the archi-

the turf on the greens they frame.”

tect’s knowledge and influence to come up with a plan for

•“George was not overly concerned about these long-

eradicating the Brazilian Pepper trees still invading the

term consequences because he was a dictator who did

property. “They were taking over the golf course,” says

what he wanted with the courses. He assumed that when

Washburn. “I really solicited Tom’s help in convincing the

the time came to move trees or take trees down, he would

Board and the membership that we had to get rid of this

make those decisions, and no one would say a word. He

stuff.” He did.

did not anticipate that some future Board would have to

On May 5, 1999, he sent Tom a detailed letter. “We

deal with removing trees.”

knew going forward that we would have to be doing some

•“If George had to solve the present bunker problem, he

unpopular and expensive things,” recalls Washburn, “and

would be the first to say, ‘Change anything.’ ”

I knew how helpful it would be to have someone with

•“Despite what long-time members may think they

the authority of Tom Fazio supporting it.” Tom wrote

remember, course conditions in the good old days were

back within a week: “I would be delighted to work with

not that great. There was not enough money to do the

the Board of Governors and your new superintendent in

kind of detailing expected today.”

addressing the issues outlined in your note.” Then Tom

•“If members are not content with course conditions

veered in a direction as extraordinary as it was unantic-

today it probably has more to do with a comparison to

ipated: He provided the Board with a mixture of history

other courses in the area than to what Jupiter Hills used

lesson and personal credo as background for—and basis

to provide, which is a good enough reason to see what we

to—discussions going forward.

can do to improve.”

In essence, Tom emphasized that nothing Gray pro-

•“The objective has been the same for most of the Club’s

posed was unexpected; golf courses evolve and need tend-

history; produce conditions appealing to better players,

ing to, and decisions made at one point in the continuum

which means ‘firm and fast’ rather than ‘green and lush’

usually need revisiting later on: A “lot of trial and error”

which higher handicappers generally prefer.”

goes into creating a golf course with “more than a few

•“I can assure you that I have no reservations about ‘tin-

mistakes along the way.”

kering with George’s work’ because I know he would not hesitate to make whatever changes he felt today’s condi-

Some of the more salient points:

tions require. Let’s discuss your problems and priorities, then set a program in place.”

•“The drama in the Hills Course comes from elevation changes; for the Village Course, it comes from the fram-

The implication was clear. Though Tom never fully

ing from the tees and the subtle undulations and sharp

left Jupiter Hills, his four-pages left little doubt that his

contours around the greens.”

love for Jupiter Hills was as strong as ever, that it would

•Once the land was originally cleared, George planted

always be more than just another club for him, that he

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

F A Z I O

C O M E S

H O M E

T H E

S T O R Y

O F

J U P I T E R

H I L L S

C L U B

F A Z I O

C O M E S

H O M E

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A Clubhouse to Call Home ✧

UPITER HILLS

✧

welcomed the millennium in appropriate fashion.

After polling the members in early 1999, two nights of festivities for celebrating Y2K took shape. On Wednesday evening, December 29, the club hosted an informal family-night cook-

out with a clown, a magic show, dinner and dancing, and, with great fanfare, the Board unveiled the club’s new monogram-style logo. It was all prelude to the grand fireworks display that went off behind the South Terrace at 9:15. [SIDEBAR: EVOLVING LOGOS] The evening itself turned out to be far more successful than the new logo, which, despite the hoopla, barely survived into 2005 (the family cookout still flourishes). When Al Bagley, the club’s secretary and chairman of the House Committee, helped set the millennium-celebration agenda, his proposal for a grand multi-generational party capped off by fireworks was conceived as a one-off. It proved so popular that it’s become as central to the Jupiter Hills holiday season as the annual Christmas tree lighting and buffet that follows. For the eve of the entrée into the twenty-first century, the revelry took on a more formal tone— at least in the request for formal attire. The evening began with cocktails and hors d’oervres at 8:30 and comedian Eddie Capone at nine before settling in for a five-course dinner and dancing to the music of La Clave. Wine and champagne were included, and, as the colorful invitation announced, “We will provide all the hats and noisemakers.” [NOTE: WE HAVE INVITES] Could the year 2000 have begun more auspiciously at Jupiter Hills? What better than fireworks and noise-making to capture all the fireworks and noise-making that lay ahead on the horizon?

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The club’s new president, Tom Dailey, understood a few things about construction and a few things leadership. His father was a contractor, and so was he. He loved building. He helped build the Pistons’ arena in Auburn Hills and Hart Plaza on the Detroit waterfront. Before taking the reins at