The First Garden State U.S. Opens

MAUREEN ORCUTT—PORTRAIT OF THE “PLAYER OF THE CENTURY”

NOTABLE FINISHES YEARS

U.S. Women’s Amateur Runner-up U.S. Women’s Amateur Medalist 1927, ’36 1928, ’31(T), ’32(T)

U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur Champion WMGA Amateur Champion New Jersey Women’s Amateur Champion Women’s Eastern Amateur Champion

1962, ’66 1926, ’27, ’28, ’29, ’34, ’38, ’40, ’46, ’59, ’68 1924, ’25, ’33, ’42, ’54, ’67 1925, ’28, ’29, ’34, ’38, ’47, ’49 Canadian Women’s Amateur Champion 1930, ’31 North and South Women’s Amateur Champion 1931, ’32, ’33 North and South Senior Women’s Amateur Champion 1960, ’61, ’62 Curtis Cup teams 1932, ’34, ’36, ’38

Orcutt—a resident of Englewood—won the 1934 Democratic Party nomination for the New Jersey General Assembly to represent Bergen County. According to the New York Times, despite running unopposed, her name still appeared on almost all the written ballots.

A lifelong member of White Beeches Golf & Country Club in Haworth, Orcutt’s mother introduced her ten-year-old daughter to golf to avoid the conditions she felt exposed her children to the era’s polio and Spanish influenza epidemics. By the time she was seventeen, Orcutt had improved to the point that she finished second in White Beeches’s men’s club championship. Soon, Maureen won her first WMGA title, the Junior Girls Championship, the first of twenty-eight WMGA winner’s trophies she would amass.

Orcutt won her first important championship, the 1925 Eastern Women’s Amateur, at Connecticut’s Greenwich Country Club. The last of her two USGA championships came at the 1966 U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur in New Orleans. In between those bookends was the stuff of history.

Orcutt’s amateur playing career included matches against the greatest amateurs of the 1920s and 1930s, including Bob Jones, Joyce Wethered, and Glenna Collett Vare. Later on, she played and became friends with Walter Hagen, Gene Sarazen, Marion Hollins, Babe Zaharias, and Sam Snead.

At the 1990 Curtis Cup, held at Somerset Hills County Club in Bernardsville, Orcutt (who was on the original Curtis Cup team in 1932) was an honored guest. She loved being around the competitors. According to the USGA’s Rhonda Glenn, “the then 83-year-old Orcutt sat in the grass on a hillside near the 18th green, cheerfully chatting with the young American players Vicki Goetze and Brandie Burton as the network television cameras rolled.” Her impact bridged the generations.

When she was inducted into the New York State Hall of Fame in 1991, the program noted that, “Perhaps no competitor in any major sport has been a significant factor for so long in top level play.”

The WMGA got it right. “Player of the Century” describes Maureen Orcutt perfectly.

Orcutt was inducted into the inaugural NJSGA Hall of Fame in 2018.

THE 1930s: WHEN THE STARS DESCENDED ON THE NEW JERSEY OPEN

Eventually with Eighteen Major Titles Among Them, These Stars Dominated the State Open—Almost

UNLIKE ANY OTHER PERIOD in the New Jersey Open’s century-long existence, some of the game’s biggest stars—Byron Nelson, Craig Wood, Long Jim Barnes, just to name a few—participated in that event in the 1930s. A few of them actually won.

The reason for all the attention on New Jersey was pretty clear—during the Great Depression, more opportunity existed for golf professionals in the New York metropolitan region than anywhere in the nation.

Professional Golf and the Great Depression

The 1929 Wall Street collapse had spread quickly to Main Street, and golf understandably took a back seat across America. The Great Depression took its toll not only on golf, but on what was loosely referred to as the professional golf tour.

While important, warm-weather events such as the U.S. Open, the Western Open, the North and South Open, and the Met Open continued to be held along with various state Opens, the organized professional tour in the 1920s and early 1930s was primarily a wintertime collection of golf tournaments in California, Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Most of the players would caravan from event to event, with some reportedly earning more on side bets, skins, and poker than in official winnings.

In the 1928–1929 winter season, tournament sponsors and purses were cobbled together by East Orange resident Hal Sharkey, a sportswriter for the Newark News. The next year, the role was assumed by Robert “Bob” Harlow, who became the first full-time PGA tournament manager. His main job was to cajole enough money out of local chambers of commerce and Rotary Clubs, the occasional resort or local businesses and often the Golf Ball and Golf Club Manufacturers Association to put on a 72-hole “(fill in the town) Classic.” It was tough sledding, especially in the first few years of the Depression. By 1931, the year’s total of all the purses managed by Harlow and contested by his gladiators was $77,000. In 2021 dollars, that’s $1,363,685— equivalent to a typical weekly first prize offered on the 2021 PGA Tour. A winter tour supplemented by a slowly coalescing summer tour still did not provide a livable income, which meant that all of those touring pros needed to make money somewhere else. To stay close to the game, almost all the pros took club professional jobs for income between tournaments. Many of those were in the relatively prosperous metropolitan New York City area. It was no accident that many of the biggest (or up and coming) names in the game—Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagen, Jim Barnes, Johnny Farrell, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Ralph Guldahl, Paul Runyan, Craig Wood—all had affiliations (usually summer club jobs) in the region.

In fact, many of those touring stars had club professional jobs in New Jersey, attracted by the state’s high density of relatively prosperous clubs and the quality of their courses. As a result, many of the best players in America found the opportunity to

OPPOSITE: Paul Runyan, known for his legendary short game, won the 1930 New Jersey State Open and two PGA Championships, in 1934 and 1938. ABOVE: Robert “Bob” Harlow, Walter Hagen’s manager, was a key figure in the development of the professional golf tour.

(From left) Johnny Revolta, good friends Tony Manero and Gene Sarazen, and Walter Hagen at the 1936 PGA Championship at Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina

Meanwhile, playing several holes ahead of Manero, Cooper was channeling his best “Pipeline.” He reached No. 14 at 2 under for the day. By simply parring in, Cooper would shoot a 70 and set a new U.S. Open record of 281. But, “simply parring in” on the last nine of the Open can be a tall order. Cooper would go on to bogey three of the last five holes, punctuated by a 3-putt on the home green.

Still, his total of 284 broke the U.S. Open record by two, and Cooper was feeling the love and accepting the applause accorded a champion. He even composed a cablegram to his mother in Great Britain announcing his victory.

Still on the course, Manero knew he was getting close to Cooper, even though there were no scoreboards on the course in those days. Then, coming in, he buried a twelve footer for birdie on No. 16 and narrowly missed an eight footer for birdie on 17. Finally, on 18, in front of galleries unseen since the years of Bobby Jones, Manero struck a 2-iron to forty feet on the long par 4, and took two putts for a par to shoot a 67 and win the Open by two strokes.

Or so it seemed. Right after the tournament ended, an unnamed person—some say a fellow competitor, others a reporter—filed a protest with the USGA, alleging that Sarazen had given his playing partner advice throughout the final round, a violation of the rules.

The USGA investigated on the spot, holding an hour-long meeting with both golfers. After some deliberation, the USGA ruled that there was no evidence of any wrongdoing. Manero was allowed to keep his trophy.

And Harry Cooper tore up the cablegram to his mom.

1954

THE FIRST U.S. OPEN OF A NEW ERA

In retrospect, this U.S. Open was a three-ring circus that—more than most Opens—successfully blended older, established players with a mix of young, ambitious professionals and talented amateurs. It introduced new, enduring ideas, an unlikely champion, and an exciting communication medium that would forever change the face of golf. As though the Fates had conspired to make Baltusrol the agent of change, the 1954 U.S. Open was the dawn of an exciting, transformative era of golf.

New ideas? Consider the venue. Baltusrol is blessed with two exceptional tracks, the Upper Course and the Lower Course. Today’s fans might assume that Baltusrol’s Lower Course had always been the venue of Baltusrol’s four previous U.S. Opens, but the 1954 event was the Lower’s first of many voyages as the featured route. It was the longest par 70 in Open history, at 7,027 yards, a combination that took its toll on the best players in the world.

The largest-ever gallery to watch a U.S. Open—39,600 over three days—required special attention. Until 1954, the fans had almost unfettered access to the players for the entire event. For the first time in the U.S. Open, ropes lined the fairways to keep the spectators back, a commonsense restraint that reflected a growing interest in the game.

That change paled in comparison to the epic innovation of this U.S. Open—the National Broadcasting Company’s national coverage of the championship. For the first time, television brought the championship into homes across the entire country (for one hour) and set the stage for an explosion of interest in the game in the late 1950s. The purse for this Open (first prize of $6,000) was 20 percent larger than at Oakmont just the year before.

In terms of expectations, Ben Hogan came to Baltusrol riding an amazing U.S. Open streak, with wins in 1948, 1950, 1951, and

ABOVE: Despite setting a new U.S. Open record of 284, Harry Cooper finished second in the 1936 championship. FOLLOWING PAGES: Tony Manero and Gene Sarazen on Baltusrol’s 18th green during the 1936 U.S. Open.