All in the
W
Bill Fownes (left) winner of Pinehurst’s 1929 Mid-Winter Tournament; George Dunlap, Jr. (right)) runner-up
84
PineStraw
By Bill Case
hen Bill Fownes faced George Dunlap Jr. on Dec. 31, 1929, in the final match of Pinehurst’s Mid-Winter Tournament, he was a decade past his golfing prime. He had won the 1910 U.S. Amateur Championship and remained a top-ranked golfer for another dozen years — good enough to play on two Walker Cup teams, captaining the U.S. side in the 1922 matches. He won numerous championships in his home state of Pennsylvania, including four state amateur titles. By contrast, the 20-year-old Dunlap, already a four-time Mid-Winter champion, was emerging as one of America’s best amateurs. The Princeton junior would win the 1933 U.S. Amateur, and seven United North and South Amateur titles. Time had contributed to Bill Fownes’ golfing decline — he was by then 52 — and health issues were dogging him. In 1926, he suffered a heart attack at his Pinehurst winter home after a round. It is unlikely he would have survived but for the quick actions of his caddie, who had been waiting outside to be paid. When Fownes failed to reappear, the caddie rushed inside and found him unconscious next to the doorway. Notwithstanding the difference in their ages, Fownes and Dunlap shared much in common. Both lived in Pinehurst during the winter season and competed at amateur golf’s highest level. Fownes’ metallurgical engineering degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology equated with Dunlap’s Ivy League education. Both were sons of amazingly successful and wealthy fathers. George’s father founded the renowned book publishing company Grosset and Dunlap, while Bill’s dad, Pittsburgher Henry C. (H.C.) Fownes, made his millions acquiring and operating an array of enterprises associated with iron, steelmaking, and oil. Furthermore, Bill, George Jr. and their fathers were all active members of The Tin Whistles, Pinehurst’s pre-eminent male golf society. But the Fowneses had accomplished something that no other family could match. It was H.C. who in 1903 founded Pittsburgh’s Oakmont Country Club, designed its epic course, and fashioned it into the most demanding test in championship golf. Bill then took charge of pushing the penal nature of the course to the max. For decades, he would roam Oakmont’s grounds, plotting the placement of additional harThe Art & Soul of the Sandhills
PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE TUFTS ARCHIVES
Family
Pinehurst’s Fownes Family left an enduring legacy in golf
