INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING HALL OF FAME
DID YOU
KNOW ABOUT FAMOUS GUYS WHO GOLF? BY BRUCE WIGO PHOTOS BY INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING HALL OF FAME
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ichael Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time, and he has long held a passion for golf. Though he hasn’t ascended to the top of the pro golf world just yet, he has played in some respectable competitions, and even once sunk a 159-foot putt at the Dunhill Links in what is thought to be the longest televised putt ever. At a recent celebrity tournament, he displayed a new set of clubs stamped with the Olympic rings and 28 stars, one for each of the 28 Olympic medals he has won. Now, while the golf world is keeping an eye on the fast-improving Phelps, he’s not the first Olympic swimming champion to turn to the terrestrial stick-and-ball game. This brief history begins with Charles M. Daniels, the first American to win an Olympic medal in swimming. He won eight medals over three Olympiads (St. Louis 1904 3G-1S-1B; Athens 1906 1G; London 1908 1G-1B). The year after his retirement, he and his heiress wife purchased 5,000 acres of land in the Adirondacks, N.Y., and built a 9-hole golf course on his estate called Sabattis Park. The course entertained some noted players, who spent their summers on the property. Daniels became one of America’s top amateurs, carried a 2 handicap, and at one time held course records on five Eastern courses. Duke Kahanamoku broke all of Daniel’s records in the pool, but couldn’t match him on the links. The great Hawaiian took up golf in 1914 during one of his numerous swimming trips to California. In 1924, he played a round with Olympian/sportswriter/cartoonist Feg Murray, who noted that some of Duke’s tee shots exceeded 300 yards and that he walked the course even faster than he swam. Duke’s best score was a 74, and he reportedly drove a golf ball 395 yards. He once shot a hole-in-one at the 216-yard seventh hole of the Oahu Country Club. But as Duke told Murray, on the very next day he went out and took an 8 on the exact same hole, losing two balls—and his temper—so he never called it the “Lucky Seventh.” Johnny Weissmuller’s coach introduced him to golf in the early 1920s, and by 1924, “the human fish” had lowered his best score to an 89. After his retirement from swimming—and as his movie career as “Tarzan” waned—golf became one of his two passions. The other was helping worthy causes, and celebrity golf tournaments gave him a chance to do both. In one tournament in 1950, he shot a sizzling 139 over 36 holes. After that, he was never given the handicap allowed other movie stars and amateurs. Ed Moses, a breaststroker who won Olympic gold and silver in 2000, actually started his sporting career as a golfer. He returned to the links as a semiprofessional golfer after the Sydney Games. He once shot 64 on the course that hosts the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational. In 2009, Moses appeared on Golf Channel’s Big Break Disney Golf. *** Something to ponder: There are certainly more swimmers in the world than golfers. Except during the Olympics, why isn’t there more interest in swimmers and swimming than in golfers and golf? v Bruce Wigo, historian and consultant at the International Swimming Hall of Fame, served as president/CEO of ISHOF from 2005-17.
TOTAL ACCESS MEMBERS CLICK HERE TO SEE A GOLF CARTOON FEATURING JOHNNY WEISSMULLER. NOT A TOTAL ACCESS MEMBER? YOU’RE JUST A CLICK AWAY: SWIMMINGWORLD.COM/VAULT OCTOBER 2021
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