Frank Hannigan

He's back. After a bit of a rest Frank Hannigan is back with more of his opinions and thoughts on golf.

Today Hannigan looks at the say hey kid, Willie Mays and how he lost his amateur status but got it back.

- GolfObserver editors

"Willie Mays is here to see you."

Thus spoke the receptionist, more than a touch of awe in her voice, during a sunny New York City in October, 1972.

Willie Mays

We were at the headquarters of the United States Golf Association at 40 East 38 Street, between Park and Madison.
Telephone: Oregon 9-5335

The original Golf House was a handsome 5-story limestone building, which rumor had it housed a mistress of J.P.Morgan. Back then Morgan was considered the Bill Gates of his day. Morgan's mansion was around the corner on Madison.

I knew why Mays had come. As a golfer he had competed along with dozens of other baseball players in the American Airlines Classic, an annual bit of nonsense designed to draw attention to the carrier. The ballplayers played for prize money. Thus, the USGA had no choice but to proclaim them as non amateur golfers, whether or not they could break l00.

I was then the USGA Assistant Director, number 2 on a staff of 30, which routinely accomplished more than what today's staff of 300 plus, or so I chose to believe.

My various duties included being the house ogre on matters relating to the Rules of Amateur Status. Mays had discovered an inconvenience in not being an amateur. His entry for the hallowed Bing Crosby tournament at Pebble Beach was not acceptable by the PGA Tour which wisely allowed the USGA to decide what an amateur was.

Today the Rules of Amateur Status have been so botched and visited by USGA Executive Committees of the past decade (who could not deal with Tiger Woods or Michelle Wie) that the mere act of playing for money in an airlines scam might not be prohibitive . Today something dire would have to occur: robbing a bank, cheating as a guest at Augusta National, siphoning fuel out of the USGA jet, etc.

Photo: © Courtesy Topps Willie Mays in this 1960 Topps card.

Mays had expressed interest in becoming an amateur anew. The process was cheap and simple, requiring only a signature and the filling out of a simple form - nothing like what's needed today, say, to visit a doctor with a hangnail. Hundreds were welcomed back into the fold every year. But there had been some confusion in the Mays paper work who in which he decided to take matters into his own amazing hands.

Willie Mays at the time was 41. After his Hall of Fame career with the New York and San Francisco Giants he was playing out his career at a New York Met. Although no longer the Mays I had once seen hit three home runs at Sportsman's Park in St. Louis, he was still no stiff. Mays batted .267 in l972 with 402 at bats.

The baseball season was over. Mays was looping around Manhattan to do some personal chores before going home to California. He had with him a lined yellow sheet noting things to be done.

Not trusting the USGA's l9th century elevator, capacity 2, with a caged door out of a Hitchcock movie, I vaulted down the marble circular stiarway to the reception and lobby area at street level.

Sure enough there he was, an athlete at Golf House, successor to the great DiMaggio as the nation's ultimate center fielder.

He was starting at paintings of USGA icons. Gene Sarazen was on one wall doing his Cheshire Cat grin thing. Sarazen was facing his great friend Francis Ouimet on the opposite wall, Ouimet in the Prince Albert jacklet worn by Captains of the R&A.

When I met with Mays, the first thing he did was turn to me and said, "Is this where I get the free pants?"

"I'm afraid not," I said. "This is where you will be reinstated to a pure state as an amateur golfer." We sat at a table, worked out the reinstatement form, co-signed, and Willie Mays left the building the only person in the history of golf to regain amateur status right off the street.

Mays was soon to join the Los Altos Country Club in the San Francisco Bay area, known to be a club that was favored by professional athletes including John Brodie and Bob Rosburg.

Although there are no precise records for such matters, it was my impression at that time that no other black person in America belonged to a member-owned club. This was more than an impression since we at the USGA knew the front office managers of every golf organization in the United States. It's hard to imagine we would not have known of a black member of a private, member owned course.

So, until somebody tells me otherwise, I regard Mays as having been a pioneer. My guess is that he may not have known that.

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