Lorne Rubenstein | |
Larry O'Brien
1922-2005
January 3, 2006
The golf world at large lost a good man when Larry O'Brien died on December 23rd and some people in Canadian golf in particular have been thinking of LOB, as he was known, and feeling the loss.
O'Brien, a native Montrealer who never lost his feeling for sports in Canada, was best-known for being Jack Nicklaus's right-hand man, much as the always approachable Doc Giffin has been at Arnold Palmer's side, for, well, what feels like forever. It's easy to reach Doc and it was always easy to reach LOB. You did it the old-fashioned way, by making a phone call.
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Jack Nicklaus said of Larry O'Brien: "Larry was a good friend to us, someone we considered one of the family. Barbara and I will miss him dearly and remember him fondly, as will so many that knew Larry in and out of golf." |
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O'Brien had a lot to do with Canadian sports and Canadian golf.
Dick Grimm, one of his best pals in Canada and a gentleman of the game in all respects, sat down over coffee last month to remember the man. Grimm, 82, has been a giant in Canadian golf. He's been chairman of the Canadian Open, president of the Royal Canadian Golf Association, commissioner of the Canadian Tour. The guy's class all the way. Larry was class all the way.
Grimm's life went, in a sense, in the opposite direction than O'Brien's. Grimm was born in Chicago and ended up in Toronto. O'Brien, who would have been 83 next month, was born in Montreal and ended up in Palm Beach. They had much more in common, though. They were citizens of the golf world.
O'Brien and Grimm met in 1964. O'Brien was doing some public relations for Seagram's, a major Canadian liquor company. Part of his work included helping recruit players for the Canadian Open, which Seagram's had sponsored since 1936. Grimm was then chairman of the Canadian Open that was to be played in 1965 at the Mississaugua Golf and Country Club just southwest of Toronto.
O'Brien handled Seagram's golf program, including the production of Canadian Open films. He also managed the Caribbean winter tour, which Seagram's sponsored, the Canadian PGA Championship for the Seagram Shield, and the Canadian Blind Golfers Championship. Seagram's had started this latter tournament in 1954, and had made an impressive film on blind golf called A Feel for the Game. (Jim Barclay tells this story in detail in his book Golf in Canada: A History, the invaluable counterpart in Canada to Herbert Warren Wind's The Story of American Golf).
But all good things come to an end, or so the cliché goes, and Seagram's pulled its sponsorship after the 1970 Canadian Open. Still, it had helped the RCGA find a new sponsor, Imperial Tobacco.
O'Brien continued to consult for the Canadian Open, having proven his value many times while he was with Seagram's.
Nicklaus, for one, had always supported the Canadian Open.
O'Brien and Nicklaus had met during the 1962 U.S. Open, when Larry was trying to encourage Nicklaus to play that summer's Canadian Open, which he did. They began to develop their friendship at dinner in Montreal during the tournament.
The RCGA later made a deal with Nicklaus, who had moved to North Palm Beach from Columbus, to design the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario. Nicklaus had by then hired O'Brien to work with him, and he moved to Palm Beach.
O'Brien was with Nicklaus for 26 years until his retirement, and their association with Canadian golf remained strong. The Canadian Open was at Glen Abbey every year from 1977 through 2000, except in 1980 and 1997, when it went to the Royal Montreal Golf Club. Nicklaus finished second seven times, but he never did win the tournament.
"Larry just had a way about him," Grimm said. "He had a wonderful rapport with players and the media. He introduced me to all the writers, like Herbert Warren Wind, Linc Werden at the New York Times and Bob Green at AP (Associated Press). I spent a lot of time with Larry. Those days were the heyday of the Canadian Open."
They sure were. Nicklaus played, as did Johnny Miller, Lee Trevino, Tom Weiskopf, Tom Watson, Ray Floyd, and most of the top golfers. Their presence was due to Grimm's and O'Brien's diligence. Grimm always asked questions about who was playing and who wasn't and who was thinking about it, and O'Brien always followed up.
Grimm put it like this: "I'd say to Larry, 'Well, what about Hubert Green, for example. Is he going to play?' Or any other player we wanted. Larry would write back, 'He's 40 percent, he's 70 percent.' He was businesslike."
O'Brien was businesslike and he had a huge heart and a wide grin and a booming voice. He was kind to me, always introducing me to players and always available for a conversation. He was also just good fun to be around.
I'll never forget one incident in particular. We were at the 1983 Peter Jackson Champions, a Senior PGA Tour event in Calgary. Peter Jackson, an Imperial Tobacco brand, was the title sponsor. O'Brien and I were driving somewhere when a highway patrolman stopped us for some violation or other. Something possessed me to launch into a prolonged argument about why we shouldn't be charged.
The policemen let us off, and Larry from then on referred to me as his Canadian lawyer. We'd always have a good laugh about the incident.
I last saw Larry at a press conference at the Loxahatchee Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida last March. He was seriously ill, but took me aside for a brief chat. I'll miss him.
Grimm attended a retirement party that the RCGA threw for O'Brien at Glen Abbey after he retired. Bob Green came up. Gordon White, then the golf writer for the New York Times, was there. Nicklaus and his son Jackie attended.
"We officially retired Larry, who didn't want to retire," Grimm remembered.
It's been a tough year for anybody around Nicklaus, and for Nicklaus himself. He and his wife Barbara — as warm-hearted a woman as one could hope to meet — lost their grandson Jake when he drowned in a hot tub last March.
Nicklaus and his family attended O'Brien's funeral in North Palm Beach on Dec. 28th. Grimm, who had his own tragedy this year when his son John died, wanted to be there to see Nicklaus and O'Brien's wife Libby and their family, but is visiting his daughter-in-law and their four children in Cleveland the day of the funeral.
"I'm going to call Jack later today and tell him how sorry I am that I can't go to the funeral," Grimm said before getting up from our chat. "I'll tell you, 2005 is a year you can put to bed anytime."
It's a year to forget all right, but also one to remember. Grimm remembers Larry O'Brien, and he remembers him with great fondness. Ditto for many of us up here in Canada, a place for which O'Brien always felt a fondness.
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