Paul Harney, 1929-2011

SIX-TIME PGA TOUR WINNER Paul Harney died this week. You would have to be a student of golf history to know Harney, who played alongside greats such as Arnold Palmer, Gary Player and Billy Casper. Along with the legendary Francis Ouimet, Harney is considered to be one of the best golfers to hail from Massachusetts. He attended Holy Cross and was captain of the golf team. Harney joined the PGA Tour in 1955 and played the circuit full time through 1962. His first victory came at the 1957 Carling Open. A second win followed two weeks later at the Labatt Open.

A dedicated family man, Harney became a part-time player in 1963 when his oldest child (he and wife Patricia would raise six children) entered school. He took a club pro job in Northern California and then returned to his native Massachusetts to work for Pleasant Valley Country Club in Sutton.

Harney still managed to compete and win as a part-time player on the PGA Tour. He won three more events, the last trophy coming at the 1972 San Diego Open where he edged Hale Irwin by a stroke. He won no majors but did have six top 10s, including a fourth at the 1963 U.S. Open. He was 0 for 4 in playoffs. Three losses came to Palmer, one to Tony Lema.

Harney’s kids now run the golf course (Paul Harney Golf Club) their dad opened in Falmouth using prize money from his win in San Diego. Son Mike is the head pro. Daughter Erin is the general manager. In 2006, Mike recalled his dad’s days on the winter tour, a family affair.

“The family station wagon was dad’s office,” he said at golholycross.com. “We’d all jump in the car and go to work with him.”

Harney and family would log 10,000 miles in the station wagon driving from event to event. In 1971 the part-time player finished in the money in 14 of 15 tournaments, earning in excess of $40,000. That was good money in those days.

Later, Harney made $436,063 on the fledgling Senior Tour, more than what he collected in 18 years on the PGA Tour.

“I’ve been lucky,” Harney said in 2006. “Holy Cross gave me a tremendous education and the Jesuits gave me a good perspective. Patti gave me six terrific children, and now we have 14 grandkids.”

−The Armchair Golfer

From Tom Kidd to Tiger Woods: The Open at St. Andrews

The following is an excerpt from THE OPEN: Golf’s Oldest Major, a pictorial history of the championship that includes overview texts. To enter a free drawing for a copy of the hardcover book, email your name and address to armchairgolfer@gmail.com.

By Donald Steel
Special to ARMCHAIR GOLF

© 2009 R&A Championships Ltd. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

MOST GOLFERS’ IDEA OF HEAVEN is an Open at St. Andrews. For the players, there is certainly nothing to compare with victory over the Old Course—Jack Nicklaus maintains that “if you want to be remembered, you have to win at St. Andrews.”

There have been suggestions that every Open Championship should be held there so it is no surprise that it has housed more than any other venue. It is no surprise either that, of the three original courses used for The Open, it is the sole survivor. Recently, it has played host ever fifth year.

No course is more public than the Old in the sense that so much is visible of the start and finish from adjacent streets and buildings. The 18th green gives the feeling of being part of the town and, at the climax of an Open, is overlooked by thousands who have paid and a good few hundred who haven’t. Necks are strained from many a window. In the playing sense, it is the course of double fairways, double greens, pot bunkers, and the Road Hole—the most infamous in the world, a combination that golf course architects regard as the blueprint of their art for all students to follow and revere. Not that everyone has stood in awe.

Harry Vardon claimed that the Old is “a good course, but its bunkers are badly placed,” which may explain why none of his six Open victories took place there. George Duncan, on the other hand, remarked, “What I like about the Old Course, is that you play a very good shot and find yourself in a very bad place.” Tiger Woods’s reaction in 2000 was to avoid the bunkers altogether in all four rounds, a forerunner to victory by eight strokes that equaled St. Andrews’ biggest winning margin by J.H. Taylor exactly a hundred years earlier.

Taylor and Woods share with Jack Nicklaus, James Braid and Bob Martin the honour of winning two Opens over the Old Course but two other memories stand out. St. Andrews marked the first and last appearances of Arnold Palmer and the victory in 1964 of Tony Lema, with Palmer’s caddie on loan—one of the most remarkable of all.

Open Championships played at St. Andrews:
1873 / 1876 / 1879 / 1882 / 1885 / 1888 / 1891 / 1895 / 1900 / 1905 / 1910 / 1921 / 1927 / 1933 / 1939 / 1946 / 1955 / 1957 / 1960 / 1964 / 1970 / 1978 / 1984 / 1990 / 1995 / 2000 / 2005 / 2010