Babe Ruth Frequented New Jersey Golf Courses

By Mike Moretti

Babe Ruth is a larger-than-life figure, a sports persona that transcends generations. As big as Tiger Woods has been to golf the past 15 years, Babe Ruth was many times bigger, and is still well known today.

His memorabilia, particularly his autographs, are still sought after and command prices in the thousands of dollars. What many probably do not realize is that Babe Ruth was a lifelong golfer from age 19 until his death in 1948 at age 53. When he hung up his baseball spikes in 1935, he again naturally picked up his golf spikes and it became his sport of choice for the rest of his life, much of it in New Jersey.

Ruth played baseball for 22 seasons, smacked a then-record 714 home runs including 60 in 1927, and had a career average of .342.

According to The Babe’s daughter Julia: “Daddy absolutely loved golf. If he wasn’t so good at baseball I think he would have wanted to become a professional golfer.”

Doug Vogel, the superintendent at the Packanack Golf Club in Wayne, is probably the Babe Ruth “golf” expert in all of New Jersey. Fascinated by Ruth as a golfer, he has spent three years writing a book on the topic entitled Babe Ruth and the Scottish Game.

He believes The Babe picked up the game at age 19 during his rookie season with the Boston Red Sox in 1914. His first “home” course was the Woodland Golf Club in Newton, Mass., where he worked with Scottish-born pro Charlie “Chay” Burgess. Burgess had worked with local boy and 1919 surprise U.S. Open winner Francis Ouimet, Vogel noted.

Burgess did a credible job “taming the Babe’s hooks, slices and ball-topping escapades,” Vogel wrote. “His early game was wild off the tee and erratic on and around the greens.”

The Atlanta Constitution wrote “When the item of broken clubs and lost balls is taken into account, golf is a pretty expensive pastime for Babe Ruth.”

In the winter of 1919-20, Ruth was in California for winter exhibition baseball and plenty of golf. He was traded from the Red Sox to the New York Yankees on Dec 26, 1919. After another month of golf on the West Coast, Ruth headed east.

One of his earliest forays into New Jersey golf took place on June 5, 1920 at the Englewood Country Cub when he teamed with Met Open champion and host pro Oswald Kirkby in a Best-Ball match, prevailing over writer Grantland Rice and Yankee centerfielder Bob Shawkey, 2 and 1. Ruth’s 98 was the highest of the foursome as Kirkby, a three-time State Amateur champion, carded a 73, Rice a 79 and Shawkey a 92.

His idea of losing weight in spring training was by playing 36 holes every day – rain or shine.

“Golf was Babe Ruth’s second great passion,” Vogel said. “He even played in France. He started playing a lot usually in spring training places like Hot Springs, Arkansas, and St. Petersburg, Florida. He played all over Florida.

“He was a single-digit handicapper although I’ve never seen an article where he shot below par,” Vogel added. “And there was a lot written about him, almost every day. You have to realize how big a celebrity he was. Every time he went golfing, the New York Times and Daily News would cover it.

“You can argue that at the time, he was the most famous golfer in the world, simply because he was Babe Ruth. Of course Bobby Jones was the greatest golfer of the era, but Ruth was a lot more famous. When he went on the famous baseball Tour of Japan, he and Lefty O’Doul played golf over there.”

He regarded Baltusrol’s famed head pro, Johnny Farrell, winner of the 1936 NJSGA State Open, as a close friend and took lessons from him. For Kay Farrell, Johnny’s young bride, Babe Ruth gave her a jade necklace for her 21stbirthday in 1932.

Farrell, the dapper 1928 U.S. Open champion who defeated Jones in a playoff in that event, presided for 38 years as the pro at Baltusrol.

"Dad gave lessons to kings, princesses, actresses," Johnny Farrell Jr. said, in an interview for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2003. "Golf reduced everyone to one common interest. People came to see my father -- Babe Ruth, everyone -- because he was a humble man."

Living in Manhattan with his wife Claire and two daughters, and for a short time along the New Jersey/New York border at Sterling Forest along Greenwood Lake, Babe naturally looked for golf courses in the area, and New Jersey in the late 1930s and 1940s, had plenty of courses for the “Sultan of Swat” to choose from.

One day, in 1941, a special visitor to the Crestmont Country Club in West Orange was seeking a caddie.

“The caddie master brings this big guy over to the shack. He picked my friend Elmer Gordon, who was a stringbean at 6-foot-4, but was wearing sneakers. The big guy asked him if he could run fast. Then he told Elmer, “Every time my bottle of Coke is empty, I want you to run to the refreshment stand and get me another cold one. “

Well that “big guy” turned out to be Babe Ruth himself. Morrissey suspected that the Babe was mixing the Coke with some other spirits to keep him in good spirits during his round.

Around this time, Ruth, a close friend of Crestmont head pro Danny Williams, was a frequent guest. Williams said the left-hander was the only golfer who hooked a drive from the 10th tee into Laurel Avenue on the fly.

To this day, a photo of a foursome about to play at nearby Crestmont is still on the wall at Pal’s Cabin restaurant in West Orange. It is dated September 1, 1942. Pictured, left to right, are Pal’s Cabin proprietor Marty Horn, Babe Ruth and two others.

Marty Horn’s son, current Pal’s Cabin proprietor Don Horn, now a youthful 83, remembers his dad playing a lot of golf with The Babe. There’s also another photo of just Marty Horn and Babe Ruth which Don Horn believes was taken inside the clubhouse at Crestmont.

“I have a total of seven things that Babe signed for my dad. One of them is a dollar bill that he signed four times,” said Horn. That dollar bill is most likely one-of-a-kind and illustrates Ruth’s sense of humor.

It was Ruth who was quoted in saying something that could apply to both baseball and golf: "I swing big, with everything I've got. I hit big or I miss big. I like to live as big as I can."

Ruth played in at least three New Jersey-area outings in the 1930s. On May 22, 1936, Ruth shot an 82 at the New York Stock Exchange event at the Echo Lake Country Club in Westfield. On June 18, 1936, he fired a 77, best among 32 guests, to win low gross at the Wall Street Golf Association outing at the Upper Montclair Country Club in Clifton.

Two years later, on June 19, 1938, Ruth again participated in the Wall Street event, this time in Nutley at the defunct Yountakah Country Club, where ITT now exists. Yountakah, razed in 1943 following the Great Depression and the advent of World War II, was a founding member of the NJSGA.

Joe Cataldo, who served six decades as locker room man at Essex County, wrote about himself in his book Essex County Country Club: New Jersey’s First Country Club … “Over the years, (I) met and served such celebrities as Bob Hope, Babe Ruth, Cecil B. DeMille and Grantland Rice. Babe played with Waite Hoyt, a Yankee pitcher of the day.”

As fate would have it, Ruth would score his biggest golf triumph against Essex County’s best player.

Ruth, who participated in 1937 Stoddard Trophy matches at Arcola Country Club won by a team from Westchester, was a fixture on the Long Island Golf Association team that competed Ryder Cup-style in the Stoddard Trophy matches. The still-conducted event pits teams from LIGA, the Westchester Golf Association and the New Jersey State Golf Association. The competition in 1939 marked Ruth’s finest hour as a member of the Long Island team that had lost six straight times in the event as he captured seven straight holes in his match to win the overall match for Long Island over New Jersey.

From the Essex County Country Club website: “Martin Issler of Short Hills, a multiple club champion at Suburban and Rock Spring as well as at Essex County…. Issler's name has a curious place in golf's book of trivia for a match he lost in the 1939 Stoddard Bowl that actually cost New Jersey the trophy. He was beaten, 2 up, by none other than baseball immortal Babe Ruth, who played for the Long Island team in 1939. Issler's prowess on the links gives a revealing perspective into Ruth's ability as a golfer.”

Bill Richardson of The New York Times wrote: “Ruth dramatically rallied from a three-hole deficit after 11 holes to measure Westchester’s George “Bud” Gillespie, 3 and 1, and he beat Marty Issler of New Jersey, 2 up, after being all even on the 17thtee.” The Times acknowledged Ruth’s victory with a six-column banner headline.

That match was played at The Apawamis Club in Rye, N.Y. on May 10, 1939.

Not many will forget the 1940 competition at Pine Valley. Here’s an anecdote From Pine Valley Golf Club, A Unique Haven of the Game by James W. Finegan.

“In the 1940 Stoddard Bowl competition among teams from the NJSGA, Westchester County and Long Island (won by New Jersey), Babe Ruth contributed several points to the Long Island team. He shot an 85 to collect $5 each from a number of sportswriters who bet him he couldn’t break 90 the first time he played the course. That night at dinner he said Pine Valley was a pushover and he would bet anyone $10 he could break 85 the next day. All 11 other members of the party and two waiters took the bet.

“Ruth was well below his objective until the 15th hole, a very long uphill par 5. The left-handed Ruth hooked his second shot into the woods on the right. The ball was found deep in the trees. After several sounds of striking the ball, now deeper in the woods, his partner tried to tell him where the green was. The Babe yelled out, ‘Hell, I don’t need to know where the green is, where is the golf course?’ He ended the 15thhole with 12 strokes and no chance of breaking 85.”

An excerpt from Vogel’s book Babe Ruth and the Scottish Game of Ruth playing in northern New Jersey:

“Wallkill only had a front nine. Hidden away in the New Jersey mountain town of Franklin, the tiny golf course weaved through the woods in the middle of nowhere. Just like the Babe liked it. Quiet, peaceful and blessed by the hand of God. And as Ruth saw it, by the hands of the greenkeeper, too.

“Walkill was kept in the pink of condition under the watch of Lester Moffitt, a man with 20-plus years of turfgrass knowledge under his belt. Ruth noticed it right away and searched Moffitt out to compliment him – maybe even talk shop. Ruth, after all, owned a farm back in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

“Moffitt wasn’t hard to find. He was bust cutting fairways with his Fordson tractor pulling a tow behind, a Worthington gang mower. Ruth owned a Fordson, too, but his never ran right. Maybe Lester could help him out.

“Fordsons were notorious for not running right, but Moffitt knew a trick and passed it on to the Babe. They became fast friends, at least for the hour they talked. The shop talk turned to other manly pursuits like hunting and fishing and running a trap line.

“But Ruth wanted to know: “How did Moffitt get the course in the pink of condition?’

“No big secret. Just hard work and sharing information with fellow greenkeepers. That’s how Moffitt did it. That’s what he told the Babe. The Babe left impressed.

“Lester Moffitt traveled to the Suburban Golf Club (in Union) for the monthly meeting of the Greenkeepers Association of New Jersey. It was a long way for Lester to travel, but Wallkill would be a better golf course for it. The greenkeepers talked about turf and what each other was doing to make it better for their golfers. As usual, Moffitt got the ball rolling, but for the first time, he didn’t talk about grubs or chickweed or brown patch. This was much, much more important. Babe Ruth played his golf course over the weekend. The grub talk could wait.”

Ruth owned a house in Sterling Forest, N.Y. in the late 1930s and spent time boating and hunting in the forests. Sterling Forest is situated on the eastern shore of Greenwood Lake, at the New Jersey state line. Part of the hamlet extends into West Milford.

Ruth was known for spending time in the “wilds” of Passaic and Sussex counties. A Babe Ruth-signed silver certificate, dated 1935, was recently auctioned on eBay. The description read: “This certificate came from Branchville New Jersey, where "The Bambino" himself stayed for weekend getaways playing golf and eating duck at one of his favorite waterfront restaurants on Culver Lake known as McKeown's Restaurant.”

Another of the Babe’s favorites spots in New Jersey was a roadside restaurant called Donohue’s located on the Newark-Pompton Turnpike in Wayne. It was rumored that the Babe had met Jimmy Donohue during prohibition days and the two became good friends.

The Babe was known to play at Jersey Shore courses such as Old Orchard in Eatontown and nearby Suneagles in Tinton Falls. A photo of Ruth golfing at Suneagles still exists.

There was a famed three-match series in 1941 with another baseball legend, Ty Cobb, played at courses outside New York, Boston and Detroit. Cobb claimed bragging rights by winning two of the matches.

On June 13, 1942, Ruth played in the Navy Relief Society and Army Emergency Relief Exhibition Match at Forest Hill Field Club in Bloomfield. Craig Wood, only six days after winning the U.S. Open, teamed with legendary entertainer Bob Hope while Ruth was paired with Corporal Vic Ghezzi (in uniform), who would defeat Byron Nelson in 38 holes a month later to win the PGA championship.

Both Wood (1934) and Ghezzi (1937, plus ’43 and ’44), a Rumson native, had already won NJSGA State Opens.

Wood and Hope won the match thanks to Wood’s course-record 63 while Ruth showed well with a 77.

Bob Hope wrote about the event, with a fond memory of Ruth, in his autobiography, Have Tux, Will Travel: Bob Hope’s Own Story:

“I was once in a foursome at Forest Hill Country Club in Bloomfield, New Jersey, with Babe Ruth and two golf greats, Vic Ghezzi and Craig Wood. Babe was a left-hander at golf and when he hooked one, it was like a right-hander slicing. It was hard to get used to the switch. It seemed to confuse the spectators and they were in constant peril of being beheaded at all times. Between us, we winged at least eight people out of a gallery of ten thousand.”

A New York Times account of the event described the scene a little differently. Spectators who were charged $1 to attend, apparently threw golf-course decorum out the window.

“With more than 2,000 spectators roaming pell-mell over the course, it was not surprising that someone was hit. Ruth’s tee shot clipped a man on the fourth and Wood’s drive caught a woman on the third. Both went home with goose-eggs.”

Babe Ruth played golf right up until his untimely passing at age 53 from throat cancer in 1948.

“Robert Creamer, in his book (Babe: The Legend Comes to Life) said “Babe could hit a baseball a million miles and a golf ball just as far,” Vogel recounted, “but at the end, sadly, he couldn’t get off the tee.”

Any readers with further information regarding Babe Ruth golfing in New Jersey are welcome to email the author at mmoretti@njsga.org.