The 1930s: The Decade the Stars Descended on the NJSGA Open

With 17 Major Titles Among Them, These Stars Dominated the State Open – Almost

Photo: Vic Ghezzi

By Kevin Casey

Unlike any other period in the New Jersey Open’s century-long existence, some of the game’s biggest stars – Byron Nelson, Craig Wood, Long Jim Barnes, just to name a few – participated in our event in the 1930s. A few of them actually won.

The reason for all the attention on our rather small state was pretty clear – during the Great Depression, more opportunity existed for golf professionals in the New York metropolitan region than anywhere in the nation.

Professional Golf and the Great Depression

The 1929 Wall Street collapse had spread quickly to Main Street and golf understandably took a back seat across America. The Great Depression took its toll not only on golf but on what was loosely referred to as the professional golf tour, shrinking the number of tournaments from Roaring Twenties high-water marks in both the number and size of paydays for the professionals.

While important, warm-weather events such as the U.S. Open, the Western Open, the North and South Open and the Met Open continued to be held, the professional tour in the 1930s was primarily a wintertime collection of golf tournaments in California, Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Florida. Most of the players would caravan from event to event, often earning more on side bets, skins and poker than in official winnings.

Tournament sponsors and purses were cobbled together by Robert “Bob” Harlow, the first full-time Professional Golfers Association of America (PGA) tournament manager. His main job was to cajole enough money out of local chambers of commerce and Rotary Clubs, the occasional resort or local businesses and often the Golf Ball and Golf Club Manufacturers Association to put on a 72-hole “(fill in the town) Classic.”

Harlow had tough sledding, especially in those days. By 1931, the year’s total of all the purses managed by Harlow and contested by his gladiators was $77,000. In today’s dollars, that’s $1,303,660, not even the average weekly first prize offered on the 2020 PGA Tour.

A winter tour with barely enough money to go around meant that all of those touring pros needed to make money somewhere else. To stay close to the game, almost all the touring pros took club professional jobs to support them between tournaments. Many of those home-cooking gigs were in the relatively prosperous metropolitan New York City area. It was no accident that many of the biggest (or up and coming) names in the game – Gene Sarazen, Walter Hagan, Jim Barnes, Johnny Farrell, Ben Hogan, Byron Nelson, Ralph Guldahl, Paul Runyan, Craig Wood – all had affiliations (usually summer club jobs) in the region.

In fact, many of those existing and would-be touring stars had club professional jobs in New Jersey, attracted by the state’s high density of relatively prosperous clubs and the quality of their courses. As a result, many of the best players in America found the opportunity to earn an income while improving their games in the Garden State, making it easy to fill out an entry form to the New Jersey State Golf Association Open Championship.

Both the Lions and the Lion Tamers

By 1930, the venerable 10-year-old New Jersey Open had, in the broadest sense, earned a spot on the professional tour. Being in New Jersey, the Open had all the right pieces: the players, the clubs, the fans, the courses and the media.

Future World Golf Hall of Fame member Paul Runyan kicked off the decade with his win in the 1930 NJ Open at Asbury Park Golf Club. At the time an assistant professional at Forest Hill Field Club, Runyan held off New Jersey assistant professional Danny Williams, Sr., of Shackamaxon Golf & Country Club for the title. A short game wizard, Runyan became the PGA of America Champion in 1934 and ‘38, and won 29-times on the PGA Tour, including this Open.

In addition to his solo win in 1934, Craig Wood, playing out of Forest Hill Field Club and Hollywood Golf Club, actually managed three second place NJ Open finishes in the 1930s (1932, ’33 and ’37).

His tendency to come up just short mirrored his heartbreaking rash of major championship runner-up finishes happening at roughly the same time. Wood was the first Tour player to lose all four majors in extra holes (1933 British Open, 1934 PGA, 1935 Masters and 1939 U.S. Open). His two major championships came late in his career at the 1941 Masters and U.S. Open.

Byron Nelson, on everyone’s shortlist of golf’s GOATs, won the 1935 NJ Open while serving a two-year stint as assistant at Ridgewood Country Club under the watchful eye of head professional George Jacobus, the current president (some would say “czar”) of the PGA of America. Nelson said later said that he considered the NJ Open his first significant win and that it gave him the confidence he needed to break out ahead of the Tour pack.

Perhaps best known for his eleven-tournament winning streak in 1945, Nelson would win a total of 52 tour events and five major championships (the Masters in 1937 and ’42, the PGA in 1940 and ’45, and the U.S. Open in 1939) in a health-shortened playing career.

By the time he won his NJ Open in 1936, Johnny Farrell already had his major win. The fashion plate Farrell survived the 1928 U.S Open in a bruising 36-hole playoff with amateur Bob Jones – the greatest player of the era – at Olympia Fields Country Club near Chicago. The year before this win, Farrell had won eight consecutive tour events, setting a record that would last until Lord Byron’s 1945 pillage of the pro tour. Farrell had only the year before accepted the head professional’s role at Baltusrol when he won the NJ Open at Crestmont Country Club over future NJ Open winner Vic Ghezzi.

Ghezzi took his place in the winner's circle the following year. A Rumson-born, through-and-through Jerseyan, Ghezzi captured the NJ Open in 1937, ’42 and ’43. His 1937 victory came at the expense of – you guessed it – Craig Wood.

In a very successful career, Ghezzi won 11 times on the PGA Tour, including the 1941 PGA Championship in which he took 38 holes to defeat Byron Nelson in the final. Ghezzi, representing Deal Golf & Country Club, also won two New Jersey PGA Championships (1939, ’49).

No player in the world compiled a better record in the late 1930s than Ralph Guldahl, a 16-time tour winner with three majors to his name: the 1937 and ’38 U.S. Opens and the ‘39 Masters. The 1938 NJ Open was scheduled to be held at Braidburn (today Brooklake) Country Club, which happened to be where Guldahl was serving as the head professional. The current two-time reigning U.S. Open champ stated that he would “toss his clubs into the pond at the 18th hole” if he didn’t win the State Open. Guldahl finished T-2 behind Pine Valley Golf Club professional Ted Turner. (Editor’s note: We cannot confirm that Ralph’s clubs got wet.)

Concluding the decade, 53-year old Essex County CC professional “Long Jim” Barnes was the oldest-ever NJ Open champion when he strode into the winner's circle in 1939. This was the last significant victory in a World Golf Hall of Fame career highlighted by two PGA Championships (1916 and ’19), one U.S. Open (1921), and one British Open (1925) among his 22 professional circuit wins. He was also quite likely the last soldier of the 1890-1916 British professional invasion of American golf to win a notable event. These immigrant players, instructors and course managers were an essential – and blessed – ingredient in the movement that shaped the game we play today.

Despite the attention from the game’s big names, in the decade the stars descended on the New Jersey Open, only one player won the championship twice. This lion tamer was Johnny Kinder, the long-time head professional at Plainfield Country Club. In this decade, Kinder claimed victory in 1931 and ’32 (and later in 1940). Further, the Bloomfield-raised pro proved his great play was not a fluke, with second place Open finishes in both 1938 and’39.

Kinder’s club professional colleague, Clarence Clark won the 1933 Open playing out of Forest Hill FC. Together with Pine Valley GC’s Turner (the 1938 Open champ), these three decidedly local pros deserve a tremendous amount of credit for upholding the Garden State’ honor against the future World Hall of Famers who raided the Open in the ‘30s.

This article is one of many that will be a part of Kevin Casey’s forthcoming collection of stories about New Jersey’s fascinating golf history, due to be published in book form in Fall, 2020.