Memoirs of a Golf Professional

Ed Whalley's days as a head pro may be over but certainly has a lasting list of memories to keep him going

By Bob Albright

If you’re a fan of the game of golf and have a few hours to kill, there aren’t too many better ways to spend them than sitting in the clubhouse at the Meadow Brook Golf club in Reading armed with only a tape recorder and with Ed Whalley staring back at you from the other side of the table.

There’s not much that the 70-year-old Salem native and longtime Lynnfield resident hasn’t seen in a golf odyssey that started better than six decades ago. It’s a journey that began at the age of 9 caddying at Salem Country Club. It’s one that has taken him through virtually every course in Europe while in the service, before moving on to the PGA Tour for a couple of highly entertaining, if not profitable, years. It has also included a rock-solid 48-year tenure as a teaching professional at four different clubs — Charles River, The Colonial, Woodland and Meadow Brook.

Let the tape roll as Whalley quietly recounts his career and in the span of an hour or so, you will have carried the bag for Ben Hogan at Salem CC, been kicked off the pristine fairways at Augusta National by President Eisenhower, of all people, played through the rain and howling winds in Europe at courses like Royal Troon in the British Amateur and read the sandy greens in exotic climes like Tripoli.

It’s a voyage that’s far from over, however. Whalley may be stepping down from his head pro duties at Meadow Brook this year, but he’s certainly not trading them in for a comfortable recliner and a TV programmed to the Golf Channel.

“Simply to play as much competitive golf as possible,” said the former Maine Open champion with a smile when asked what his next order of business would be. “I’ve still got a lot of fire in my belly. I love to get out there with the young guys and see their reactions when they see me on the tee.”

When he’s not teeing it up in events like this June’s Mass Open at Tedesco Country Club, where he once shot a then-course record 66, Whalley will be busy helping design a back nine at Meadow Brook with noted architect Ron Kirby. He’ll still serve as Meadow Brook’s teaching and playing professional, but the head duties will now go to former Kernwood assistant Steve Sheridan.

Of course the other priority will be spending more time with the true love of his life (golf is a distant second) - his wife of 45 years, Mary Rae. Whalley is quick to point out that she’s been the common denominator in allowing him to amass such an extensive and highly productive career on the local fairways.

"She’s been the crux of the whole thing, no doubt," said the former state schoolboy (St. John’s Prep, 1950) and three-time state caddy (Salem Country Club) champ. "I’ve been out of the house at sun-up for so many years and how she did such a great job raising our four children I’ll never know."

Now, in his semi-retirement, Whalley hopes to spend more time with the fruits of Mary Rae’s labor. There’s plenty of rounds to be played with his two sons, Edward Jr., 43, and Ken, 41, both very successful golfers in their own rights, as well as daughters Liz, 39, and Ellen, 42, and six grandchildren as well.

But whatever lies ahead for Whalley when he ventures back into the competitive waters this summer, it’s safe to say it will seem tame in contrast to where he has already been.

Take his first national championship, an impromptu trip to the USGA Junior in 1949 at Congressional made possible by Salem CC members Frank Mutrie, who provided the train ticket, and Jerry Sousa, who lent him the clubs. Whalley, just 15 at the time, would end up losing to future Masters winner Gay Brewer in the second round and never forgot the charity even though Mutrie apparently did.

“I had lost on the 21st hole in a playoff for the last spot (at Woodland) for the last spot at Congressional, so I was back on the fifth at Salem caddying for Sousa when I got the call from the USGA,” Whalley recalled.

The short of it was that a spot had opened up for Whalley and he needed to be at Congressional the next morning. With that, Sousa headed for the pro shop on the ninth hole where he bought a new set of clubs and gave Whalley the bag off his back. Mutrie came up with the money for the train ticket.

“When I went to Charles River as the pro in 1960,” Whalley said, “I went to Mutrie (a member there) and told him that I had been carrying this around for 10 years, but that I could never forget what he did for me, giving me the chance to go to my first national championship. He was a big burly guy, but he just broke down and cried.”

And how do you top being called away from your duties on the grounds crew at Salem to walk 18 holes with the likes of Ben Hogan as Whalley was one day in May of 1953?

That was the day the then 20-year-old got a first-hand look at the legendary exhibition which pitted golf legends Jimmy Demaret and Jack Burke against Hogan and Sam Snead at the Donald Ross classic in Peabody.

“There was like 10,000 people there and Hogan calls me up and said, `Whalley, this is you and me against the world. Don’t leave me and don’t let anybody except you touch those clubs,’” Whalley remembered fondly.

Playing the ninth at Salem in that fabled exhibition, which benefited the Ouimet Caddie Scholarship fund, Whalley recalls that because of a bad bounce, Hogan wound up with a rocky lie in the left rough with a long approach to the green awaiting him.

“A lot of people have me putting him in the rough, but obviously you don’t put anyone in the rough. I told him just hit it a little left and you’ll get some run. Unfortunately, it hit a lady who was running up in the gallery and bounced into the rough.

“Well, he said, ‘That’s OK because fatso (Demaret) can’t get it over the water, but I sure as hell don’t want to lose 50 bucks to Snead,’” recalls Whalley referring to the $50 Nassau that was on the line.

“He asked if I thought he could get a 4-iron in there and I told him I thought he could. Well, he hit it and the sparks flew and it was a beautiful shot. It hit in that path and took this awful kick and went into the pond. Geez, was he upset because he really hated Snead.”

Hogan would end up picking up on the hole and the launching spot of the infamous shot would forever become known as Hogan’s Alley. It looked like Whalley would be forced to put away the clubs when he joined the service after finishing up at Merrimack College in 1955, but just the opposite occurred.

As a member of the 10th Special Service stationed in Germany, Whalley spent one long weekend slicing up a course at a US base in nearby Stuttgart and in the process left quite an impression on General Decker. After watching Whalley post a pair of sub-70 rounds, the General had to do very little arm-twisting to convince Whalley to scrap his light weapons assignment and dress uniform and instead man a post at the pro shop.

“He told me to stay right there and he would have all my stuff shipped up. I never wore a uniform for two years. My ID was a set of golf clubs,” Whalley chuckled.

Suffice to say, for someone who had grown up on the fairways at Salem CC, there wasn’t a better assignment in the entire armed forces. Whalley was in charge of two clubhouses and spent many a day on the course helping one four-star general after the next navigate through its winding fairways.

“I can remember one day we had 11 stars out there. Two four-star generals, a three-star general, and me, a PFC,” laughed Whalley.

In the next two years there weren’t too many tee boxes in Europe that Whalley skipped. He went on to win the German and Finnish Opens and the All-Army title where he topped future PGA star Orville Moody. He narrowly missed an invitation to the Masters when he made it all the way to the quarterfinals at the British Amateur at Royal Troon.

“It was a great learning experience. I figured that in a way it was like going after my masters after college,” Whalley said. “We played under all sorts of conditions and there was no such thing as calling a tournament off. You played through everything and I had a very different swing when I came home. It was very flat and everything went about yeah high off the ground.”

With his very impressive overseas resume to fall back on, Whalley smoothly segued on to the PGA Tour when he came back to the states in 1956, with fellow Massachusetts Tour players Paul Harney and Bob Toski serving as his sponsors. Crisscrossing the country by car with Harney, Whalley played in nearly 70 events in his two years on Tour, but never found the winner’s circle. He did get to 13-under at the Hartford Open one year, before falling back to a Top 10 finish in the final round. While the paychecks were indeed sparse, he wouldn’t trade the memories.

“No one could afford to fly so Paul and I were always driving across country. Those were crazy days,” recalled Whalley with a laugh. “I can remember driving one Sunday night to Reno and we stayed in a little cabin that had gas radiators. I wasn’t to keen on that so I said to Paul, ‘Let’s leave the chain on the door, but keep it open a crack.’ Well, the alarm went off at four in the morning and we both hit the floor and there was like four inches of snow in the room! We slept right through it. There was snow all over the place.”

That was just one of many memorable car rides Whalley spent with Harney, the accomplished pro out of Worcester. There was also one very memorable trip to Augusta National in 1958.

“Harney had won the L.A. Open that winter so he was going to be automatically invited to the Masters,” Whalley remembered.

“We had this old Packard and we drove down there for a practice round. We drive in and get past the sentry box and nobody was there. So we keep driving and we get about 50 yards when two guys walk out of either side of the woods with submachine guns.

“I rolled down the window and said that we’re two golf pros from Boston and we’re supposed to play with the assistant, Walker Inman.”

Neither guard seemed too impressed and the two players were instructed to turn around their Packard and head next door to the Country Club of Augusta — pronto.

“I asked, ‘Why do we have to go there, we wanted to play here,’” said Whalley, who quickly got his answer from one of the gun-toting guards: “Because Ike’s playing here in 20 minutes and no one else is allowed on the course!”

There won’t be any sub-machine guns this summer at the gates of Tedesco, or at any of the other various New England Open championships that are on his docket. There probably won’t be any presidents or four-star generals either.

But if there’s a rain delay at any of those events, competitors would be well advised to sidle alongside that 70-year-old golfer, who still shoots his age, and buy him a beer and open their ears. With any luck it won’t be just a passing shower.