The 10 greatest moments in North Shore golf history

By Gary Larrabee

The history of golf on the North Shore is as rich as a freshly baked devil’s food cake topped with inch-high vanilla frosting.

Pick any year since 1897, when Nellie Sargent lost the final of the USGA Women’s Amateur on her home Essex County Club course, and I’ll recite you word and verse on a special golf moment that’s taken place on the North Shore.

I’ve done some homework on the subject. It was the basis for my 2001 book, The Green and Gold Coast: The History of Golf on Boston’s North Shore, 1893-2001 (Commonwealth Editions). For the purpose of this exercise, I’ll extend that history through 2005 in presenting for your reading pleasure (and possible disagreement) the 10 greatest moments in North Shore golf history. The one qualifier in composing this list was that every moment singled out must have taken place on our own hallowed golfing turf.

For example, Essex CC Head Pro Joe Lloyd became the only North Shore-based player to win the United States Open in 1897. But it took place in Chicago, so the Englishman’s historic achievement does not make this particular list.

So here they are: The “Greatest Moments” in the region’s golf annals.

1. U.S. Senior Open at Salem Country Club - 2001

This was the “mother” of all golf happenings in the area’s history. Nothing else comes close. Fourteen hours of national television coverage, featuring Johnny Miller, the “Mr. McNasty” of golf commentators, Arnold Palmer (remember the 60-foot birdie putt he made on the 12th?), Gary Player, Hale Irwin, Larry Nelson, Beverly Golf & Tennis’ own Steve Swedberg of Danvers, and some guy named Nicklaus, who won over the masses as soon as he stepped on the revered Salem CC property for the first time Monday evening as dark approached with a nine-hole swing-and-chat practice session the 60 loyalists in attendance will never forget.

Bruce Fleisher, who was once a finalist for the head pro position at Kernwood Country Club, broke out of a four-way tie with Jack Nicklaus, Jim Colbert and Isao Aoki over the last four holes to win the title as he was the only player to match par of 280. Under normal conditions the winning score would have been around 275, 13 under par. But the USGA wasn’t going to allow another 2000 Senior Open at Saucon Valley, when Irwin bludgeoned the Bethlehem, Pa., layout with a 19-under aggregate.

The USGA loves par as the wining score, so they shaved the sloping greens, placed flagsticks on treacherous mounds, thickened the rough, tightened the fairways and voila! Par was king.

But the real story of the week was Nicklaus, who called the Donald Ross design “a nice little course” on Wednesday, then ripped the USGA three days later for their setup when he said of the putting surfaces, “If I’d designed these greens, I’d be fired.”

No matter. That was Nicklaus, the most candid legend the game has seen, telling it like it is, as he did this spring in denouncing Augusta officials for ruining the Masters venue for extending the course to an unnecessary 7,400-plus yards.

When they write Nicklaus’ epitaph, it will include the fact that Jack made his final great run at a major championship title at the 2001 Senior Open at Salem. An eagle three on the Open’s 14th hole Saturday, followed by a birdie three on the home hole, sent the two loudest roars of spectator approval all weekend throughout the West Peabody property and placed him in contention for the Francis Ouimet Trophy.

Jack kept it going for 14 holes Sunday. With four holes remaining, after making birdie on the par-5 14th, he was tied for the lead with Fleisher, Aoki and Colbert. But bogeys on 15 and 16 ended his hopes.

Nonetheless, for most of the 100,000 in the gallery who watched the action that June 30-July 3 weekend, Nicklaus’ stirring bid, at the age of 61, will always be what they remember most – Jack’s swan song as a championship contender.

“We couldn’t have had a better week in the big picture,” Ollie Cook, Senior Open chairman, looked back. “Great weather, a sell-out, our course held up beautifully, we dodged two heavy rain storms late Saturday and Sunday, we had a classy champion – and Jack Nicklaus stole our hearts, even though he didn’t win.”

2. Paul Harney wins his fourth consecutive Mass Open at Salem Country Club - 1970

Returning to Salem CC for the first time since Julius Boros’ milestone victory in 1951, the Massachusetts Open enjoyed another history-making performance with Paul Harney’s playoff victory over the seemingly ageless Jim Browning in an 18-hole playoff. The event provided the largest gallery in Mass Open history as Harney, shown on the left, shot a competitive course record seven-under 65 while beating Browning, at 56 the oldest player ever to tie for the title after regulation play, by 11 strokes.

After tying for the highest 54-hole winning score in Open annals, thanks to a rain-marred, 36-hole second-day finish, Browning and Harney returned three days later under ideal playing conditions on Independence Day Eve and encountered a welcoming committee of more than three thousand fans. Harney, the Pleasant Valley club pro who at the time was two years away from his final PGA Tour victory at the Andy Williams/San Diego Open, was near-perfect with his eight-birdie effort. His lone bogey came on the par-five eighth. His score was not matched until 31 years later at the Senior Open, when Jim Thorpe shot 65 the second day, then was bettered by Jay Sigel’s 64 on the third day.

“That round was one of my career highlights,” Harney said in 2001.

Two long forgotten factoids: Ould Newbury product Charley Volpone missed out on the playoff by one shot but went on to win the next two Opens. United Shoe product Walter Sharis was the low amateur, falling two shots short of the playoff.

3. Barb Mucha wins the 11th and final Boston Five LPGA Classic played at Ferncroft Country Club -1990

Mucha will be remembered not so much for her winning golf that summer week, but for being the last Boston Five winner and for being the only champion to take a celebratory leap into the pond fronting the 18th green, see photo. Best of all for the North Shore golf family, it enjoyed 11 weeks of Christmas in summer, 44 days of championship golf that were marred by only one hour of rain total, millions of dollars for the local economy, hundreds of thousands for Greater Boston charities and exciting play by the likes of future Hall of Famers Amy Alcott, Sandra Palmer and Donna Caponi, all Boston Five victors.

“We had a great run with the tournament,” said Winchester CC member and long-time Boston Five chairman Bob Spiller. “An ideal site, wonderful support, perfect weather and fine champions.”

4. Margaret Curtis wins her third and last U.S. Women’s Amateur title on her home Essex County Club course – 1912

Curtis’ 7 and 6 triumph over R.H. Barlow at Essex CC, barely a mile from her family’s summer oceanfront home, Sharksmouth, marked the end of an amazing run for her and her sister, Harriot, on the national women’s golf scene. Margaret, shown on the right, won earlier U.S. titles in 1907 over Harriot in Chicago, the only time sisters have ever met in the title match, and in 1911 at Baltusrol. Harriot won her lone title in 1906 at Brae Burn in West Newton.

In 1927 the Curtis sisters donated a cup for the purpose of initiating a biennial match between the best women amateurs from the United States and the British Isles. The first match was held in 1932. The 1938 Match was held at Essex in Manchester, and the 2010 Match will return to the Donald Ross gem in tribute to the sisters who fostered the concept originally.

5. Myopia Hunt Club hosts its fourth and final United States Open – 1908

It was 1908 when Fred McLeod defeated Willie Smith, 77 to 83, in an 18-hole playoff, after the pair tied over the 72-hole route with 322 aggregates, the third highest winning score in Open history.

Fred Herd, shown on the right, won Myopia’s first Open, the first competed over 72 holes, at the South Hamilton links in 1898 with a total of 328, the second highest winning score. Willie Anderson won his first in 1901 in a playoff over Willie Smith after they tied with the highest winning score ever (331), and Anderson won his fourth overall and third straight in 1905 with 314.

The galleries were sparse, but most important Myopia came to the service of the fledgling United States Golf Association when it was needed most and became the first club to host the championship four times.

6. Babe Zaharias win the U.S. Women’s Open at Salem CC – 1954

Less than two years after under going radical cancer surgery, Babe Zaharias, sitting in the middle of the above photo, captures her third – and unquestionably most dramatic – U.S. Women’s Open, beating the heat-drained field by 12 strokes at Salem Country Club. The Babe’s victory, of course, ranks among the most compelling in USGA history, since this was her last of three Open wins and she died from a recurrence of cancer two years later at the age of 42. In honor of her remarkable athletic and golf careers, the USGA presented an exhibit in 2004 and 2005 titled “Let Me Play Again,” which focused on her golf and physical comeback that led to her victory at Salem.

7. Hollis Stacy wins U.S. Women’s Open at Salem CC – 1984

You can’t honor The Babe’s astonishing achievement without placing Stacy’s somewhere on the same plane.

Stacy won her final Open at Salem 30 years later in a dramatic fashion of a different kind. In the first North Shore-based tournament to be televised nationally, Stacy, shown below in 1984 and in a current head shot, was tied with Amy Alcott and Rosie Jones with one hole remaining but managed the only par among the trio on the 72nd hole, giving her a third U.S. Women’s Open victory.

Stacy started the final round three shots off the lead and was five behind after five holes. But she played the final 13 holes in five-under, keyed by an eagle-two on the par-four 13th (the members’ fourth hole) and was the only contender not to buckle under the pressure on the 72nd hole.

“I feel connected to the Babe today,” Stacy said at the time. “She won here the year I was born. Maybe that was a lucky charm.”

8. Bill Flynn wins Mass Open at Kernwood CC - 1963

Flynn became the first – and only – left-handed Mass Open champion, thanks to a stunning final-round 66 at the Salem layout, a 3-wood from his Danvers home. The victory was keyed by a holed six-iron second shot on 16 for an eagle – the most dramatic shot ever made by a Mass. Open champion on the closing holes.

“I didn’t see it coming,” Flynn said 43 years after his breakthrough triumph. “I was not playing well coming in and my putting had been off. But I kept it together the first two rounds and played as well as I can in the 66.”

The 26-year-old had just changed jobs, from top assistant at Salem CC to head pro at the newly-opened Thomson Club in North Reading. He was considered a good player with potential but nobody, least of all Flynn himself, was predicting victory in two of the region’s three majors for club pros (he won the 1968 New England PGA as well). He caught lightning in a bottle at Kernwood CC in the closing round, the second of two eighteens played the final day. Trailing by three strokes with six holes remaining, Flynn went eagle-birdie-par-eagle-par-par for a five-under charge.

The Massachusetts Open has seen nothing like it since. The 2007 Open returns to Kernwood CC for the first time since 1973, when Bob Crowley beat Dave Marad in a playoff.

9. Anne Marie Tobin wins the WGAM title at Myopia - 1993

This was the third of what would end up being a record seven Women’s Golf Association of Massachusetts titles for the Lynnfield resident as she prevailed with a 5 and 4 victory over medalist Jean Enright at Myopia Hunt Club.

As a member at Thomson CC since she was a junior, Anne Marie Locke reaped major benefits as Bill Flynn’s star pupil during her growth period in the game, and then took it to unprecedented levels once she married Bellevue Country Club’s Head Professional Jim Tobin. She won a record five WGAM match play titles in a row, the third of those coming against Enright.

“Every title was gratifying,” says Tobin. “But it was extra nice to win one of those on the North Shore. I’d had a good run at Salem (in ’79, before losing in the semifinals), but I didn’t win my first for nine more years. Then to win at Myopia for my third straight was special.”

The WGAM Player of the Year Award is now named in her honor.

10. Commodore Open surpasses the $1 million mark in money raised for the North Shore Arc - 2003

Raising $60,000 from the 225-player field, the 34th Commodore Open at Myopia Hunt Club was a historic event as it helped the event break the $1 million plateau. The milestone is just one of many legacies left by Commodore founder and long-time chairman Mike Frangos before his death in 2005.

Mike Frangos was a successful restaurant owner in 1970 and just getting into the game of golf when he and fellow Norwich University grad Paul Mansur created the Commodore Open, a fundraiser for the North Shore Association for Retarded Citizens.

“Paul was in charge at the Arc in those days — his son had special needs – and he was looking for additional ways to bring in revenue,” Frangos recalled in 2000. “We didn’t raise much that first year at Far Corner, but thanks to wonderful support from the business and golf community, we grew and grew.”

To the point that The Commodore reached the magical $1 million mark in 2003, two years before the soft-spoken, universally-beloved Frangos died.

“The Commodore will always be Mike’s tournament,” says Mark Thompson of Boxford, CEO of the event’s primary sponsor, Boston Private Bank & Trust. “We’re just carrying it forward as he would want us to.”

The tournament was renamed the Mike Frangos/ Commodore Open in 2005. This year it will be played on Sept. 18 at Myopia.

Gary Larrabee’s Honorable Mentions for Top Moments in North Shore golf history...