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Ed Dudley signature putter
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I knew from
my father's stories that Ed Dudley served as the first golf professional at
Miami, Oklahoma, that Dudley was an outstanding golfer and teacher, whom my father admired greatly. My father,
also, developed great friendships with Ed's close friends George L. Coleman Jr, Ky Laffoon, and
John F. Robinson in the 1950’s which created a circle of friendships from
coasts to coast. Several of the connections are attributed to my father, who
became a teaching pro at Santa Anita Golf
Course after the war. In those few
years my father played golf with several stars, Johnny Weissmuller, Tarzan and
Olympic swimmer, being a favorite. Mother loved to tells stories about meeting
Bing Crosby, and sometimes going to the horse races at Santa Anita Race Track where she wore a mink coat.
Rockdale Country Club's first golf professional (later called Miami Golf and Country Club) was Ed Dudley.
1922 (story from a 1933 article by MNR Ross Jones)
Back in the dim dark ages of 1922, when golf was at its height in Miami, Oklahoma, G.C. Warren
of Tampa, Florida, then in charge of the old Brownhead mine near Pitcher, became
interested in the Miami County club course.
Warren was a golf enthusiast, and way back in the Georgia
canebrakes before he came to the mining district in 1921 he had become
interested in a youthful caddy at a Tampa course. He was so firmly convinced
that in the young aspirant of the greens there was a material of champions,
that he had made a mental note concerning him. That caddy was Ed Dudley.
The Miami Country club was forming plans to hire a new
professional for the course. Warren heard the discussion and his mind flashed
back to that sunny southland where this same youthful caddy was still plugging
away, but now advanced to the rank of caddy master. He immediately began to
canvass the executives of the country club here, and was high in his praises of
what he believed was a coming star and an already finished product of the
fairway.
The country club officials heeded his high praises and the
result was that the caddy came from Tampa to Miami, Oklahoma. It was his first real
chance to prove his prowess, and he set out to do it. It was a start and a
start he wanted. Not yet out of his teens, he vowed that someday his name,
Edward Dudley, would be known throughout the sporting world.
1923
In 1923, Ed branched out a bit. (At this time the Rockdale
Country club was only four holes built in 1916.) In 1923 Ed Dudley and several
members designed the layout for the new five hole, creating what was known as
the original nine hole golf course). His duties at the Miami club didn’t keep
him so very busy and he managed to work his way into a job at Bartlesville. He
brought his younger brother, Bill, up from the South to assist him.
While in Bartlesville he picked up a few more things
necessary in his golfing life, including among them a wife. The wife proved a
great asset to him rather than a hold-back in his campaign, and his rise during
the following year was almost phenomenal.
*From the time that Ed Dudley began his career in Miami,
Oklahoma he used his skills as a ball striker and his drive to make a name for
himself, as he moved from country club to country club, all the while playing
in state championships to major opens from coast to coast. Our home town newspapers kept the public up to date on Ed's golfing career.
1925 June 14 MNR
(Tulsa, June 13) “Ed Dudley Wins State
Open Golf Championship”
Ed Dudley, professional at Oakhill Country Club in Joplin,
Missouri, and darkest of the dark horses, today won the open golf championship
in 36 holes medal play. Dudley’s score (gross) was 151. The match was the first
event in the sixteenth annual tournament of the Oklahoma State Golf
association.
Bill Creavey, Oklahoma City professional, took second.
Dudley, who formerly lived at Bartlesville and Miami, made his low score by
playing a consistent game throughout. His approach shots, his opponents said,
were almost perfect. He played the third nine of the 36 holes in 34, one under
the course par. Dudley’s morning round shows 39 38 for a 77; afternoon rounds
of 34 40 for a 74 total of 151. (No golf course was named for this event.)
1925 September 10 MNR
Ed Dudley, formerly professional at the Rockdale Country club here, and now
acting in the same capacity with the Oak Hill club in Joplin, is continuing on
his way toward a high place in the golfing firmament. Tuesday he tied his own
record on the Oak Hill course by shooting a 64. Dudley went out in 31 and came
in with a 33. His record for nine holes is 29. In order to shoot his remarkable
score, Dudley bagged two eagles and seven birdies. He went over par on only one
hole, No.1.
1925.11.16 JOPLIN
HERALD “Ed Dudley”
Just as many predicted when Ed Dudley gained so much fame
during the summer, he will not be at Oak Hill next year. Dudley has accepted an
offer of the Oklahoma City Club and will begin his duties there in January.
Dudley has been at Oak Hill two seasons. He succeeded Dewey Longworth. He
captured the Oklahoma championship last season at Tulsa and came near bagging
the Missouri Open at Shifferdecker.
32.1.3 MNR NEA SERVICE SPORTS WRITER, by CLAIRE BUCKY.
If all those interested in lowering their golf score would
send a stamped and self-addressed envelope to Edward Bishop Dudley, Jr,
Wilmington, Del. The mail would be flooded. The recent batting averages of big
league golfers for 1931 showed that Ed Dudley was the champion swinger in the
P.G.A. league, yet they didn’t tell half the story. Big Ed has chiseled just
exactly four strokes per 18 holes off his average in championship play since he
stepped into the big time five years ago. His record since 1927 might well be
lesson No.1 in the golf primer.
According to P.G.A figures Dudley whacked the 1931 “balloon ball”
71 times or 1-3 times per 18 holes in 30 championship matches. From that, try
to figure Dudley a bush-whacker! Yet, he was only a big, smiling southerner of
twenty-four and some ambitions in 1927. Somehow he managed to shoot enough sub-par
golf in Oklahoma that winter to give him an average of approximately 75 strokes
for every round of championship play.
Not bad, thought Ed, so he went after the big prizes. He
wintered in California the next year, showed them some fancy shots and
established a connection there. Meantime, he lopped off another stroke in his
average, bringing it down to a fraction under 74 strokes.
From the major league golfers fortune-hunting in California,
Dudley learned that he would attract more attention by moving east. He did, settling
in the Philadelphia district, and soon became a member of Walter Hagen’s Ryder
cup team. That was 1929. His average in more than 100 championship rounds was
pared to 73.
Recognition then came. His fine golf strokes, his big
colorful physique and his ever-ready smile were sought for all the events of
1930. He was close in all of them, but won only two minor titles. Still his
batting average improved to 73 strokes a round.
Now Dudley faces a new campaign with the best average in the
game. He’s a 71 average man, a sub-par shooter. He can spot Walter Hagen and
Harry Cooper one stroke each. Gene Sarazen and George Von Elm two strokes each,
Tommy Armour and Leo Diegel three strokes apiece and beat them, the figures
say.
Smiling Ed is a chance-taker with nerves of steel in the
pinches. Von Elm tied Johnny Golden for the Agua Calinte prize of $10,000 and
then twice tied Billy Burke in the National Open. But Dudley put $2,000 on one
shot in the Los Angeles Open last year and made it. It was the eighteenth hole-a
445 yarder and dog-legged hole to boot in the final round. Ed’s drive went 230
yards straight down the middle. From there all he had to do was pitch to the
green surrounded on three sides by a ditch with a 10 foot drop. His second shot
went wild. It went too far to the right and stopped behind a big tree. Besides
the tree in front of him there was the ditch to the right again and the postage
stamp green some 75 yards beyond both.
The safe and sane shot would have been back to the fairway.
But Dudley was neither safe nor sane. He laid back his pitcher, took a smooth
swing at the ball and lofted it over the big tree to the tiny green. He was
down in one putt for a 68 and $3,500.
(This was the first article where I have seen Ed Dudley
referred to as “Big Ed” or “Smiling Ed” Dudley. He received the nickname “Big
Ed” because he stood 6’4” and weighed 200 pounds.)
*For better images of Ed Dudley please search his name and images.
1933 February 2 MNR by Ross Jones "Job as Pro on Bobby Jones "Ideal Course" Climaxes Golf Career Begun Here by Ed Dudley."
The greatest honor ever conferred upon Dudley, though, came
recently (1933). Bobby Jones, the sentimental gentleman
from Georgia, built what he calls an ideal golf course—probably the outstanding
course in the land. Someone was needed to take charge of it, for Bobby spends
some time at his law practice, as well as on the links. (We know this golf
course as Augusta National, home of the Masters Golf Tournament.)
Ed Dudley got that job, and became the first golf professional at Augusta, Georgia.
1938 May 27 MNR (Toledo,
Ohio) Big Ed Dudley of Philadelphia and Ky Laffoon, the Miami, Oklahoma star,
ripped eight strokes off par today with a 63 to beat Lawson Little and Jimmy Demeret
6 up, snatching the lead at the end of the first round of the $4,600 Inverness
Invitational best-ball matches. Little and Demeret had a 69.
*The stories show the attributes of Dudley, not
only in Oklahoma but in the years after he was appointed the first head
professional job at Augusta National, by Bobby Jones, the designer. Among Dudley's most famous students were
President Dwight Eisenhower, singer Bing Crosby, and comedian Bob Hope.
1942 September 25 MNR
“Dudley and Bing”
Ed Dudley, the pro golf star and Bing Crosby, the movie
crooner, played one unscheduled match in the state when they stopped in
Oklahoma on their recent bond-selling tour. That was over the Miami Country
club course, where Big Ed served as professional 22 years ago.
Dudley and Bing stopped at Miami on their way to Tulsa.
Dudley wanted to pay a call on his old friend, Jack Guild, now pro at the Miami
layout. Big Ed recalled that when he was at Miami the club had sand greens back
in 1920—the year he started his meteoric rise in the golfing world that has
carried him to the present rank as one of the nation’s best and President of
the Professional Golf Association.
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Note the signature of Crosby across the bottom of the tee top.
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* The small red tee, only one inch and a half long, is a true souvenir from a thirteen year old golfer and Crosby fan, Sarah Hilliard Mirjanick, who received it from Bing Crosby on the day he played golf in Miami. The picture of the tee was shared by Sarah's daughter, Rebecca Mirjanick Davis.
Crosby and Dudley didn’t attempt to tear the course apart on
their leisurely round of golf with Mrs. George L. Coleman, Jr., and Miss Patty
Fullerton, Miamians. In fact, no score cards were kept.
There are numerous journal stories about Big Ed Dudley with
photographs. The websites listed below are some of the best stories that recall
the years when Ed’s name was well known.
“DID YOU KNOW”
Ed Dudley saved golf during World War II?
Dudley Saves Golf
Dudley's Bio and Wins
Dudley's Augusta Years Nearly Lost to History
Edward Bishop Dudley (February 19, 1901 – October 25, 1963).
* For other stories about golf and Miami, Oklahoma please click on the link to my personal blog Literally Letty
For previous stories of Dudley and the Rockdale Country Club please click on the link Rockdale Country club 1914-1929
*For the sake of the “Timeline of Miami Country Club” I have
chosen to use the exact words from the Miami New Record writers because they
date the times and the language of golf, and the cultural standards from the
war and depression years.
