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An overdue thank you
GCSAA pays homage to its founder and president emeritus by awarding the 2009 Old Tom Morris Award to Col. John Morley.
Seth Jones |
The time has come for Col. John Morley to be less an answer to a trivia question and more of a respected figure in the world of golf.
After all, this European immigrant who came to America in 1878 created and founded, among other things, the National Association of Greenskeepers of America (NAGA), a group that today, as the GCSAA, is considered one of the premier organizations in golf, with 20,000 members in 70 countries.
It is for founding what became GCSAA and his dedication, as well as his legacy in golf, that GCSAA posthumously awards its 2009 Old Tom Morris Award — the organization’s highest honor — to its founder, Col. John Morley.
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A group shot of the attendees of the 1931 Annual Meeting and Convention held in Columbus, Ohio, at the Deshler-Wallick Hotel and Armory. The Deshler-Wallick closed in 1969. Col. Morley is front row, center. Photo courtesy GCSAA Archives |
Kindred spirits
GCSAA’s Old Tom Morris Award is presented each year to an individual who “through a continuing lifetime commitment to the game of golf has helped to mold the welfare of the game in a manner and style exemplified by Old Tom Morris.” Morris (1821-1908) was greenkeeper and golf professional at the St. Andrews Links Trust Golf Club of St. Andrews, Scotland; a four-time winner of the British Open (1861, ’62, ’64 and ’67); and ranked as one of the top links designers of the 19th century.
Yes, these kindred spirits were alive at the same time — Morley was born the same year Old Tom won his final British Open at the age of 46. And like Old Tom, Col. Morley now has a GCSAA award named after him; this year, GCSAA’s Distinguished Service Award is being renamed the Col. John Morley Distinguished Service Award, which is fitting, as Col. Morley was the first-ever recipient of GCSAA’s Distinguished Service Award in 1932.
“As the founder of our association, his words ring as true today as they did in 1926. He was a visionary who saw the need and worked tirelessly to birth this association,” says David S. Downing II, CGCS and the 68th president to follow Morley’s legacy. “This honor for him is long overdue.”
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Youngstown (Ohio) CC, where Col. John Morley was the superintendent from 1913 to 1942. While the club has been around for 110 years, the course celebrates its centennial in 2011. |
“He is the founding father of our association,” says 80-year-old John J. Spodnik, a 49-year Class AA member of GCSAA as well as the president of GCSAA in 1969. An Ohio resident like Morley, Spodnik was happy to hear there would be recognition for the man who created both his local association (the Northern Ohio GCSA) as well as the national association. “It’s about time. (Morley) took the bull by the horns — it was an individual effort to create these associations. He made people aware that there was a profession of superintendents. He got our name out.”
Col. Morley is an Old Tom Morris Award winner who indeed gave to the game of golf, and to the superintendent, during his lifetime and even after his lifetime. This superintendent, who one current superintendent calls “the godfather of American superintendents,” has as his legacy the GCSAA and its many members, an organization of which he would surely be proud.
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Tim Cunningham, an 18-year Class A GCSAA member, is the current superintendent at Youngstown and only the seventh superintendent in the course’s long history. His dog Kip has been chasing geese off of golf courses for him for 12 years. Photos courtesy of Tim Cunningham |
“I think he’d say that this was the vision he saw when he began this organization,” says Tim Cunningham, the Class A superintendent at Youngstown (Ohio) Country Club, the same course Col. Morley took care of some 90 years ago. “He realized that we needed to communicate and we needed to create this fraternity that we have. You (can’t speak to just anyone) about what we do. It’s very important that we interact with each other — and with golf professionals and managers — to make the experience of golf and the game of golf the best it can be.”
Morley’s start
John Morley was born Aug. 24, 1867, in Middleboro, England. He came to America around the turn of the 20th century and began working as head greenkeeper of Youngstown (Ohio) CC in 1913 at the age of 46.
Prior to being a greenkeeper, Morley’s specialty was growing vegetables. He was active in society, a 32nd degree Mason as well as a member of the Elks, Moose, Owls and the English society the Sons of St. George. During depressions in 1893 and 1896, he was asked to focus on growing vegetables for the poor of Youngstown.
According to Gordon Witteveen and the late Bob Labbance in their book “Keepers of the Green: A History of Golf Course Management,” Morley became secretary of the Progressive Club during Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, and because of this position was appointed by Ohio Gov. James M. Cox to the Board of Equalization, a well-paying position. But he chose to take the job as superintendent at Youngstown CC because health problems and poor hearing made him want to work outdoors.
In order to learn more about the work of greenkeepers, Morley traveled extensively, visiting his new colleagues at as many as 100 courses. During these travels, he realized that there was a need for a professional network of greenkeepers to help each other in the art and science of keeping golf courses beautiful. As Morley once said, “Every golf course is an individual problem in itself.”
At this time the USGA Green Section already existed, and many superintendents attended its regional meetings. It was at these meetings that greenkeepers in the same area would meet each other for the first time and exchange ideas on regional problems. It became obvious that a greenkeeper-specific organization would be useful.
On May 12, 1923, the Cleveland District Greenkeepers Association held its first meeting at Youngstown CC. Despite cold, rainy conditions, 40 people attended, a mix of greenkeepers and greens chairmen. At that meeting, John Morley was elected president of the group.
Formation of the NAGA
As Morley traveled, he would tell his colleagues about the success of the Cleveland Greenkeepers Association. More groups were forming, such as the New England Greenkeepers Club (Feb. 5, 1924), the Ontario Greenkeepers Association (Oct. 4, 1924), the Michigan Border Cities Greenkeepers Association (spring of 1925) and the Philadelphia Association of Golf Course Superintendents (September 1925).
More and more greenkeepers would ask Morley if there ever would be one unifying body for all superintendent associations. Only when Morley was sure of the health of the Cleveland Association and of the support of outside associations did he act.
At Sylvania Golf Club in Toledo, Ohio, on Sept. 13, 1926, John Morley held the first meeting of what would eventually become GCSAA. That day 31 people met as the National Association of Greenskeepers of America (NAGA) for the first time.
Morley gave a stirring speech to the group and told them NAGA should always follow these basic principles:
• The association was to be founded on justice, brotherhood and generous benevolence.
• Greenkeeping was to be seen as an art and science and not a labor job.
• Only those qualified should care for greens.
• He wished to cement the greenkeepers of the United States and Canada into one organization.
• He promoted the exchange of information between greenkeepers and the need for a magazine and an annual conference.
• He wanted NAGA to provide financial benefit to the families of members who died or became disabled.
NAGA’s first conference was held in Chicago in 1927. By that time the organization boasted 72 charter members. The NAGA was well on its way.
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President emeritus
Within two years, NAGA’s membership would increase fivefold, and two mainstays of the association would be created: a magazine, then known as The National Greenkeeper (changing titles later to The Greenkeepers’ Bulletin, The Greenkeepers’ Reporter and The Golf Course Reporter before finally becoming Golf Course Management in 1979) and an annual meeting and trade show. Member education would begin in 1939.
NAGA would survive the Great Depression, despite the closing of the Cleveland bank that held its funds, and it would also survive World War II, though most activities were suspended during the war.
Morley would serve as the president of NAGA for its first six years, from 1926 to 1932. When he stepped down, he wrote in The National Greenkeeper that he did so because of his poor health and other duties to which he needed to attend. Only two other presidents would serve for more than a year, Harold W. Stodola (1941-1945) and Marshall E. Farnham (1946-1947).
When Morley stepped down, he was unanimously given the title president emeritus, a title he proudly accepted. It was the second title he had received in recent years, as Kentucky Gov. Flem Sampson named him a colonel at the 4th Annual Convention and Golf Show of Greenkeepers in Louisville, Ky. The March 1930 issue of The National Greenkeeper joked that the appointment by the governor changed Morley from “an able, peace loving greenkeeper into a khaki-clad disciple of war.”
GCSAA today
From its humble beginnings, GCSAA now flourishes. From those 72 charter members, the association has grown to more than 20,000 whose Class A members make an average salary of $78,000. The Golf Industry Show is one of the top 100 trade shows in the country, with last year’s attendance coming in at a whopping 25,737 while the show itself was the largest ever at 300,900 square feet.
Those are some pretty big numbers all started by a man many called “the Little Colonel” because of his small stature at 5 feet 5 inches and 130 pounds.
“Old Tom Morris is the godfather of greenkeeping, but Col. John Morley is the godfather of American greenkeeping,” says Sean A. Hoolehan, CGCS at the Wildhorse Resort & Casino in Pendleton, Ore., and GCSAA’s 2006 president. “It must have been a hard decision (to give the Old Tom Morris Award posthumously for the first time) because it’s not been done, but it’s brave. I think it’s an action Col. Morley would be proud of. We all feel a great sense of pride toward Col. Morley — after all, there wouldn’t be an Old Tom Morris Award if not for Morley.”
By recognizing its founder, GCSAA in a way also recognizes itself, and the work of all its members.
“I think this does nothing but help our association — it recognizes the work that golf course superintendents do in maintaining golf courses,” Cunningham says. “What we do is important, and this goes into more recognition for us. It’s given in his name, but it’s a way of respecting all of us and putting us all on the big stage, where we should be.”
“The success of GCSAA is because of the work of many superintendents — superintendents who have kept true to the values of Col. Morley,” Hoolehan says. “I think by giving Col. Morley the award, we’re collectively giving it to all of them.”
Golf Hall of Famer?
Like GCSAA, Youngstown CC is rich in history. The club is 110 years old, while the course, a Walter Travis design with some redesign work done by Donald Ross in 1921, celebrates its centennial in 2011.
Morley, well known for his skill as a superintendent, got the course off to a good start, working there from 1913 to 1942. He died April 25, 1946, at the age of 79.
Today, Cunningham is only the seventh superintendent of the course in its almost 100 years of operation. When news came his way that Col. Morley would be named the 2009 Old Tom Morris Award winner, he was thrilled.
“He’s still remembered at the club here,” Cunningham says. “In 2007 we (the Northern Ohio GCSA) made an attempt to get him elected into the World Golf Hall of Fame … it never did develop. So we’re happy to see some recognition for him because he was such a good man.”
It’s not just his successors in Ohio who believe Col. Morley deserves golf’s highest honor.
“I challenge anyone to show me there isn’t a direct correlation with what he did in 1926 and these great conditions we have today,” Hoolehan says. “He deserves to be in the World Golf Hall of Fame. When you learn about his desires for golf, for the game … his vision happened. I don’t think most have a clue about the impact Col. Morley had on our association and the game.”
Downing agrees, and believes Morley’s story is one GCSAA needs to do its best to promote.
“We need to get his story out in the mainstream of golf as well as to our members,” Downing says. “This is an award that is long overdue and it only makes sense that if we want to get Col. Morley into the World Golf Hall of Fame then we need to honor him and tell his story more.”
So congratulations to Col. John Morley, founder of GCSAA, president emeritus and winner of the first Distinguished Service Award. Add Old Tom Morris Award winner to his list of honors, joining the likes of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Bob Hope.
The Old Tom Morris Award isn’t given out to trivial characters in golf. It’s given to heroes of the game.
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Do members know the Colonel?
“No, and that is another reason we need to honor him and get his story out to our members.”
— David S. Downing II, CGCS
“A lot of people don’t know him. We just have such a young membership these days.”
— John Spodnik
“I’d say it’s 50/50. Guys who have been in the association for a long time know him. For newer members, this award might open their eyes.” — Tim Cunningham
“I don’t think most have a clue about the impact of Col. Morley and what he’s done for us ... I didn’t until I explored the values of GCSAA and dug into his writings.” — Sean A. Hoolehan, CGCS