TROON, Scotland — Within the fall of 1963, 4 years into his time in America, Gordon Murray was giving a lesson to a lady named Janet Lee Auchincloss at Maryland’s Chevy Chase Nation Membership. She had introduced her granddaughter Caroline, simply 5 years outdated, and the woman performed behind them. In the midst of the lesson, the starter got here out with an pressing message—Aucinchloss was wanted on the cellphone. Murray drove them again to the clubhouse, and when she picked up the receiver, the voice on the opposite finish instructed her that her son-in-law, John F. Kennedy, had been shot in Dallas.
Gordon Murray is 88 years outdated now, and he lives in a fantastic flat on Portland Terrace in Troon overlooking the Firth of Clyde. Stroll 20 minutes southeast, previous the seashore and the nice white ferris wheel, previous the fields of fescue and ragwort and yarrow, and you may run into Royal Troon Golf Membership, host of this 12 months’s British Open. For an hour on Wednesday afternoon, with the solar shining over the water, Murray chatted about his life and golf searching his massive bay window that supplied “the most effective view in Troon.” He gave an entertaining and infrequently staggering account of his 88 years, however you had a sense we solely scratched the floor; his afternoon with JFK’s mother-in-law and daughter on the day the president was killed is only one instance of a life that has an virtually Zelig-like high quality—via golf, he has been in some very attention-grabbing locations at some very attention-grabbing instances.
And a few very attention-grabbing issues simply appear to occur round him. It is a man who, as he is displaying you his images can casually level to a picture of his son—long-haired and youthful within the image—and inform you that he is Bruce Murray, who retired from an expert soccer profession because the main rating within the historical past of the U.S. Males’s Nationwide Workforce. It is virtually unbelievable, however from Murray’s humble demeanor, you realize that gildings are furthest from his thoughts.
In his profession as a PGA educating professional, first at Gleneagles after which within the U.S. at Burning Tree, Chevy Chase and Bretton Woods, Murray has had event to play with a jaw-dropping solid of the well-known and highly effective. Names as various as King Badouin of Belgium and Jesse Owens go from his lips with ease. Bing Crosby, facet by facet with Bob Hope, serenaded his spouse Elro at Gleneagles with “Oh What a Lovely Mornin.'” Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and his spouse Girl Dorothy have been old school, and wore Grenfell clothes. Rita Hayworth left her newest husband within the clubhouse at Chevy Chase whereas she and Murray performed collectively, and he remembers that she was “a horrible swearer.” He performed at Gleneagles with Douglas Bader, the World Conflict II British flying ace, when Bader shot a 72 regardless of having misplaced each his legs in a crash. When he performed with King Edward VIII at Chevy Chase, it was after the monarch abdicated as a consequence of his controversial marriage with Wallis Simpson, and Murray had the nerve to ask him what he carried within the flask on his bag.
“Darjeeling tea, sir,” the previous king replied. “Darjeeling tea.”
Add to this an inventory of Washington D.C.’s energy brokers, together with 4 U.S. Presidents. George H.W. Bush was a pleasant man, and a very good stick. Richard Nixon, upon assembly him at Chevy Chase, requested if he was from the south. “Sure sir,” Murray replied. “The south of Scotland.” JFK was one other robust golfer, and after they performed at Chevy Chase, in a kind of harbinger of what Murray would expertise later, the Secret Service intervened after the fifth gap to re-route their group, and so they completed by taking part in 16, 17, and 18—he was by no means instructed why. Then there was Dwight Eisenhower, who would fly in with two helicopters.
“Eisenhower was one of many worst golfers I’ve ever seen.”
Murray was born in St. Andrews and took up golf at age 12. At first, he began taking part in within the fields by an area fortress, utilizing the golf equipment from the rack of a gamekeeper to hit balls on the trunk of timber. He was hooked shortly, and when Ben Hogan got here to the British Open for the primary and solely time in his profession, in 1953, he made the journey to Carnoustie to see the nice participant. That was the 12 months Hogan received three majors, and he made the journey early to Scotland to follow obsessively (the usual British ball on the time was smaller) in what he understood would virtually actually be solely likelihood to win the event. On Friday, July 10, when the ultimate two rounds of the event have been held, Murray adopted Hogan for 36 holes. He nonetheless vividly remembers Hogan lacking the fifth inexperienced—one in all simply two he missed on the day—and taking a lot time evaluating his downhill 60-yard chip that the followers started to develop stressed. Hogan was going through a downhill shot over a bunker, a cigarette hanging from his mouth as he walked backwards and forwards to the opening on the tiered inexperienced twice. Then he took the pin out and buried the chip.
When Hogan received, it took him an hour to return gather the trophy. Murray was nonetheless watching when he walked in carrying a brown polo-neck sweater and acquired an ovation from the Carnoustie Membership. Hogan took the trophy and by no means mentioned a phrase, recollects Murray, even to acknowledge the grounds crew or the course.
“He simply took the trophy and left,” Murray mentioned, nonetheless shocked these 70 years later. “He was a peculiar man.”
Murray received 22 trophies in his two-year beginner profession in Scotland, went on to serve within the Royal Air Drive, after which obtained the job as an assistant to Jock McLean at Gleneagles. There, he met Coleman Jennings, a philanthropist and member at Chevy Chase Membership, and thru him, he obtained the job at Burning Tree and Chevy Chase quickly after, at age 22. (Earlier than he arrived within the U.S., he took one crack at qualifying for the Open, however did not make the lower.) He stayed at Chevy Chase for eight years, after which moved to Bretton Woods, a brand new D.C. course being developed on the Potomac River by the Worldwide Financial Fund on the behest of James Symington, Chief of Protocol of the U.S. The idea was to create a venue the place minorities might play, though in line with Murray, that unique goal by no means got here to go. He helped design the course and served as head skilled till 1988. When he retired, he determined to start out his personal enterprise conducting golf excursions in Scotland. He constructed it from the bottom and shortly grew to serving 250 individuals per 12 months. He moved again to Scotland, and in the present day the enterprise is generally run by his sons, although at 88 Murray nonetheless serves particular purchasers.
A part of the rationale the reminiscence of the ’53 Open is so vivid for Murray is Ben Hogan himself, in fact, however a part of it’s Carnoustie, which he considers the best course in Scotland. “In case you performed Carnoustie, you’d bear in mind each gap you performed as a result of it is so good,” he mentioned. “That is the signal of a very good golf course.
He thinks extremely of Troon, too, apart from the primary three holes, which he referred to as “no good.”
And what about St. Andrews?
“Individuals right here name it the cow pasture,” he mentioned, with a slight grin.
He does not like that there aren’t any bunkers on the primary or 18th gap on the Previous Course, and whereas he conceded that the seventeenth is a pleasant gap, he referred to as the ninth and tenth “drive and pitch holes.” However in his time operating his enterprise, he is aware of how vital St. Andrews is to individuals who love golf, and he took delight in being current together with his purchasers to make sure they obtained on the favored course—a perk of the connections he is amassed over 88 years.
“Each one that has been with me has performed St. Andrews,” he mentioned. “That is a document. Not many individuals can try this one.”
As we left his flat, his spouse Elro gave me a chocolate bar, and he walked me via a sequence of posters and pictures main down the staircase to the underside flooring. The flat overlooking the seashore was a type of encyclopedia of golf historical past, however you felt as you left the constructing that it could not come near matching the repository within the thoughts of its host.
Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The identify of the ultimate males’s main of the golf season is a topic of continued dialogue. The occasion’s official identify, as defined on this op-ed by former R&A boss Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. However since many United States golf followers proceed to confer with it because the British Open, and search information across the occasion accordingly, Golf Digest continues to make the most of each names in its protection.