On January 27th PGA TOUR commissioner Jay Monahan issued an email to the players that stated the TOUR would take whatever steps were neccessary to thwart the creation of a competitive tour, the Premier Golf League an idea being floated by Team Concept Golf from launching. He warned the players “If the Team Golf Concept or another iteration of this structure becomes a reality in 2022 or at any time before or after our members will have to decide whether they want to continue to be a member of the PGA Tour or play on a new series.”
While history doesn’t exactly repeat, it does rhyme. The following story shows how the PGA fought to keep the players on TOUR from forming their own tour in the middle to late 1960s.
In Part 2 of Strangers In The Night how the players were going to fund their new tour, the APG, and how the two sides were finally brought together by a new regime at the PGA of America and an icon from the USGA.
Read Part One HERE
Now that the players had broken away from the PGA and officially announced the new APG Tour, they had to answer two key questions; was Arnold Palmer on board with the separation and how would they fund their new tour?
Arnold Palmer had to thread a needle when it came to a split from the PGA. His father, Deacon, was a member of the PGA of America and Arnold felt the pull of the longtime family relationship with the organization. Then there was his golf club manufacturing company which depended on sales through golf course pro shops owned by members of the same organization the players were trying to split away from.
A Magazine ad for Arnold Palmer Tru-Matic irons from the Arnold Palmer Golf Co.
Max Elbin, president of the PGA of America, made a trip to Palmer’s home in Latrobe, PA for a five-hour meeting in which he attempted to secure Palmer’s allegiance to the PGA. After Elbin rejected a suggestion from Palmer where the players would run the tour for a year on trial basis, Palmer could see that the only path to the freedom that the players desired was to split away from the PGA.
Strangers In The Night | Do Be Do Be Do.
Funding for the tour would be the most problematic issue that the new organization faced. The PGA was not about to make it easy for the APG. The PGA announced that any players joining the APG would be banned from all PGA events. The PGA was granted a restraining order issued from the U.S. District Court in Delaware preventing the APG from entering into any event agreements.
So how could the APG fund their new tour? In an FBI memo dated October 9, 1968, Elbin questioned whether the APG was being funded by mob money and contacted the agency. In part, the memo read:
Elbin advised that in checking into the status of the APG they [the PGA] have determined that the players have not contributed financially to this new organization and it is rumored that the APG has been started with Mafia money. Elbin added that according to unverified information, Moe Dalitz and [name redacted] Stardust Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada, are allegedly involved in the financial backing of the APG.
The Stardust Hotel 1968
“Elbin inquired as to whether the FBI could comment on the alleged Mafia connections of the APG and whether, based upon the facts available, the FBI could conduct an investigation. Elbin was informed of the confidential nature of our files and readily acknowledged our position in this matter. He was also told that based upon the data furnished, there did not appear to be any violation of law over which the FBI has jurisdiction. He was thanked for furnishing this information to us.”
Strangers In The Night | Do Be Do Be Do.
Bob Hope, Dezi Arnez and Mo Dalitz (l to r) in Palm Springs
Moe Dalitz began a lengthy criminal career as a bootlegger in Michigan and Ohio employing the delivery trucks from his family’s laundry business to run liquor during Prohibition. He parlayed the profits from that enterprise into operating illegal casinos throughout the Midwest. After serving in World War II, Dalitz was all set to resume his illegal gambling interests. Trouble was, the FBI and other federal agencies were beginning to crack down on illegal gambling. So, Dalitz moved to Las Vegas and hooked up with Jimmy Hoffa and his International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
Using loans from the Teamsters, Dalitz was able to gain control of the Desert Inn and later, the Stardust casinos. Robert De Niro’s character, Sam “Ace” Rothstein in the movie Casino was based on Moe Dalitz.
| After so many years with many of the key figures having passed away and with Palmer claiming that he had no knowledge of the mob’s involvement in the formation of the APG it’s hard to discern if this was a valid attempt to fund the nascent tour.
To promote his casinos and Las Vegas, Dalitz founded the Tournament of Champions, a PGA Tour event where the field would be comprised of the winners of tour events from the previous 12 months. The first Tournament of Champions was played in 1958 and it quickly became a premier event on the Tour. The best names in golf and in entertainment converged on Sin City for a week of golf, gambling and general debauchery.
The first winner of the event in 1953, Al Besselink, took his wheelbarrow full of 10,000 silver dollars and handed it right back to the casinos losing it all in just 24 hours. He also bet $500 on himself at 25 to 1 odds winning $12,500 and donated $5,000 to the Damon Runyan Cancer Fund in support of Babe Zaharias who had been diagnosed with cancer. In subsequent years Arnold Palmer taught Jack Nicklaus how to play craps and golfers would often bet on themselves in the tournament.
So, it wasn’t a farfetched idea that the players might go seeking funding for their new tour in the direction of Mo Dalitz.
After so many years with many of the key figures having passed away and with Palmer claiming that he had no knowledge of the mob’s involvement in the formation of the APG it’s hard to discern if this was a valid attempt to fund the nascent tour. It may have been one of the tactics that Elbin employed attempting to keep control of the tour.
Strangers In The Night | Do Be Do Be Do
Shortly after Elbin went to the FBI, the APG began lining up sponsors, venues and tournaments. Elbin tried to assert pressure on the sponsors in early November by sending a letter to all the sponsors from 1968 threatening that they risked losing their place on the 1969 tour if they sponsored events on the APG.
Max Elbin, president of the PGA of America (photo: Sports Illustrated)
Elbins efforts to save the tour for the PGA seemed to be in vain. By early November the APG had lined up a schedule with at least 35 tournaments for 1969. In addition to the schedule a qualifying school at Doral Country Club was established. And Elbin was now running out of time. He had served the constitutional limit of three one-year terms and the presidency would accede to Leo Fraser, who had served the same three one-year terms as secretary.
The change in leadership came with a vote at the annual meeting of the PGA on November 14th, 1968 where a Player of the Year award was not awarded and not one touring pro attended.
Strangers In The Night | Do Be Do Be Do
Leo Fraser came into the presidency with a much more can-do attitude than the combative Elbin.
“I’ve got to find a settlement,” Fraser explained to Joe Schwendeman of The Sporting News. “There must be peace within the PGA by January 1, 1969. By that date, I hope to have things squared away with the players.”
Leo Fraser was good on his word as the players and the PGA reached an accord as reported by The Sporting News on January 4th, 1969. Even though Fraser played down his role in reaching the agreement with the players, it was his driving force and desire for peace that ended the acrimony, lawsuits and put an end to the APG.
“We got together and decided that a settlement was necessary for the good of the game,” Fraser explained.
The PGA agreed to the creation of the Tournament Division, which would grow into the PGA TOUR. This division was equal to the geographic sections in the PGA. Also new was the position of tournament director. On January 22nd the PGA announce that Joseph P. Dey, Jr. formerly the executive director of the United States Golf Association, the new commissioner of the Tournament Players Division of the Professional Golfers Association.
The agreement also called for recognition of tournaments where contracts were signed by either the PGA or the AGA. The first week of the 1969 schedule had the LA Open contracted to the APG and the Alameda Open contracted with the PGA. All the big names played in the LA Open which had a much larger purse.
Strangers in the Night | do be do be do
The policy board consisted of the PGA officers (Fraser; Warren Orlick, secretary; and William Clarke, treasurer), three volunteer prominent businessmen (J. Paul Austin of Atlanta, CEO of Coca-Cola; George H. Love of Pittsburgh, chairman of the board of Consolidation Coal Company and former chairman of Chrysler Corporation; and John D. Murchison of Dallas). The players representatives were Gardner Dickinson, Jack Nicklaus, Billy Casper and Dan Sikes (who happened to have a law degree).
Deane Beman succeeded Joseph Dey in 1974 and introduced the Players Championship and the TPC network of clubs and courses. He expanded the tour into branded clothing and converted the tour into a 501-c6 that transformed the financial fortunes and allowed him to introduce pension plans for the players. This also allowed him to require that all tournaments support a charitable initiative resulting in the raising of massive funds. He also engineered the television contract that along with Tiger Woods catapulted the tour into the massive enterprise it is today.
Would the APG with the seed money purportedly raised through a connected Las Vegas gambler with mob ties have done as well as the PGA Tour? And would Frank Sinatra have a tournament with his name on it on the APG Tour? We’ll never know.
Strangers in the Night | do be do be do
Sources
UPI Tuesday, May 25, 1965
AP Thursday, May 13, 1965
San Antonio Light, Harold Scherwitz, Friday, August 6, 1965
AP, Saturday, July 1, 1967
AP, Will Grimsley Wednesday, August 14, 1968
Pasadena Independent, John Hendrickson, August 15, 1968
AP, August 15, 1968
AP, Ted Meier, August 16, 1968
AP Sat. Aug. 17, 1968
Sports Illustrated, September 2, 1968
UPI, September 5, 1968
The Sarasota Herald Tribune, Frank True, Monday, September 9, 1968
Sports Illustrated, September 15, 1968
Sports Illustrated, Jack Nicklaus, September 16, 1968
UPI, Saturday, September 21, 1968
Long Beach Press Telegram, Dave Lewis, October 17, 1968
The Sporting News, Joe Schwendeman, November 2, 1968
UPI, Tuesday, November 5, 1968
Sports Illustrated, Alfred Wright, November 18, 1968
The Sporting News, Joe Schwendeman, December 7, 1968
The Sporting News, Joe Schwendeman, January 4, 1969
UPI, Thursday, January 9, 1969
Vice, October 2, 2014
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Larry Baush is the author of Uncorked, The Life and Times of Champagne Tony Lema available at 9acespublishing.com or on Amazon as a paperback or Kindle edition. Larry carries a single digit handicap at Rainier Golf and Country Club in Seattle, Washington. He is the editor of tourbackspin.com. You can contact larry at larry@9acespublishing.com.
