(Editor’s Note: This story originally ran in the May 14, 2010 issue of Golfweek.)
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Jim Colbert heard about the game and wanted in.
It was the early 1980s at TPC Sawgrass when he approached the man who coined the name for “The Munchkins” and asked if he could join them the next day.
“What’s your handicap?” John Tucker said.
When Colbert said plus-4, Tucker whipped a $50 bill from his roll and handed it to Colbert.
“What’s this for?” he wondered.
“Just to make sure you show,” Tucker said, grinning.
Local touring pros from Jim Furyk to Blaine McCallister to Mark Carnevale can attest that Tucker wasn’t kidding when he said, “If you played us with a plus handicap, we owned you.”
Ground Breaking of TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida. The course opened in October, 1980. (Photo courtesy, PGA Tour)
The stakes were never half the size of the fun when The Munchkins teed off. Thirty years ago this October, TPC Sawgrass celebrated its grand opening. Many golf fans are familiar with the story of how PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman bought 415 acres of densely wooded “swampland” for $1 and Pete Dye transformed it into the home of the Players Championship.
But there might never have been a club if it hadn’t been for 30 founding members, 12 Munchkins among them, who paid $20,000 to join. In return, they got a 40-year membership, no dues, cart or range-ball fees for the first 20 years, which could be transferred to a family member or sold. And get this: their money would be refunded in 2020. To a man, they call it the best deal of their lives. Especially Truett (“rhymes with screw it”) Ewton, 89, the club’s first member, who has played 5,000-plus rounds there.
Yet hardly anyone was clamoring to join when TPC was a swamp.
It took a leap of faith.
“What they bought into was a dream,” said Bob Dickson, the former Tour pro who later sold the original TPC memberships.
Which is why all these years later, enter the clubhouse, turn left and outside the players’ locker room is a plaque listing the founding members. It’s one of the many ways the Tour and the club acknowledge the debt owed to the founders, and treasure the friendly game several of them still play there.
This plaque hangs in the clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass to honor its original founding members. (Tracy Wilcox/Golfweek)
When Beman proposed the TPC project to the Tour’s board in 1977, they humored his quixotic quest. In those days, the Tour operated on a shoestring budget. Build it, they told him, but don’t risk Tour assets or capital. Against that backdrop, Beman proceeded, with help from Dickson, who began selling a limited, private offering of TPC memberships in 1979. Dickson took prospective founding members to the property in rubber waders and stood knee-deep in mud. All told, the Tour raised $1 million from community leaders.
“I couldn’t wait to give the Tour my money,” Ewton said.
The founding members provided the seed capital that allowed the Tour to obtain a $3 million, 30-year non-recourse bank loan to develop the club. Beman spent the money well, building a cathedral for the fans and a home for The Munchkins.
The story of The Munchkins is folklore and pre-dates the club. The original members – a life insurance executive, an electrical contractor, a pioneer in nuclear energy, a newspaper executive, and a traveling salesman among them – have played together for more than 40 years, first at Hidden Hills Country Club, then Sawgrass Country Club and eventually at TPC Sawgrass.
As Tucker tells it, they were playing at Sawgrass CC one day and he moaned on the first tee that he and partner Wes Paxson, both low-single digit handicaps, were tired of giving strokes to their diminutive opponents: Zeke Zechella, Ode Winkler and Ewton. They were short off the tee, too, but could get up-and-down from a telephone booth. Winkler proposed a bet: the trio would play Paxson and Tucker straight up if they moved to the back tees. No strokes? They licked their chops and doubled the bets.
Next thing Tucker knew, the short-knockers were chipping close and winning big.
“Will you look at them?” Tucker said. “They look like a bunch of dad gum Munchkins up there.”
The name stuck.
What began as a weekend morning game became a daily occurrence as members retired. (The Munchkins play only on days ending in “Y,” is how Winkler, who died in 2008, described it.) The earliest tee times each day are reserved for The Munchkins, who meet on the tee and assemble teams by throwing balls into the air. There are so many bets – medal and match, team and individual – that the club prints a special Munchkins scorecard with extra lines to track the wagers. It can take 45 minutes to figure out the damage afterward. While pencils scribble feverishly, someone’s bound to complain that some of the The Munchkins’ handicaps (they have their own system) need adjusting. One time, a guest joined the debate and said: “Hey, guys, it’s only a game.”
Zechella, who died last year, was busy tallying bets but looked up and responded, “Pal, if you want fellowship, go to church. This is war.”
Paxson, 85, served as The Munchkins’ first commissioner, a role he relished. He asked Tucker rhetorically, “Was I appointed by me?” All agree that Paxson ruled with an iron fist. One Christmas, Tucker bought himself a stopwatch and a whistle.
Over the years, the group expanded. Beman and Dickson joined. So did longtime Tour staffers Sid Wilson, Mike Bodney and Duke Butler. In time, some Munchkins moved away. Some quit playing. Some started nearby Pablo Creek Golf Club. Roger Nichols, 72, the current commissioner, e-mails 25 members and invites “the old bums back.” He reserves a 12:30 p.m. Monday tee time on what the group calls the Ode Winkler Memorial Course (aka Dye’s Valley Course) for Paxson. It took a little arm-twisting, but when the TPC Stadium Course re-opened in 2006 after renovations, Ewton hit the ceremonial opening drive.
TPC Sawgrass Dye’s Valley No. 12 (Courtesy of TPC Sawgrass)
But nothing can top this gesture: Nearly 20 years after the founders bought their memberships, commissioner Tim Finchem called the active Munchkins into his office. He thanked them for their contribution and said in appreciation that the next 20 years would be free, too.
Who would’ve believed the best deal of their lives could get even sweeter?
from Golfweek https://ift.tt/3l7ogPR