See my letter to Jim below this gracious note from him upon receiving a copy of my book Shadows on the Green:
October 20, 2020
Mr. Jim Nantz
CBS Sports
51 W. 52nd Street
24th Floor
New York, NY 10019
Dear Mr. Nantz,
Enclosed please find a complimentary copy of my new book, Shadows on the Green: Golf’s Scandals, Tragedies, Triumphs, and Offbeat Tales. It features new research on John Shippen, including information his grandson was able to provide me with, along with other insights into his personal life from the Smithsonian Institution and Howard University. Debert Cook, publisher of African American Golfer’s Digest has run a blurb for the book on the magazine’s website. In these tempestuous times I feel his story has much greater meaning, with golf being a part, but not all, of his life.
As the sports world has tried to respond to the renewed racial unrest we have experienced since the spring, the chapter on Shippen is even more relevant to the history of golf. In addition, another chapter features Pat Ball and the racism the USGA displayed at the 1928 U.S. Public Links, along with the lives of Jimmie DeVoe, Lucious Bateman, and Maggie Hathaway (African American golfers many people have not heard of.) You probably know that Bateman was Tony Lema’s teacher, and a man who had an enduring impact on the lives of many former students.
I see these stories and I wish Bob Drum and Jack Whitaker were still alive, as the former’s “Drummer’s Beat” and the latter’s poignant essays would be welcome additions to CBS telecasts. Telling a story that weaves the legacies of these people with contemporary players like Harold Varner, III, Cameron Champ, Xander Schauffele or Tiger Woods, for example, would be illuminating and meaningful. The August issue of Golf Digest discussed making Lee Elder an honorary starter at the Masters. If this happens, one could reference how Maggie Hathaway, a great activist for civil rights, was there to cover the event in 1975 as a guest of Jim Brown.
The book also looks at the connection Lucy Barnes Brown, the first U.S. Women’s Amateur champion, has to the 5th hole at Pebble Beach. I sent you this chapter earlier this year and I think you integrated part of it into the telecast at the AT&T in February. It will appear in the December 2020 and March 2021 issues of the U.K.’s Through the Green.
You wrote about Bryson DeChambeau in Golf Digest a couple months ago. I worked as a consultant for the USGA from 2013-2018, mainly on the scoring database that has been used to inform Fox Sports (and now NBC) and other media for the U.S. Open. After budget cuts eliminated my position in 2018, I contributed to the USGA and R&A’s Distance Insights project “The Distance Debate in Golf: A Historical Review and Analysis,” a 207-page report, plus approximately 1,500 photocopies of articles from various sources. I personally believe at the highest levels, the game has become redundant. Wedges to 450-yard par-4s threaten the game. Besides, what is more challenging and fun to watch – a Nicklaus 1-iron to the 15th at Augusta or a Bubba Watson wedge?
Quoting from my report:
In 1968 Joe Dey feared that golf courses would soon be outmoded if balls “could be driven 300 or 400 yards by half of the players,” emphasizing the vital need to preserve skill in golf. “If it were strictly a game of ‘slug,’ golf would become nothing more than a drive and wedge. Players would have little use for the rest of the clubs in their bags.” Add to that 460cc high MOI driver heads, shaft technology, Trackman, fitness training, etc., and can you how Bryson has rocked the game.
Bill Campbell said in 1991, “if we can’t stand up for what we believe in, I don’t care what the issue is, we’re not worth our salt!...We mustn’t ever consider that our balance sheet is something that we have to protect to the point where we lose our sense of principle.”
Joe Dey believed, “The integrity of golf is all of golf. If you don’t have that, it’s no game at all.” Dey believed that golf’s code works. “Its whole history proclaims this fact. It works because, amid the conflicts in our human nature – amid our goodness and our badness – there is a simple quality that responds to a challenge to honor.” I also sent Mike Davis a book and told him I hope his last year at the USGA can help assure that the integrity of the game will be preserved.
To close, if you’d like to read (at some point, I know you are swamped with work) how Bob Jones and others played Red Cross matches during the Spanish flu pandemic, see the April 4th post on my blog (website address below). If you are interested in Augusta National’s evolution, see my posts from May 26 and 28th. Thank you for your time and stay well.