Harvey Penick by Kevin Robbins

Author:Kevin Robbins
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A year later, in the late summer of 1979, the new Texas Golf Hall of Fame named Harvey to its second induction class. With an aching back—he had injured it in a fall from a golf cart—Harvey declined an invitation to play in a pro-am scheduled as part of the ceremony at Texas National Golf Club in Willis.

But he was there to accept the honor, which was presented by his old friend Hardy Loudermilk, the man who had sent Kathy Whitworth to him from Jal, New Mexico. Harvey was enshrined with some other people who had been important in his life. The class included Jack Burke Jr., Don January, and Betty Jameson. The old caddie-turned-pro could barely believe he deserved any kind of fame, especially the kind that put him in this kind of company.

Beyond his purview, a contingent of Austin Country Club members was agitating for change.

The club was in a state of churn. Many members wanted to move to the more prosperous west side of Austin, where eight of every ten members lived. The newer country clubs, including Onion Creek, had been pulling new members from the Austin Country Club rolls. The membership, once full at 650, had shrunk to 500.

“We had a strong club from the standpoint of golf,” said club president Bill Gainer, Morris Williams Jr.’s high school friend. “But it was becoming less of a social gathering point.”

But even as one constituency at the club pressed for relocation, other members resisted. An early vote on whether to move to a planned subdivision on 1,300 hilly acres on Lake Austin, west of downtown, failed, but club officials later contacted the developer and floated the idea again. This time they stipulated that the club would maintain complete control over its business operation and would hire the new course architect. The club had three in mind, including Pete Dye, a former high school state champion in Ohio and prolific course architect who had designed the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass in Florida and Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina.

But another issue divided club membership as it braced for the inevitable move.

The golf landscape in Texas had changed considerably by the early 1980s from what it had been during Harvey’s career as a head professional. Clubs such as River Oaks in Houston, Colonial in Fort Worth, Brook Hollow in Dallas, and Oak Hills in San Antonio had head professionals with high profiles who worked aggressively to promote both their own place in Texas golf and the reputation of their club. Austin Country Club, meanwhile, had Tinsley Penick, as docile and mild-mannered as his father but lacking his reputation as a teacher of champions. The modest and humble son of Harvey knew how to run a shop and serve a golf membership. But he understood little about the emerging role of a golf professional as an ambassador for his club beyond its city limits.

Some at Austin Country Club wanted him gone. They shortsightedly wanted a brand name.

Important members put up strong resistance.

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