By William Kelly
Before he died, Arnold Palmer dedicated a park to his late wife, Winnie, granting her wish that the land remain undeveloped, and epitomizing a love story that continues to enamor the game of golf. When and where they met became an historic occasion, and their adventures together on the PGA Tour, which attracted millions of new fans to the game, added their everlasting love story to the legacy of the game.
The time and place are set in stone. It was September of 1954, at Shawnee-on-Delaware, big band leader Fred Waring’s Pocono, Pennsylvania resort. But social circumstances and the state of the game of golf at the time would create a situation that would change the nature of the game.
Three local players with strong ties to the Jersey Shore – great amateur Howard Everett, who lived on the Atlantic City Country Club (ACCC) course, along with Mays Landing Country Club professional Stan Dudas and Ron Ward of Wildwood, both of whom would later become ACCC golf pros were there at the time.
Howard Everett worked at Shawnee as a publicist for Fred Waring, whose popular radio show featured his orchestra playing live from his resort, Shawnee-on-Delaware. Waring’s annual golf tournament was the social event of the season, and it was Everett’s job to make it a success, but nobody could have predicted what would transpire.
Everett was a throwback to another era, when the best players were amateurs. He knew Palmer from playing against him in match play during the 1948 Pennsylvania Amateur (Everett defeated Palmer, lost to Art Wall).
“I invited Palmer to Shawnee before he won the Amateur,” Everett recalled in an interview shortly before he died. Palmer later acknowledged that he had previously declined invitations to Fred Waring’s tournament because he couldn’t afford to go, but after winning the US Amateur Golf Championship, and having a steady job selling paint, he made Shawnee his first tournament as the new champion.
“And that’s when he met Winnie,” said Everett, “and so I was in the thick of the beginning of that romance. But the story goes back much further than that. It all goes back to Atlantic City.”
In 1950 Bucky Worsham was the pro at Atlantic City, and Arnold Palmer was a Coast Guardsman stationed in Cape May, not far away. Palmer had been close friends with Bucky’s younger brother Buddy Worsham, who came from a family of fine golfers (brother Lew won the 1947 US Open). Arnie and Buddy Worsham both went to Wake Forest on golf scholarships and were roommates, but when Buddy died suddenly in a car accident, Palmer quit school and enlisted in the Coast Guard.
While stationed at Cape May, Palmer laid out his first course and played at a number of Jersey Shore clubs, including the Wildwood Country Club, Somers Point-Ocean City (now Greate Bay) and Atlantic City Country Club, where Bucky Worsham, the older brother of his late best friend, was the pro.
Shawnee is a dramatic, 27-hole course, with 24 of the holes on an island on the Delaware River. The Buckwood Inn was built a few years after the course was laid out, making it a popular resort. In 1913 Shawnee was the host of one of the most famous golf tournaments in the country, which attracted most of the US Open field and set the stage for what would become known as “The Greatest Game.”
In 1943 longtime Shawnee owner C.C. Worthington sold the Buckwood Inn and the golf course to big band leader Fred Waring, who renamed it the Shawnee Inn. That’s where Stan Dudas comes in. Dudas was another witness to when Arnie met Winnie. Dudas quit school in the ninth grade and left his Simpson, Pa., coal mining hometown an aimless runaway, until he was picked up hitchhiking by Fred Waring. Dudas didn’t know what he wanted to do; it could be anything other than working in a coal mine.
Waring talked Dudas into going with him to Shawnee, where Dudas quickly gravitated to the pro shop. There he earned tips for cleaning clubs and learned lessons in golf and life from Harry Obitz, the pro at the time, and his assistant Spec Hannon. Spec had been a caddy for Walter Hagen and Harry and Spec taught Dudas to play golf. After a few years Fred Waring thought he was good and sent young Dudas, then only 17, out on the winter pro tour, paying his way. Returning to Shawnee to work every summer, Stan Dudas was young, but a player in the golf game at Shawnee when Arnold Palmer arrived to play in this special tournament.
As Howard Everett recalled, “At the time I was working publicity for Fred Waring and I had invited Arnie ahead of time to participate in this tournament that Waring called the Young Masters. I had invited him before he won the US Amateur. After winning the national amateur championship Palmer said he intended to stay an amateur, like (Francis) Ouimet and Everett, and looked forward to playing in the next Walker Cup in England.”
In his autobiography, “A Golfer’s Life,” Palmer wrote that he hadn’t decided to turn pro, even after winning the US Amateur. “I like selling paint,” Palmer said. “I have no intention of turning professional. I am very happy and my new title automatically puts me on the Walker Cup team.”
Besides publicists Howard Everett and Stan Dudas, Ron Ward was another young assistant golf pro at Shawnee. Ward recalled, “…I got to Shawnee on June 2 of 1952, and I left there about the middle of October, 1960. Howard Everett was kind of a general manager. Fred Waring liked him. I always said that Howard Everett was one of the original Arnold Palmers, because as an amateur he was really good, and he was a good looking guy, and he could really wack the hell out of that ball.”
As for how Arnie met Winnie, Ward says, “Here’s what happened. Arnold Palmer was working for a guy named Bill Wehnes, who was in the paint business. So anyway, Arnie wins the national amateur out of the blue,” recalls Ward. “He wasn’t expected to win it, he wasn’t favored like Tiger Woods was, but he won the national amateur championship and then comes to play this little tournament at Shawnee.”
As Ward recalls the situation, “Fred Warning, who owned the place, had a daughter named Dixie, and Dixie’s buddy was Winnie Walzer.
NEXT WEEK: It was at first sight.
William Kelly is the author of “Birth of the Birdie – The First 100 Years of Golf at Atlantic City Country Club,” and is currently writing “The Flight of the Eagle” on the growth of golf in America. He can be reached at Billykelly3@gmail.com
