Golf, Autos And The Image Makers

Golf's richest first prize—the juicy $25,000 check shown above—was handed to Gene Littler last Sunday afternoon at the Upper Montclair ( N.J.) Country Club, thus bringing a fitting financial conclusion to what had become an intriguing, and somewhat perilous, sporting venture. Gene, of course, didn't even change his expression; he never does. "It's the biggest check I ever won," he told the assembled sponsors of the Thunderbird Classic Invitational, who had put up a grand total of $100,000 in prize money as a low-key promotion pitch for the Newark District Ford Dealers Association. "I like the trend."

Oddly enough, this was the first big-time golf that the New York area had seen—except on television—in three whole years. And it was a wonderful tournament, handsomely produced and excitingly played. Sam Snead, that old man whose instincts are fastest when the money is biggest, moved to the front briefly on the second day with a very fine 66, six under par. On the third day Jack Nicklaus bettered this by a stroke with a 65, knocking in 10 birdies in the final 14 holes after three-putting the first three greens. For a moment it looked as if Jack, who was then tied for the lead with Dow Finsterwald, might win his first tournament after scarcely more than five months as a pro.

On the final day, however, Littler, who had been playing the same kind of effortless and consistently brilliant golf he had shown earlier in the year, brought home a magnificent 67 for a 72-hole total of 275—13 under par. Nicklaus, who finished two strokes behind Littler, took the runner-up check of $10,000 and Finsterwald finally tied for third with Wes Ellis Jr.

As a prelude to next week's Open championship at Oakmont, the Thunderbird brought speculation that Littler was in just the right shape to defend his title. Asked what he thought his chances were, he replied, "Nil." Asked why, he said in his self-deprecatory manner, "There's too much dog in me." But Sunday afternoon at Upper Montclair his fellow pros were calling him a wealthy dog.

There are two schools of thought among leading professional golfers on the wisdom of playing a tournament in the week before the U.S. Open. One believes the week should be religiously and rigorously devoted to practice rounds and a study of the contours of the course where the Open is going to be played. The other group holds that a final tune-up in competition whets the mind and muscles. But this year the two schools were united, cemented by the new Thunderbird's $100,000 prize purse—a sum so round it warmed the hearts and perhaps dampened the palms of all the touring pros. Even so rich a golfer as Arnold Palmer was not about to disregard a first prize of $25,000. "Who's going to pass up that kind of money?" he said some months ago when asked if he would enter the Thunderbird. As events turned out, he should have stayed at home. He got only $460 for finishing a sad 35th, and then he cut his hand unloading his baggage Sunday night, a three-stitch injury that could affect his play in the Open.

In the past only three golf tournaments have ever put up a prize equal to Thunderbird's hundred grand. One was the now defunct World Championship of Golf, a promotion by the late George S. May at his garish Tarn O'Shanter Country Club outside Chicago that lasted from 1954 to 1957. The others were the 1960 Palm Springs Desert Classic and this year's Masters.

When the idea for the Thunderbird was first seriously discussed a scant 10 months ago, there was agreement on the need for a powerful stimulus, such as a $100,000 purse. New Yorkers and their suburban neighbors are tough and jaded customers who like to believe they won't watch anything that's not first class. Sometimes, as it turned out, they won't watch even then. Craig Wood, a onetime Masters champion and one of the best pro golfers of the 1930s, knew this as well as anyone, since Craig is a New Yorker himself. Even so, it was the plan of Wood, by now a Ford dealer in Asbury Park, N.J., and his fellow Ford dealer, Eugene Kroll of Long Branch, to sponsor a golf tournament for the New York area in the name of all their fellow Ford dealers.

The going was a little heavy at first. A lot of the dealers in the vicinity of New York City—presumably the non-golfing tennis players, bowlers and TV watchers—were not convinced a golf tournament would sell cars. However, selling cars was not the main concern of Wood and Kroll. They were interested in prestige. Golf is a "prestige" game, they argued. Ergo, a high-class golf tournament would heighten the prestige of the Ford dealers, to say nothing of all car dealers, in the area. "Building the dealer image" was the theme they kept running up the flagpole.

The first problem involved in promoting a $100,000 golf tournament is where to get the $100,000. Wood and Kroll had the answer to that one. Each Ford dealer is normally required to put between $13 and $20 into an advertising kitty every time he gets a car from Detroit, the selling price of the car determining the amount. Usually this money is spent by the Ford dealers of a particular area on billboards, radio and TV spot commercials and newspaper ads. Wood and Kroll wanted to take $100,000 or more out of this budget and apply it to the golf tournament as a form of institutional advertising. They felt that in a community of 11 million people a lot of potential customers would respond favorably.

The dealers, in what Ford technically knows as its Newark District—where the advertising pool will total about $1.5 million this year—liked the idea, and the PGA granted last week's playing dates. Now it was only a matter of finding a suitable golf course and the right people to tangle with the surprisingly complicated details of a major golf promotion.