Its hard to beat a first person account. All the other participants were deceased. Boatwright did a lot of good things for USGA but he was wrong in the Fezler incident, way wrong, and the USGA committee acted accordingly. The fact that they requested radio silence from the three players says it all.
Golf Channel did a nice video piece on it yesterday, it's prob still running. Edward Stimpson was supposedly so impressed by speed of greens at 35 Open that he studied greens speeds, etc., and came up with simple gravity-operated device to measure. His son later said Stimpson did not attend that Open at Oakmont, according to the GC video. So who knows.? see if you can find their vid, it covered all the bases. thx for reading. Boatwright did a lot of good things for golf but his Fezler incident was not his best effort. Think he just wanted to nail the notoriously slow-playing Schroeder, but i dunno. Fezler held a grudge about it.
Great story Gary... now on to the story of how the 'Stimpmeter' came to be... I heard a version today & thot it was amusing, perhaps you could investigate...
As for your detractor, PJ Boatwright had a reputation of being prickly, but some imagine that to be ultimately gentlemanly. I prefer to think there are differences between the letter of the law & the spirit behind the law and I believe that's the backstory to Forrest Fezler whom I never met but probably would have liked... thanks for the enlightenment........
And you certainly didn't have to vilify Boatwright. (BTW, you didn't say whether you'd talked to anyone else, or just accepted what you thought Fezler said.)
Well, congratulations on a fine piece of yellow journalism. I don't believe any of the stories you tell.
First, P.J. Boatwright was an ultimate gentleman. Have you spoken to any of the people he worked with day to day? Any other golfers who supposedly had a rough time with Boatwright? I doubt it.
Secondly, any Rules official who knew where a ball was likely to be would certainly point it out to the golfer. And, what about marshals? Wouldn't they have known where the ball would be? Plus, the carry over the quarry on 18 at Merion would not be difficult for a professional of Fezler's ability.
And, Thirdly, I was in the grandstand at Oakmont on that day to the left of seventeen green, in a position that afforded me a view of the eighteenth tee. The port-a-poddy that Fezler used was about twenty yards from the 18th tee, level with the tee. I saw Fezler leave the facility. If Fezler indeed had gone a hundred yards to another facility, he certainly would have delayed play.
I have no doubts you heard this, probably from a person who may know someone who heard a story, and it's been embellished.
You should be ashamed of yourself for sullying P.J. Boatwright's reputation.
>>Edited to change 'eighteenth green' to 'eighteenth tee'<<
Love, love, loved, this, Gary! Good stuff
Its hard to beat a first person account. All the other participants were deceased. Boatwright did a lot of good things for USGA but he was wrong in the Fezler incident, way wrong, and the USGA committee acted accordingly. The fact that they requested radio silence from the three players says it all.
Golf Channel did a nice video piece on it yesterday, it's prob still running. Edward Stimpson was supposedly so impressed by speed of greens at 35 Open that he studied greens speeds, etc., and came up with simple gravity-operated device to measure. His son later said Stimpson did not attend that Open at Oakmont, according to the GC video. So who knows.? see if you can find their vid, it covered all the bases. thx for reading. Boatwright did a lot of good things for golf but his Fezler incident was not his best effort. Think he just wanted to nail the notoriously slow-playing Schroeder, but i dunno. Fezler held a grudge about it.
Great story Gary... now on to the story of how the 'Stimpmeter' came to be... I heard a version today & thot it was amusing, perhaps you could investigate...
As for your detractor, PJ Boatwright had a reputation of being prickly, but some imagine that to be ultimately gentlemanly. I prefer to think there are differences between the letter of the law & the spirit behind the law and I believe that's the backstory to Forrest Fezler whom I never met but probably would have liked... thanks for the enlightenment........
Thx for reading. You might've missed the part where I explained I interviewed Fezler himself in 2016, so all details came directly from him.
Well, he apparently got some things wrong.
And you certainly didn't have to vilify Boatwright. (BTW, you didn't say whether you'd talked to anyone else, or just accepted what you thought Fezler said.)
Well, congratulations on a fine piece of yellow journalism. I don't believe any of the stories you tell.
First, P.J. Boatwright was an ultimate gentleman. Have you spoken to any of the people he worked with day to day? Any other golfers who supposedly had a rough time with Boatwright? I doubt it.
Secondly, any Rules official who knew where a ball was likely to be would certainly point it out to the golfer. And, what about marshals? Wouldn't they have known where the ball would be? Plus, the carry over the quarry on 18 at Merion would not be difficult for a professional of Fezler's ability.
And, Thirdly, I was in the grandstand at Oakmont on that day to the left of seventeen green, in a position that afforded me a view of the eighteenth tee. The port-a-poddy that Fezler used was about twenty yards from the 18th tee, level with the tee. I saw Fezler leave the facility. If Fezler indeed had gone a hundred yards to another facility, he certainly would have delayed play.
I have no doubts you heard this, probably from a person who may know someone who heard a story, and it's been embellished.
You should be ashamed of yourself for sullying P.J. Boatwright's reputation.
>>Edited to change 'eighteenth green' to 'eighteenth tee'<<
Fantastic column, Gary. One of your best!