On Sunday when Tiger raised the Wanamaker Trophy, a lot of people around the country might have wondered why it’s called the Wanamaker Trophy and just who or what is a “Wanamaker.” Something about the name “Wanamaker” made me think of Walter Matthau’s character in The Bad News Bears. But a quick Google search revealed that it was Morris Buttermaker who showed up to coach youth baseball with a beer and a cigar in hand – not a Wanamaker.
Though I knew the trophy preceded Matthau’s role by some 60 years, I didn’t know much about the man it was named for or about the history of the trophy itself. Thanks to PGA.com and a handful of other sites, it’s pretty easy to learn more about a very interesting man who helped lay the foundation for golf’s popularity today.
Hole One
Lewis Rodman Wanamaker was the son of department store magnate John Wanamaker and eventually took over the family business, helping it expand to New York City and elsewhere. He was also an artist with an interest in Native Americans. His photogravure prints can still be found for sale.
Hole Two
Everlasting golf fame came for Wanamaker when he served as host for a 1916 luncheon at the Taplow Club that launched the PGA of America. Wanamaker invited several top professionals and amateurs – including Walter Hagen, Francis Ouimet, and A.W. Tillinghast – to discuss forming a national organization to promote interest in the game and help build respect for golf professionals, who at the time enjoyed a status somewhere between a chamber pot and an anarchist.
Wanamaker had the foresight to see the growing local enthusiasm for the game as the start of a national trend. And he wanted an organization that would help the game to grow.
Hole Three
As his art would suggest, Wanamaker’s vision was not limited to the retail counter and the golf course. For a man who tried to duck publicity, he made a number of significant contributions in areas far from the game of golf. Among his notable donations was the gift to London’s Westminster Abbey of the gem-encrusted Cross of Westminster.
Hole Four
In 1927, Wanamaker bankrolled Adm. Richard Byrd in an attempt to fly a plane non-stop across the Atlantic. Charles Lindbergh narrowly won the race, but Byrd’s plane “America” still made the flight from New York to France. Cloud cover over Paris prevented a landing there, and the plane returned to Normandy where it crash landed without injury.
Hole Five
At the Milrose Games, there’s a race called The Wanamaker Mile. This race is one of track and field’s most prestigious events. Naturally, it was named for Rodman Wanamaker.
Hole Six
In helping to found the PGA Championship, Wanamaker sought to create a tournament on par with Great Britain’s News of the World Tournament (which shouldn’t be confused with the Weekly World News Tournament where Elvis and a host of aliens play annually). The News of the World Tournament, or as it was formally known the British PGA Matchplay Championship, had the largest purse in golf during the pre-World War I era. It ended its run following the 1979 tournament, which was won by Des Smyth by defeating Nick Price in the final.
Hole Seven
Wanamaker provided $2,580 for the first PGA Championship purse and a trophy to be awarded to the winner. On October 9-14, 1916, the first PGA Championship was contested at Siwanoy Country Club in Bronxville, NY, and won by Jim Barnes.
The Wanamaker Trophy weighs 27 pounds, is 28 inches high, 10 inches in diameter and measures 27 inches from handle to handle.
Hole Eight
Walter Hagen won the Wanamaker Trophy four years straight from 1924-1927. But in 1928, Leo Diegal defeated the “Haig” at Five Farms Country Club in Baltimore by a 2&1 margin in the quarterfinals. Diegal went on to be the surprise winner of the 1928 PGA Championship, but there was a problem. The Wanamaker Trophy was missing.
Hagen explained that he had lost the trophy by trusting a taxi driver to return it to his hotel. The trophy turned up in 1930 when it was found in the cellar of LA Young & Company, a firm that manufactured Walter Hagen golf clubs.
Hole Nine
Here’s the most amazing tidbit about Rodman Wanamaker: he is generally cited as the driving force behind the tradition of playing of the “Star Spangled Banner” before sporting events.
Photo Credits: © SI.
A random Google inquiring about the Wanmaker Trophy led me back to your website.
The info provided was insightful and a good read while watching the Golf Channel Pre-game this morning.
By the way I’m moving on Tuesday from Erie to Prescott, AZ and the good life of 300 plus sunny days and a moderate 4 seasond climate.
If you are ever out Arizona, way I’d be glad to show you some great golf courses that are not on every visitors website.
I won The Wanamaker Mile way back in 1965 and I still have the gold watch as the prize, beautifully inscribed on the back. It still works!
By chance I bought a delightful, unique, 1924 Rolls-Royce limousine in 2004 and to my surprise the first owner was Rodman Wanamaker of 26 Pall Mall, London.
He was a most remarkable man and I feel most proud to own a car the first owner of which was a man whose trophy I once held and whose watch I still wear.
Can you tell me the significance of the grapes on the Wanamaker Trophy? THANKS!
The Wanamaker transatlantic flight of 1927 was not Rodman’s first involvement in the challenge of flying to Europe. In 1914, Lord Northcliffe (The Daily Mail owner) put up $50,000 as a purse for a successful crossing. Glen Curtiss and Wanamaker designed a twin-engined, biplane, flying boat. World War One caused a 5 year postponement of the race, but the Wanamaker crew made it with a touch-down off the Azores for repairs, landing off Lisbon and then on to Plymouth, England.Two weeks later Alcock and Brown made it non-stop, landing in Ireland.
I have a photograph, taken in 1927, of Wanamaker alongside Byrd and the other crew members just before their epic flight to Paris, circling for 6 hours in fog before ditching in the sea at Vers sur Mer, the location of the Omaha D-day landings during World War 2.
The Millrose Games was a development of the Millrose Athletic Association founded by Wanamaker in 1904 for the health and fitness benefits of his employees at the two stores. Millrose was the name of Rodman’s country house in Pinkerton, Pennsylvania. The Games were inaugurated in 1908.
Interesting question… I haven’t found anything specific to the Wanamaker Tropy, but, in art, grapes can signify a wide range of values. The ones that seem most apt to me are that of sacrifice and harvest. Players must put the work in on the range and practice sessions before they can reap the benefits (the trophy). It’s conjecture at this point, but that seems to fit.
If anyone has anything more definitive, please let us know.