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Bob Hope: A Champion of the Game
Ever the comedian, Bob Hope plays like a pool shark on the green for Bobby Jones (left), Watts Gunn (center) and Johnny Bulla during a 1944 exhibition in Atlanta, Ga. The golf course was often the forum for Hope's humor.
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Bob Hope lived 100 years, but his legacy within the game of golf will last an eternity. Hope, who died Sunday in his Toluca Lake, Calif., home from pneumonia, had a passion for golf. He and fellow comedian Bing Crosby shared the USGA's Bob Jones Award in 1978 for their outstanding dedication to the game.
Like Crosby, Hope lent his name to a PGA Tour stop in the California desert in 1965, transforming a sleepy event that began as the Thunderbird Invitational into the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, which still remains one of the more popular professional tour stops. The event is as well known for the celebrities who participate in the four-day pro-am through a rotation of four courses as the top pros who annually compete.
Hope often used the golf course as a source for his many jokes and was once quoted as saying: "Entertainment is just a sideline. I tell jokes to pay my green fees." Over the years, Hope estimated he played some 2,000 courses worldwide. He often played with some of the game's top professionals, military generals, celebrities and presidents from Dwight D. Eisenhower to Bill Clinton.
"I've played all over the world, which means there isn't a country with a course in which I haven't three-putted," he joked.
Hope always took a golf club with him on stage when he did shows for the soldiers and sailors during World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam War and the Gulf War. The wood used by Hope on the 1969 USO World Tour is on display at the Bob Hope Gallery of American Entertainment in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress.
He even wrote a humorous golf book in 1985 that became a best seller - "Confessions of a Hooker: My Lifelong Love Affair with Golf." He turned what for many people is a frustrating and fickle game into one that is tolerable by finding the lighter side. Hope authored 12 books, six of which were bestsellers. And one of his videos was entitled: "Shanks for the Memories."
Hope, who started playing in 1930 when he traveled the Vaudeville circuit, never became a great player. But after Ben Hogan worked with him, he did bring his handicap down to a four. He competed in the 1951 British Amateur, where he lost in the first round, 2 and 1.
The idea for Hope to have a PGA Tour event linked to his name came from Crosby, who started a celebrity pro-am at the Rancho Santa Fe course in San Diego in 1937. That later became the Bing Crosby National Pro-Am, which moved to Pebble Beach and remains one of the most popular stops on the circuit.
In '65, with Crosby's "Clambake" drawing big interest, Hope decided to join forces with Chrysler to the PGA Tour stop in Palm Springs. And it didn't take long for Hope to come up with a tidy nickname for his tournament: "The Wienie Roast."
The tournament filled two areas for Hope: It gave him a forum for more jokes and the event raised $35 million for the Eisenhower Medical Center and 70 other charities.
As for the jokes, here is a brief sampling:
- "On one hole, I hit an alligator so hard that he's now my golf bag."
- "Jimmy Stewart could have been a good golfer, but he speaks so slowly that by the time he yells 'Fore!' the guy he's hit is already in an ambulance and on the way to the hospital."
- "You all know (President Gerald) Ford, the most dangerous driver since Ben Hur."
Hope even has a special plaque at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Fla. The tribute reads: "Known by his nose, applauded for his humor, envied for his wit and loved by millions for his unselfish concern for all beings, Bob Hope is truly a one-of-a-kind. He popularized golf to the unknowing, sponsored it for charity and played it for fun. Not a golf champion, but a great champion of golf."
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