Ford Dies

Former U.S. President Helped Launch USGA Members Program

December 27, 2006

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Gerald Ford, the 38^th U.S. President and one of the main cogs behind the birth of the USGA Members Program, died at 93 Tuesday in his Rancho Mirage, Calif. , home. Cause of death was not indicated. Ford had battled various ailments for the better part of a year.

President Gerald Ford, left, confers with Arnold Palmer in the Oval Office on Dec. 18, 1975. (USGA Photo Archives)

The longtime Michigan (Rep.) congressman ascended to the U.S. presidency in 1974, staying in the White House 895 days, after Richard Nixon resigned on Aug. 9 amid the Watergate scandal. In an ironic twist, Nixon had made Ford the first appointed vice president in U.S. history after a disgraced Spiro Agnew left office in 1973.

Outside of politics Ford was a sportsman, first starring as a center for the University of Michigan on two national championship football teams. He had offers to play professional football, however chose to study law at Yale. Through the years he played golf avidly, befriending Arnold Palmer and former USGA Executive Committee member Elbert Jemison along the way.

When Jemison hatched the idea for a Members Program, Palmer joined on for the cause before the two approached Ford about giving it a face. Jemison and Palmer felt who better to represent the amateur golfer than Ford. The program that boasts more than 850,000 advocates today, was born in the government's famous Oval Office on Dec. 18, 1975 . Palmer, the only national chairman the program has ever known, handed a pen to Ford and signed him on as the first of what was then called an Associate.

Ford, born Leslie King on July 14, 1913 in Omaha , Neb. , before his mother remarried Gerald Ford Sr., is survived by wife, Betty, and four children: Michael, John, Steven and Susan.

Wire reports contributed.