| | Skee Riegel, 1947 U.S. Amateur
Champion, Dies At 94 
February 24, 2009
By Ken Klavon, USGA
Far Hills, N.J. - Golf lost an irreplaceable link to its past
over the weekend, someone who bridged generations of golfers,
from Francis Ouimet to Tiger Woods. Robert "Skee" Riegel
could count Ouimet, Bob Jones, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus
as friends on the course. Off it, he mingled with the late
Lucille Ball, Bing Crosby and, to some degree, Bob Hope.
Those were just a few of the many souls Riegel touched in
what he termed in 2007, a full life.
On Sunday, Riegel died in a Paoli, Pa., hospice at the age of
94.
Over his playing career, the mustachioed Riegel competed in
16 U.S. Opens, 11 consecutive Masters -- finishing runner-up
in 1951 to Ben Hogan -- and the PGA Championship nine times.
However, he said being part of two Walker Cup Matches and
winning the 1947 U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach Golf Links
defined his career. He also prided himself on knowing the
Rules of Golf, adamantly saying that every competitive golfer
should be ashamed if they didn't have them memorized.
Not bad for someone who eschewed golf until 23 years of age.
At 15, he was in attendance at Merion Cricket Club in 1930
for Jones' U.S. Amateur victory that helped clinch his
historic Grand Slam. Uninterested in golf at the time, Riegel
wouldn't have recognized Jones from Charles Lindbergh. He
had snuck on the course with a friend to watch the crowds and
to look for balls and snakes in streams. Little did he know
but he would cross paths with Jones many more times.
"I thought guys who played golf were strange," said Riegel,
born in 1914 in New Bloomfield, Pa.
After attending West Point, Hobart College and Lafayette
University, Riegel took up the sport mainly "because the love
of his life," Edith, played. He took lessons. He improved
gradually. Then World War II began. Riegel went to Emery
Riddle University's flight school in Miami, and while in
Miami, he won the 1942 Florida State Amateur Championship.
 | | Skee Riegel, shown here in 2007 in
the Skee Riegel Room at Cape May National Golf Club,
loved to pamper his French poodle, John Paul. (John
Mummert/USGA) |
At the U.S. Amateur at Baltusrol Golf Club in 1946, he
qualified with a score of 136, setting a record for the
on-site qualifying rounds. The record lasted for more than 30
years.
In the 1947 U.S. Amateur, Riegel defeated John Dawson, 2 and
1, with his wife by his side. The two had been married 60
years when she died in 1996. More than that, Edith had walked
every tournament with Riegel until late in his career.
"She was like the rock in his life," said Bob Mullock, 59,
owner and operator of Cape May National Golf Club in Cape
May, N.J. "He relied on her. When we went back to Pebble
Beach - she had been dead six or seven years - they had a
banner for him on the first tee. He said he was too shy to go
look at it. Then when everyone was gone, we're walking by all
the banners and I said, 'Let's go look at it.'
"So we go look at it and it's one of the few times I ever saw
Skee get emotional. He said, 'You know, this ceremony has
been so wonderful. I just wish Edith was here to experience
this.' Then, there in the background from afar, we saw this
lady standing there in the shadows. She was there with her
hand on him."
After being chosen for the 1947 Walker Cup squad, captained
by Ouimet, Riegel won the U.S. Amateur in September. Riegel
credited Ouimet's quiet advice at the Walker Cup as a
reason for the victory. With the Matches contested at St.
Andrews, the USA team sailed the
Queen Elizabeth
, which culminated in a famous story that might epitomize
Riegel's reputation as a bit of a humorist and wisecracker.
Riegel cackled while retelling it in 2007.
On the trip home, "after a few drinks and whatnot," according
to Riegel, a couple of the players bet him that he couldn't
climb up a smokestack pole in the dining area. Riegel, not
one to back down, completed the feat, in formal attire no
less, to hearty laughter. Riegel later passed out on the
ship, leading officials to call out "man overboard"
when no one could find him.
"I remember [Ouimet] didn't look that amused, and neither did
the USGA president at the time, who was also on the ship,"
said Riegel. A mural of the incident hangs in the Skee Riegel
Room at Cape May National Golf Club.
A burgeoning amateur career ahead of him, Riegel went on to
win his second Trans-Mississippi Amateur in 1948, as well as
the Western Amateur before being chosen again to represent
the USA at the 1949 Walker Cup Match. Overall, he finished
with an unblemished 4-0 record in his Walker Cup career.
It was about this time that he came across Jones again. The
first introduction occurred in 1948. Riegel was invited to
play in an exhibition match with Jones, Billy Burke and Dick
Garlington at Clearwater Country Club and the Duneadon Course
at PGA National in Florida. Riegel had a grand time, showing
up Jones and the others by carding three eagles and beating
everyone. He admitted that he was a little abashed by his
actions given what lie ahead.
Unbeknownst to Riegel, it was about the time that Jones began
suffering the onset of syringomyelia, the rare and
degenerative disease of the central nervous system.
While playing at Duneadon, Jones asked Riegel, "Why am I
hooking the ball?" Riegel, shocked that someone of Jones'
stature would even ask him such a question, didn't know how
to respond. He referred Jones to the star's archived
footage, some of which resides in the USGA Museum today.
"He was always asking me questions and I was embarrassed,"
said Riegel. "But he had a marvelous sense of humor. I never
saw him get mad."
In 1950, Riegel decided to turn professional. He was 40 years
old before he qualified to play in his first PGA
Championship. He had to serve a five-year apprenticeship
before attaining PGA membership and being eligible for its
championship. Riegel reveled in telling stories about the
likes of Jimmy Demaret, Gene Sarazen and Sam Snead. Through
friends of friends, he got to know Ball, Crosby and Hope.
Riegel said Crosby had the type of game that could have made
him a stalwart on the tour if he hadn't pursued
entertainment.
Riegel, who said he picked up his nickname by strapping
wooden planks to the bottoms of his shoes and skiing down a
hill near his home, quit playing competitive golf full time
in 1953. That year he finished eighth on the PGA Tour money
list. A year later he returned to Pennsylvania as the head
professional at the Radnor Valley Country Club. He still had
a passion for the game, winning the Pennsylvania Open in 1957
and 1959, and the Philadelphia Open in 1960. In the meantime,
he stayed connected to the PGA circuit by playing in
winter-month tournaments.
 | | In 1947 Skee Riegel, third from
right, was selected to represent the USA at the Walker
Cup Match, captained by Francis Ouimet, right. (USGA
Museum) |
Riegel tried to disconnect himself from golf in the years
that followed. But the more he tried to outrun his shadow,
the more he found himself drawn back to the game. In the late
1980s while searching for a reclusive spot that might sever
the golf ties once and for all, Riegel and his wife bought a
place in Cape May, N.J.
While tootling around one day, Riegel stopped at a plot of
farmland that Mullock had designs on as a future development
known as Cape May National Golf Club.
"He drove up, this old fella," said Mullock, "and with no
introduction said, 'I heard they might build a golf course
here.' Finally he told me his name but didn't tell me
anything about his career. We got closer and closer. He made
suggestions here and there but never said anything about his
career still or whether we were going about things right or
wrong."
In 1991, when the course opened, Mullock started doing
research based on the rare personal nugget Riegel allowed. It
was then he decided to devote a room, or shrine, that would
celebrate Riegel's career. He also made Riegel "Pro
Emeritus" at the course.
"What I found most fascinating as a person," said Mullock,
"is that here's a guy who spans the history of golf. When you
read about the origins of golf [in America], it doesn't get
any better than Ouimet. His wife, Edith, and Valerie Hogan
were very close and hung out together, so he was in touch
with many, many players."
Soon Riegel became a fixture at Cape May National. When his
wife died, Mullock became a surrogate keeper of sorts. Every
day Riegel, who shot 82 at age 84 at Pebble Beach, would
drive himself to the club and entertain the masses with his
humor. Of course, he didn't do it without his French poodle,
John Paul, or JP, depending on what rolled off his tongue.
When guests drove into the parking lot, more times than not
they would see Riegel traversing the course with the dog.
That was the scene on a chilly spring day in 2007. Riegel
moved gingerly, wearing a ski cap while John Paul tried to
keep pace. Why John Paul? Did it come from a devotion to the
late Pope John Paul II?
"Many people think that," he said, laughing, "but no." His
previous dog's name was PJ so he decided to simply transpose
the letters. That was Riegel. Simple and honest. No bones
about anything.
Riegel never had any children of his own; and he was an only
child himself after three sisters died during birth. Riegel
is survived by a niece, Felicia Degiacomo, of a suburb
outside of Philadelphia, Pa. Mullock said Riegel was admitted
to the hospice only for a few hours, but Degiacomo cared for
him in his later years to the very end. "I really
admired how well she took care of him," he said.
What was most clear on that 2007 spring day, though, was that
Riegel felt he lived a good life.
No regrets.
In lieu of a public funeral, Mullock will hold a memorial in
the Skee Riegel Room at Cape May National Golf Club March 7
at 3 p.m. Mullock said Riegel will be cremated. Initial plans
are to spread his ashes at Cape May National or Pebble Beach.
KenKlavonis the USGA's Editor of Digital Media. E-mail him with
questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.
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