By Sean Fawcett 

The British Open returned to the historic, and somewhat infamous, Carnoustie Golf Club in Carnoustie, Scotland, this past July with Tourin, Italy’s Francesco Molinari rising above all the world’s best, and playing partner Tiger Woods, to be 2018’s “Champion Golfer of the Year”, but what does the Jersey Shore’s Greate Bay Country Club have to do with The Open Championship? Well, and as it just so happens, the nearly one-hundred year old Somers Point golf club was drawn up by two-time Open champion, golf ball and club designer, teacher, writer, architect and World Golf Hall of Famer, Willie Park Jr. 

Begun by golf course architectural giant, fellow Hall of Famer, and fellow Scot, and Pinehurst No.2 designer, Donald Ross in 1921, the 1887 and 1889 Open champion, Park Jr., son of the first ever British Open champion Willie Park Sr., winner of two British Opens(1860 and 1863), and nephew of 1874 Open champion Mungo Park, from Musselburgh, Scotland, took over Greate Bay’s design, then known as the Ocean City Golf Club, in 1922 until the club first opened in 1923. Park Jr., who died just two years later in 1925, drew up more than one hundred other US golf courses including major venues like Maidstone Golf Club on Long Island, New York and Olympia Fields near Chicago where West Chester, Pennsylvania native, and 2018 United States Ryder Cup Captain, Jim Furyk won his only major title, so far, the 2003 United States Open.  

The first of Willie’s many famous golf courses is Sunningdale Golf Club near London, but Park Jr. drew up more than 170 other golf courses in the British Isles, Europe, the United States and Canada. One of the most important Park Jr. landscapes is Weston Golf and Country Club in Toronto, Canada where the great Arnold Palmer won his very first professional tournament, the Canadian Open, in 1955.  

And like so many of Park Jr.’s more hallowed designs, Greate Bay C.C. has a rich professional tournament legacy of its very own. The host course for the LPGA’s ShopRite Classic, one of the LPGA Tour’s biggest, and most charitable, Pro-Ams, Greate Bay tested most of the top 100 lady players in the world every May or June from 1988 to 1997. Notable ShopRite LPGA Classic champions at Park’s Greate Bay C.C., once also named The Sands Country Club, include Hall of Famers Annika Sorenstam, Nancy Lopez, Julie Inkster, Betsy King, and champions Dottie Pepper and Michelle McGann.  

In addition to his prolific golf course designing and his remarkable, and revered, and celebrated playing career, Park Jr. also authored golf’s very first instructional book by a golfing professional, The Game of Golf. Published in 1896, Park Jr. a prominent putter and putting instructor, Park Jr. later scribed The Art of Putting in 1920. Park Jr. famously said that a man who can putt is a match for anyone, and Greate Bay C.C., naturally, is known, and highly regarded, both near and far for its first class, challenging, but  fun-to-putt, greens which Willie, himself, originally conceived almost a century ago. 

Park Jr. was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2013 along with Fred Couples and Ken Venturi and fellow Scotsman Colin Montgomerie and former European PGA Tour Commissioner Ken Scholfield. 

“Greate Bay and The Open Championship sharing Willie Park Jr. is truly amazing,” said GBCC head P.G.A. Professional John Petronis. “  It’s not only a private country club with a beautiful club house and fabulous golf course rich with South Jersey history, there are a lot of cool stories that includes a lot of famous people starting with Willie Park, Jr., our course designer, and two-time Champion Golfer of the Year, and son of the very first Open winner, who is one of the most influential of all the Scotsmen who brought the game to America.”  

By Mike Kern

It sure took Jan Stephenson way too long to make it into the World Golf Hall of Fame. But at least the powers that be who are in charge of that kind of stuff finally got it right.

Stephenson will be inducted in the Class of 2019, along with former Masters Chairman Billy Payne, two-time U.S. Open champion Retief Goosen, renowned paralyzed trick-shot artist Dennis Walters and longtime Top 100 instructor Peggy Kirk Bell. The ceremony will take place on the Monday before next June’s U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

One of the questions some of my colleagues and I would constantly ponder is what exactly had kept Stephenson – who is now in her mid 60s – on the outside until now. It’s a question that didn’t really have an answer that made much if any sense. But that’s the way the world works sometimes. It doesn’t matter any more, so we’ll probably never really know what role politics or pettiness or any number of obstacles played in prolonging the process. But as someone who’s had the chance to get to know Jan fairly well in the last five years or so I know it had to bother her at least to some degree. Just because. She probably knew it was bound to happen one day, since she was simply just too deserving. Still, the wait can become, well, a burden of sorts.

It’s called a Hall of Fame for a reason. The key word is fame. Obviously you have to accomplish enough to be considered worthy. And she certainly did. Jan won 16 times on the LPGA Tour, including three majors (in a three-year span). The Australian native, who now calls Florida home, was the Rookie of the Year in 1974.  She accumulated 41 victories worldwide, including eight majors and 10 on the Legends Tour. Which is appropriate, since she was one of the founders of the Women’s Senior Tour. But her impact goes far beyond what she did on a golf course.

It gets lost in time, but back in the day she did as much to promote the women’s game as anyone. And she’s continued to be one of the game’s greatest ambassadors, even after she was no longer Jan Stephenson. She was good looking, and she wasn’t shy about showing it. And most people loved it. She posed naked in a bathtub full of golf balls, which was like Burt Reynolds taking his clothes off for the centerfold of Cosmopolitan. It got folks’ attention, in again mostly a positive way. There’s always going to be detractors. Jan also recreated the ageless photo of Marilyn Monroe having her dress fly up while standing over a subway grate for the movie “The Seven Year Itch.” Who else would dare even attempt that? And yet Stephenson pulled it off. And maybe it gave a different audience a reason to tune in and watch what was going on besides rookie Nancy Lopez taking the golf world by storm as a rookie in the late 1970s.

Jan has never shied away from her sexuality. And why should she? I admit I’m a bit biased. If you spend 30 minutes in her company listening to her many stories, you’d understand. She meant a lot to the sport. That shouldn’t be forgotten. But distance can do that. It’s been awhile. Nowadays, a lot has changed. Sexuality is viewed differently, on and off the course. Now, thanks to this honor, a whole new generation will be rightfully exposed to her exploits. And that can’t be anything but overdue. Not to mention just.

Stephenson has said she wants to do a book, to properly tell her story. And yes, she even has Donald Trump stories to share. Imagine that. She has even said she might want me to do it with her, which obviously would be my pleasure. I’ve heard enough from being around her to know it would be nothing short of entertaining and enlightening. She has a lot to say. And those stories never get old. I think there’s a large portion of the public out there who don’t remember who she was and what she stood for. That’s a shame. Because she has so much to offer.

These days her life remains full. Not only does she still look wonderful, and still plays some serious golf, but she now is really into her wine business and her Crossroads Foundation, which gives to those who have given so much in the military. Operating out of the Tarpon Woods Golf Club in Palm Harbor, a once big-time facility that she and business associate Mike Vandiver have totally overhauled, it serves as a partner organization for the Order of the Purple Heart Service Foundation. So she’s doing work that makes a difference. And her wines are downright spectacular. I urge you to give them a try (I’m an especially big fan of the Chardonnay, but she’s particularly proud of the mixed reds), and if possible make a donation to her cause. It’s about giving back. Because she realizes where her journey has taken her, and just how special it truly was.

Indeed, it’s a ride worth celebrating. And now we will all get that chance. About time. But at the end of the day, it was worth the wait. The best things always are. Just makes you appreciate it that much more.

Jan did it her way, the only way she knew how. And it served her well, even if some didn’t always get  that. Their loss.

Jan recently was at Forsgate Country Club, just off Exit 8A of the Jersey Turnpike, for an event to help raise money for charity. Unfortunately the golf part of the itinerary got rained out. It happens. Nobody beats Mother Nature. Yet Jan was there early, just to meet the people who had come to support her. She told stories, most of them funny and all of them informative, and answered questions. Nothing was off limits. She had the audience in the palm of her hand. Not surprisingly. I’d seen her do it many times before. She exudes charm. Then we sat down to a five-course dinner that paired up each offering with one of her wines. Nobody left without buying at least a few (and in cases many) bottles of her best stuff. I think she actually sold out. And nobody seemed to mind that they hadn’t got to play. They had met an all-timer, and that was a keeper experience. She gave them a unique insight into her very soul. Few can open up to strangers the way she does. So you can’t help but walk away rooting for her.

I feel so good for her, that she’s made it to a place she belongs. I’m sure her speech will be among the highlights of the ceremonies. I don’t know if anyone will appreciate it more. Well done.

What a career. What a life. And now it will be out there for everyone to see, and appreciate. That’s forever.