A good friend brought me a January 1968 Sports Illustrated magazine with an article about the Crosby Golf Tournament. He noticed two pages of Snoopy cartoons. Lo and behold, the issue included a layout of TEN Peanuts cartoons and an introduction by the sports staff about the shock of it being the first tournament of the following year’s pro golf tour.

Boy, did that take me back. I realized it had been twenty-five years since I had been to the tournament, and many years since I thought much about it, except to eagerly read the sports page in January reporting about it.

I’ve included the article below. Read it for yourself.

If you have never played golf on the Monterey Peninsula in January, believe me, the author got it right. The Monterey Peninsula can be beautiful, but it can also be rainy, cold, and windy in January, and that is why the author below questioned the choice of that location for the opening professional golf tournament in 1969.

 

I don’t know how the 1969 tournament played out; I wasn’t there. You’ll have to go back yourselves to find out whether it was a popular choice or not.

 

This particular cartoon immediately caught my eye—the ophthalmologist from San Jose I knew to be Doctor Daniel Vaughan, friend of Sparky’s Santa Rosa ophthalmologist, Doctor Ward Wick. Sparky and Ward traveled to San Jose for several years in the sixties to play in Doctor Vaughan’s Mission Invitational Tournament, a benefit for eye research, at the San Jose Country Club.

Daniel “Dan” Vaughan was the ophthalmologist for Mary Rose Crosby, Bing Crosby’s sister. Thus, Bing Crosby would play in the inaugural Mission Invitational in 1964. My assumption is that it was at Doctor Vaughan’s tournament that Sparky and Bing Crosby met, and Sparky was invited as a celebrity to play in the Crosby.

The Bing Crosby National Pro-Am was a special tournament in the golf world during the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. It featured a combination of celebrities from Hollywood and national sports figures. Large crowds filled the course to see professional golfers and their celebrity partners.

The gate proceeds supported many charities on the Monterey Peninsula, but people come from all over. The celebrities, the three spectacular courses, and the accompanying events were all reported in the program, the local newspapers, and, of course, sports pages nationwide. The Schulz Museum has a nice collection of these programs in its archives.

The amateurs and their professional partners played three rounds, one at each of the three courses: Pebble Beach, Spyglass Hill, and Cypress Point. A cut was then made of the top twenty teams, who went on to play the final round. (I have to admit the rules may have changed since I last attended twenty years ago, but this is based on my memories from the early days in the 1970s and 1980s.)

The Crosby was one of those events that demands a significant amount of time and energy. For Sparky, it meant that he had to be sure he was getting out to play some rounds even though the weather in November and December might not be particularly inviting. Sparky enjoyed shopping for new outfits for the golf days, specifically pants, a shirt, and three sweaters that would stand out in a crowd.

He was helped in his sartorial selections by Donna and Darlene, the two owners of the Lions Lair at Montgomery Village in Santa Rosa. They would put together some selections for him to choose from so Sparky could always feel good on the course.

And, of course, we had to figure out where we were going to stay and who might come with us. Over the years, it transformed from the home of friends in Carmel into a place along the golf course.

For most of the years I remember, his friend and caddy, Larry James, accompanied us. Sparky felt comfortable with Larry, with whom he played golf frequently. Larry could understand Sparky’s nerves about a particular shot without “over-thinking it.” Also, Carmelites Clayton Anderson and his wife, Linda, were regulars at our dinners and gatherings, along with many family members. Sparky’s friend and consummate magician, Doctor Bob Albo, and his wife, Marge, often joined and entertained us all with some of Sparky’s favorite magic tricks.

So, like many things we looked forward to, it became a combination of excitement, logistics, and just plain work.

Sparky loved the golf, because it was an important tournament. Yes, he was there as a celebrity, and Sparky was ever gracious, but he wanted to be a help to his professional partner and his team, not just an attraction to the paying spectators.

Sparky’s cartoon here is a take-off on the crowds who followed Arnold Palmer and were dubbed ‘Arnie’s army.’

 

At the same time that I saw the 1968 Sports Illustrated magazine, I noticed a 1975 program from the Crosby itself in Sparky’s studio.  (It is now in the Schulz Museum archives with the others.)

1975 was probably my first Crosby, and as I read through the program now, many of the names seem like old friends because Sparky and his golfing buddies who came down to the walk-in gallery year after year knew, or knew of, most of the players and talked about them like old friends.

This 1975 program features two pages of cartoons featuring Snoopy. One in particular expressed Sparky’s excitement in October, when the invitations to celebrities invited to play the Crosby arrived in the mail. You never knew whether you were invited until you opened it. Snoopy barely contains himself!

 

In April of 1985, when the Crosby National Pro-Am became the AT&T National Pro-Am, the Los Angeles Times printed an interesting story. It is available online, so I won’t say anymore about it here, except that it mirrors my feelings.

It seemed the tournament gradually changed in the way things do when the original founders are gone. I am glad that Sparky was able to experience the special personality of the Crosby for so many years.

He loved being a part of it so much that in 1982, he scheduled his pending heart surgery for September so he would be well enough to play in January.

And Katherine Crosby even wrote him a note attached to his invitation, saying that anyone who would arrange his surgery schedule around the tournament would be a welcome guest that year.

When Sparky first played in the Crosby National Pro-Am, the very exclusive Cypress Point Country Club was in the rotation. What a privilege it was as a Crosby spectator to walk that spectacular course and to come across the dramatic 16th hole for the first time. It was ‘boot-shaking’ as you can see Sparky shows here:

The photo below of Sparky hitting across the gorge to the safe landing spot was taken by Larry James:

I love the dynamic pose Larry captured, and I am in awe of all the golfers who face that hole.

We have a very large poster of the shot above a bookcase in his studio.

Cypress Point Club was dropped from the rotation after the 1990 tournament.

I value having all these materials in our archives to continue telling the stories of Sparky and Peanuts for future generations.

—Jean Schulz